Deep Sky Colors Forum - Recent Topics

AdaptiveWorkflow 1.0.0 – two issues in Preprocessing-OSC (no bias, flat-dark exposure).

Sergiusz — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 19:48:38 +0000

Hi Rogelio,

Congratulations on AdaptiveWorkflow – I ran Preprocessing-OSC on its release day with a real data set and got a clean stack in about half an hour. While doing it I found two problems and have one suggestion.

Setup: AdaptiveWorkflow 1.0.0 (trial), PixInsight 1.9.5 build 1706, Windows. Data: Player One Ares-C Pro (OSC), N.I.N.A. 3.2, 119 lights x 180 s, 40 darks 180 s, 50 flats, 50 flat-darks (IMAGETYP = 'DARK', ~11.2 s), no bias frames.

1) No bias -> run fails at "Master bias"
With no bias frames the "Master bias" integration step is correctly skipped, but the next Images step reads from {workdir}/masters, which does not exist yet, so the run stops with: "Master bias: The folder H:/.../masters does not exist." Creating the empty folder by hand fixes it. Perhaps the step could treat a missing folder as an empty list, or the folder could be created at the start of the run.

2) Flat-darks never matched (exposure rounding)
"Exposure of the flats" reads EXPTIME = 11.21243 from the header, but the Flat-darks rule EXPTIME|EXPOSURE == {fexpo} is evaluated as == 11.2124 (the log shows it that way). The flat-darks have 11.21243, so 0 of 259 files pass and the flats go uncalibrated ("Flats without bias"). It looks like {variables} inside rules are formatted with 6 significant digits, as in messages. Substituting the full value, or comparing exposures with a small tolerance, would fix it. My workaround was EXPTIME|EXPOSURE < 60.

3) Suggestion: rejection algorithm by frame count
The Integrate step proposes WinsorizedSigmaClip by default, while its own prompt says ESD is better from 25 frames up. With 119 frames I switched to ESD by hand. A Branch on the number of frames could choose the default.

Minor: Check reports "writes/replaces existing files outside the work folder" for steps whose output is {workdir}/..., which looks like a false positive since {workdir} is not expanded at check time.

I can send the .awf file and the full log if useful.

Also, I couldn’t copy text from the log panel to the clipboard (Ctrl+C / paste into Notepad did nothing).

Best regards,
Sergiusz Gobiecki

AW_bug_screenshots.zip

How to use with separate star and starless images?

CMOSGarden — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 14:54:08 +0000

I am just getting started with this and according to the help there is supposed to be a way to use it with star only and starless images generated by other software but the help does not make sense as the options mentioned do not seem to exist. Any help would be appreciated as to how to use such images in the software!

Subframestudio - Auto-Rotate After Meridian Flip

EPK — Sat, 03 Oct 2026 15:10:42 +0000

Hi Rogelio,
I would like to suggest a small feature for SubframeStudio that could make visual inspection and blinking of subframes more convenient.

Would it be possible to add an option to automatically display all preview images in the same orientation, regardless of whether they were taken before or after a meridian flip?
This would make blinking through an entire imaging session much easier, since the target and star field would remain in a consistent orientation throughout the sequence.

Kind regards,
Emiel Kempen

AstroThumbs

drujo — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 20:29:50 +0000

I have installed AstroThumbs for Windows on two almost identical Windows 11 systems. My Notebook displays the thumbs and file views, but my desktop does not. Desktop knows keyword items in columns, but no thumbs and file views. I have refreshed my thumbnails several times without success. Everything seems to be installed correctly, but it does not work as expected. What can I do? Where can I check the registry for the proper entries?

DeepStarRemoval v1.0 Released

RBA — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 19:55:03 +0000

DeepStarRemoval 1.0 has been released.

DSR removes the stars from an image, using an AI model I trained for several weeks earlier this year. I developed it for DeepParallax and DeepParallax Studio because they needed it, then I used it with DeepStarMask, and as all these processes were removing the stars for their own purposes, I felt it made sense (and it'd be the easiest to do) to create a tool just for removing stars, like StarNet2 and StarX do.

DSR's model has been trained for just a few weeks, not months, or years. It would be naive to think DSR's model is up to par with the popular guys. But the "price" is right, and it does a fairly decent job. Plus the model will continue being trained and getting better overtime.

On top of that, DSR tries to offer a few of the things some people do after star removal that was not perfect, should they want to use them, such as color recovery, or spot healing - identical to what my SpotHealing tool does, but automatically. Also a one-click tool for recombining starless and stars-only images, and save us a trip to PixelMath or LayerBlender.

Give it a try!

https://www.deepskycolors.com/pixinsight/DeepStarRemoval/

Thanks!
RBA

PI ThemeStudio v1.0 Released

RBA — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 19:51:36 +0000

PI ThemeStudio is out, after lots of sleepless nights

For Windows, macOS and Linux.

Works on PixInsigth 1.9.3, 1.9.4 and 1.9.5

PI ThemeStudio (PITS) is a PixInsight module that changes how PixInsight looks, almost 100%: colors, icons, wallpapers, fonts, frames, skins, title bars, menus, ...

It ships with 80 themes, from quiet light ones to pitch black, to a dim red theme for a night at the telescope. The Theme Editor lets us edit an existing theme or build our own, with a live preview that updates after every adjustment.

If you'd rather describe a theme than build one, the documentation includes a brief you can hand to an AI assistant to teach them build PITS themes. After that, describe the look you want (say "Using this brief, write a PITS theme with warm sand panels darkening to slate, orange accents, high-contrast text, no wallpaper."), and follow the AI assistant's instructions to bring the theme they build back to PITS.

Is PITS safe? ABSOLUTELY. PITS is not some dirty PixInsight hack. PixInsight uses Qt for their graphical interface, which makes it orderly skinnable/themable immediately. The resources have always been there for any process to use them. It's just that nobody had put it all together into a manageable task - mostly because it's an insane task

More info at https://www.deepskycolors.com/pixinsight/PIThemeStudio/

Thanks!
RBA

PI ThemeStudio

Sergiusz — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 17:45:43 +0000

I registered PI ThemeStudio v1.0.0 successfully.

The documentation says that PI ThemeStudio ships with 80 complete themes in eight categories, but my installation contains only 23 themes.

I also used Tools → Reinstall Built-in Themes, and PI ThemeStudio reports: “23 built-in theme(s) written.”

I checked the themes folder in AppData\Roaming\Pleiades\PIThemeStudio\themes and there are indeed exactly 23 theme folders.

Is there an additional theme pack that I need to install, or should all 80 themes be included automatically with v1.0.0?

Best regards,
Sergiusz

SubframeStudio 1.0.6 released (Windows/Linux/macOS)

RBA — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 22:35:57 +0000

A new update for SubframeStudio (1.0.6) was released today.

Please, make sure https://repo.deepskycolors.com/SubframeStudio/ is in your repository list (menu RESOURCES>Updates>Manage repositories), then do menu RESOURCES>Updates>Check for updates to download and install this update.

What's new in 1.0.6:

New detachable preview: the frame preview can be moved into its own freely resizable floating window, with the same zoom, pan, stepping and grading interactions as the docked preview. This may be particularly useful on two-monitor setups.
New P keyboard shortcut toggles playback/pause - it works in both the main window (cockpit) and the detached preview window.
Slight more flexible cockpit window resizing.
SubframeStudio now stores its measurement cache and saved expressions in the standard per-user location for your platform, carrying over any existing data on first run. Location can be found in the Preferences.

Enjoy!
RBA

Will there be some tutorials come vor DeepParallax Studio?

SkyAboveEggMountain — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 10:50:52 +0000

Dear developer of this program,

I have installed your program after I had played already with it in the trial version and this is exactly the program I was looking for.

I know you can do similar stuff in Adobe AE or with Blender, but this is a dedicated program.

There is good documentation, however what I'm missing is some tutorial.

A tutorial on how to go from a picture to a 3D fly-trough for instance.

It would be great if this would come available soon, best even with some sample data.

Are there plans for this?

Regards,

Rudy

SubframeStudio feature request

NevadaDesertSkies — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 18:22:28 +0000

Would it be possible to make the Preview image in SubframeStudio a pop-out so that it can be resized independantly and float on top of the main screen?