Noel Carboni%60s Astronomy Tools

Processing astronomy pictures has always stressed computer systems. (Newer DSLR cameras, like my Nikon D610 with 24.3 megapixel images or my D810 with 36 MP (and now D850 with 45.7 megapixels), also create large files that are difficult for even fast computers to handle in bulk.) New image processing techniques, such as drizzle and deconvolution algorithms, are extremely computer-intensive. (More on the equipment used to capture the images is here.)

1. Noel Carboni Astronomy Tools
2. Noel Carboni`s Astronomy Tools For Sale

Software for Image Processing

It turns out I've acquired and use quite a number of astronomy and image processing titles. The following work OK with Windows 7, 64bit:

Patrick, out of all the tools I use, I find Noel's actions to be the most important. But thats the nub - most of Noels tools I know how to do by hand - what you get is a set of pre-canned. Posted 19 December 2007 - 02:36 AM. Astronomy Tools - USD $21.95 Super Value! Carboni's actions, a popular, easy to use set of tools for Adobe. They work great with Adobe Photoshop® versions 6.0, CS to CS6, or CC on PCs and Macintoshes alike, and come with a money-back guarantee. If you want to polish up your astrophotographs to be absolutely stellar, these actions are for you! Check out Noel's Astronomy Tools here: www.starizona.com. Oct 25, 2010 Noel Carboni's tools in Astronomy & Celestial Talk. Have fun, I still have to apply mine on images. My soap box rant on spam email.someone hacked my yahoo account and were sending emails out a few months back.I hate (ok, dis-like, hate is a strong word) people with nothing better to do than ruin the quality of life for others.actually feel sorta sorry for them that their life. Noel Carboni's Astronomy Tools is a great set to start with. It includes a couple of noise reduction actions that would eliminate the need for something else. His AstroFlat Pro works well for removing gradients if you have that issue. I've used it and GradientXterminator.

• PixInsight

• MaximDL 5 - Controls the SBIG ST-8300M camera and filter wheel, also does batch image process which I use for image reduction (i.e., flats, darks, etc.)

• Nebulosity - Control the QHY8 CCD camera, capture .fit files..

• Photoshop - Check image quality while imaging, and final processing; it is the last tool I use to process images for publication (CS2 and CS5)

• Registar - Combine images, my primary 'stacking' tool

• ImagesPlus - Process DSLR images

• Neat Image - Noise reduction

• Noel Carboni's Astronomy Tools - Photoshop actions to do things like select stars and tighten them up

• GradientXterminator - Photoshop plugin to remove unwanted gradients

• Deep Sky Stacker - Drizzle combinations and some stacking

• The Sky (I have 5, 6, and X)

Not in use:

• GoldFocus - Software that works in conjunction with a bahtinov mask to analyze and announce focus corrections - did not work well for me

• CCDSoft - This came with my SBIG ST-8300 camera. Prerelease v206 controls the new filter wheel. This software performs many of the functions of the separate programs below. I find it also has many annoying behaviors, especially when focusing with the focus windows being tiny and partially hidden.

• AIP4WIN - deconvolution - seems to have stopped working after an upgrade somewhere but I haven't pursued it

Hardware for Image Processing

New Desktop July 2019 System:

• Processor: Intel Core i9-9900K Desktop Processor 8 Cores up to 5.0 GHz Turbo unlocked LGA1151 300 Series 95W

• CPU Cooler: (Going with an air-cooled solution for now) Noctua NH-D15, Premium CPU Cooler with 2x NF-A15 PWM 140mm Fans

• 64GB Memory: CORSAIR DOMINATOR PLATINUM 64GB (4x16GB) DDR4 3200MHz C16 Desktop Memory - CMD64GX4M4C3200C16

• The spectacular spider man the child within 1 6. Motherboard: ASRock Z390 Taichi Ultimate (link) - This is one of the few Mobos that supports 8 SATA channels, which I really needed due to the large # of disk drives I run to hold all my pics

• Graphics Card (2070): EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 XC Ultra Gaming, 8GB GDDR6, Dual HDB Fans & RGB LED Graphics Card 08G-P4-2173-KR

• Case: Phanteks Enthoo Series Primo Aluminum ATX Ultimate Full Tower Computer Case PH-ES813P_BL (link)

• OS/Boot Drive: Samsung 970 EVO Plus Series - 1TB PCIe NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD (MZ-V7S1T0B/AM)

• Working Photographs Drive: Samsung 970 EVO Plus Series - 2TB PCIe NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD (MZ-V7S2T0B/AM)

• Optical Drive: LG Electronics 14x SATA Blu-ray Internal Rewriter without Software, Black (WH14NS40)

• Power Supply: EVGA Supernova 850 G3, 80 Plus Gold 850W, Fully Modular, Eco Mode with New HDB Fan, 10 Year Warranty, Includes Power ON Self Tester, Compact 150mm Size, Power Supply 220-G3-0850-X1

2019 Laptop:

• Dell XPS 15 7590

• 9th Generation Intel(R) Core(T M) i9-9980HK (16MB Cache, up t o 5.0 GHz, 8 cores)

• NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) GTX 1650 4GB GDDR5

• 15.6' 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) InfinityEdge Anti-Reflective Touch IPS 100% AdobeRGB 500-Nits d isplay

• 32GB DDR4-2666MHz, 2x16G

• 2TB PCIe Solid State Drive6-Cell 97WHr Integrated

• 130W Power Adapter

Old Laptop: I acquired a new laptop for field processing 4/2014: ASUS ROG G750JZ-DS71 17.3-inch Gaming Laptop, GeForce GTX 880M Graphics

• Intel Core i7-4700HQ 2.4Ghz (Turbo 3.4 GHz)

• 24 GB DDR3 (twice my desktop's memory!)

• Ptx file viewer for mac. 1TB 7200 rpm HD, 128GB x 2 (256 GB Total) Solid-State Drive

• 17.3-Inch matte screen, 1920x1080 pixels ('full HD'), contrast 950:1, color gamut 95% of sRGB and 74% of Adobe RGB

• Blu-ray BD-ROM

• Windows 8.1 - Quite a learning curve here. The only thing I've found a problem with after a couple days is 'Scrabble Online' which won't install.. Now on Windows 10 so I can use the whole 32GB memory.

This laptop replaces my old Dell Dell Inspiron N7010, which was not able to process my all-night DSLR time-lapse images effectively.. Working with those files in Bridge or Nikon ViewNX 2 was an exercise in frustration.

Desktop: My old desktop system vintage mid 2011: At that time I was toying with the idea of upgrading my computer system, then Fry's sealed the deal by putting the motherboard and processor I wanted on sale! I'm using the fastest Intel Sandy Bridge processor chip. These new chips bring top of the line processing power to a cool running and affordable CPU, reducing the cost for Intel's top performance by many hundreds of dollars, and reducing the power use (and heat generated) by your computer. It also has a very decent display processor as part of the chip, which performs much better than the dedicated graphics card in my previous (which was a 4 year old) system. This means a cooler, quieter case because I (didn't use to) need a graphics card.. But that changed when I went to a Dell U3011 30' monitor with 2560x1600 pixels, and I acquired an AMD Radeon HD 5700 Series display adapter. That card caused all sorts of wierd problems resolved by the GTX960 upgrade. Here are the specs for the major components of the new system:

• ASUS P8Z68V Pro Motherboard, Intel® Socket 1155 for 2^nd Generation Core™ i7/Core™ i5/Core™ i3 Processors

• Corsair 115GB SSD (Solid State Drive) - Force CSSD-F115GB2-BRKT-A 2.5' 115GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (Since upgraded to a Samsung 500 GB SSD)

• Intel® Core™ i7-2600K Processor (8M Cache, 3.40 GHz), LGA 1155 (I am overclocking this to 4.43 GHz for about a 30% speed increase.)

• Corsair XMS3 3x4GB DDR3 2000MHZ memory (looking for a 4th module) Since replaced and upgraded to 32GB, and with Photoshop and Registar I actually use more than 24GB!

• 2 x Hitachi 3TB Coolspin 32MB Cache SATA3 (5400 rpm model) (Since upgraded to two 10TB and two 8TB drivers plus an 2 SSDs)

• CPU cooled with a Noctua NH-C14

• Seasonic X Series 850W power supply (replaced Corsair 600W GS 600 PSU)

• ASUS GEFORCE GTX960 video card - the fans don't spin during normal operation!

• LG 12x Blu-Ray writer

• And went to an ASUS RT-N56U Dual Band router which (2014 note) has been a complete PITA and has been replaced as noted next:

• Sadly my computer room isn't hard-wired with Ethernet so I'm using a D-Link AC 1200 as a Range Extender (HW Ver. A2 F/W 1.02) & it works well. My main router is now a TP-Link Wireless Router Archer C9. I'm connected with a Asus PCE-N15 11n Wireless LAN PCI-E Card.

Here are some overclocking references on the setup as I sort everything out. It looks like people are hitting 5.0 GHz with some frequency and 4.5 GHz range just about always with a setup like mine. As noted above, as of 7/15/11 I'm running at 4.43 Ghz: As of 9/14, this processor is still near the top of it's class in speed as compared with other intel processors.

Noel Carboni Astronomy Tools

HardOCP, hardforum, Toms, HardwareCanucks, Overclock.net,

Scroll down for for pictures of the desktop. The massive Noctua CPU cooler assembly was the last major component to go in, and after that it was time to hide the wires.

Dick's Summer 2011 Computer Project

The front fan doors are open in this shot. There are 7 large (120mm) fans that come with the DF85 frame (2 on top you can't see). Plus the CPU has two monster (140mm) fans. The big fans move a lot of air. I run the case fans on low, and the CPU fans on the medium setting, making for a surprisingly quiet package providing enough cooling for 4.4 GHZ overclocking stress tests. As for the case style, it does look like something an 18 year old might choose, and I'm not sure an interior decorator would put this color combination together. The case was the best Fry's had in the store the day I was putting the system together, so fate pretty much determined it. I'm more of a function over form guy, but I may decide to get an LED side case fan to maybe balance everything out ;-)

Cooling Transplant Coming Up! Note the relative size of the currently installed Intel 'stock' cooler. The Intel guy did not like first stress test I threw it (board temp exceeded 85 deg C), so I knew I had to step up the cooling. The new cooler keeps the temps under 70 under the worst conditions, at least so far.

Hitachi 5400 RPM drives (bottom, 2x 3GB) provide the pure space part of the storage system, while a 115GB SSD drive (out of sight at the bottom of the case) holds Windows 7 and the applications for a super-responsive system. The case provides plug-in disk drive ports for simple disk swaps. There are 4xSATA 3 (6GBit/s) 4xSATA 2 (3Gbit/s) ports, plus an E-SATA port providing support for up to 9 SATA storage devices.

The right side panel will cover the wires. Believe it or not, I tried to be very careful where I placed the wires on the computer, since the case I ended up with has a clear side door. The case provides a number of convenient routing paths that make this a bit easier. The disk drive wires were tough (yellow and red) to run to the bottom as a pass through area didn't quite line up with the board connectors.

Noel Carboni`s Astronomy Tools For Sale

Laptop Upgrade Discussion from 2011:

• Dell XPS 15 7590

• 9th Generation Intel(R) Core(T M) i9-9980HK (16MB Cache, up t o 5.0 GHz, 8 cores)

• NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) GTX 1650 4GB GDDR5

• 15.6' 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) InfinityEdge Anti-Reflective Touch IPS 100% AdobeRGB 500-Nits d isplay

• 32GB DDR4-2666MHz, 2x16G

• 2TB PCIe Solid State Drive6-Cell 97WHr Integrated

• 130W Power Adapter

Old Laptop: I acquired a new laptop for field processing 4/2014: ASUS ROG G750JZ-DS71 17.3-inch Gaming Laptop, GeForce GTX 880M Graphics

• Intel Core i7-4700HQ 2.4Ghz (Turbo 3.4 GHz)

• 24 GB DDR3 (twice my desktop's memory!)

• Ptx file viewer for mac. 1TB 7200 rpm HD, 128GB x 2 (256 GB Total) Solid-State Drive

• 17.3-Inch matte screen, 1920x1080 pixels ('full HD'), contrast 950:1, color gamut 95% of sRGB and 74% of Adobe RGB

• Blu-ray BD-ROM

• Windows 8.1 - Quite a learning curve here. The only thing I've found a problem with after a couple days is 'Scrabble Online' which won't install.. Now on Windows 10 so I can use the whole 32GB memory.

This laptop replaces my old Dell Dell Inspiron N7010, which was not able to process my all-night DSLR time-lapse images effectively.. Working with those files in Bridge or Nikon ViewNX 2 was an exercise in frustration.

Desktop: My old desktop system vintage mid 2011: At that time I was toying with the idea of upgrading my computer system, then Fry's sealed the deal by putting the motherboard and processor I wanted on sale! I'm using the fastest Intel Sandy Bridge processor chip. These new chips bring top of the line processing power to a cool running and affordable CPU, reducing the cost for Intel's top performance by many hundreds of dollars, and reducing the power use (and heat generated) by your computer. It also has a very decent display processor as part of the chip, which performs much better than the dedicated graphics card in my previous (which was a 4 year old) system. This means a cooler, quieter case because I (didn't use to) need a graphics card.. But that changed when I went to a Dell U3011 30' monitor with 2560x1600 pixels, and I acquired an AMD Radeon HD 5700 Series display adapter. That card caused all sorts of wierd problems resolved by the GTX960 upgrade. Here are the specs for the major components of the new system:

• ASUS P8Z68V Pro Motherboard, Intel® Socket 1155 for 2^nd Generation Core™ i7/Core™ i5/Core™ i3 Processors

• Corsair 115GB SSD (Solid State Drive) - Force CSSD-F115GB2-BRKT-A 2.5' 115GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (Since upgraded to a Samsung 500 GB SSD)

• Intel® Core™ i7-2600K Processor (8M Cache, 3.40 GHz), LGA 1155 (I am overclocking this to 4.43 GHz for about a 30% speed increase.)

• Corsair XMS3 3x4GB DDR3 2000MHZ memory (looking for a 4th module) Since replaced and upgraded to 32GB, and with Photoshop and Registar I actually use more than 24GB!

• 2 x Hitachi 3TB Coolspin 32MB Cache SATA3 (5400 rpm model) (Since upgraded to two 10TB and two 8TB drivers plus an 2 SSDs)

• CPU cooled with a Noctua NH-C14

• Seasonic X Series 850W power supply (replaced Corsair 600W GS 600 PSU)

• ASUS GEFORCE GTX960 video card - the fans don't spin during normal operation!

• LG 12x Blu-Ray writer

• And went to an ASUS RT-N56U Dual Band router which (2014 note) has been a complete PITA and has been replaced as noted next:

• Sadly my computer room isn't hard-wired with Ethernet so I'm using a D-Link AC 1200 as a Range Extender (HW Ver. A2 F/W 1.02) & it works well. My main router is now a TP-Link Wireless Router Archer C9. I'm connected with a Asus PCE-N15 11n Wireless LAN PCI-E Card.

Here are some overclocking references on the setup as I sort everything out. It looks like people are hitting 5.0 GHz with some frequency and 4.5 GHz range just about always with a setup like mine. As noted above, as of 7/15/11 I'm running at 4.43 Ghz: As of 9/14, this processor is still near the top of it's class in speed as compared with other intel processors.

Noel Carboni Astronomy Tools

HardOCP, hardforum, Toms, HardwareCanucks, Overclock.net,

Scroll down for for pictures of the desktop. The massive Noctua CPU cooler assembly was the last major component to go in, and after that it was time to hide the wires.

Dick's Summer 2011 Computer Project

The front fan doors are open in this shot. There are 7 large (120mm) fans that come with the DF85 frame (2 on top you can't see). Plus the CPU has two monster (140mm) fans. The big fans move a lot of air. I run the case fans on low, and the CPU fans on the medium setting, making for a surprisingly quiet package providing enough cooling for 4.4 GHZ overclocking stress tests. As for the case style, it does look like something an 18 year old might choose, and I'm not sure an interior decorator would put this color combination together. The case was the best Fry's had in the store the day I was putting the system together, so fate pretty much determined it. I'm more of a function over form guy, but I may decide to get an LED side case fan to maybe balance everything out ;-)

Cooling Transplant Coming Up! Note the relative size of the currently installed Intel 'stock' cooler. The Intel guy did not like first stress test I threw it (board temp exceeded 85 deg C), so I knew I had to step up the cooling. The new cooler keeps the temps under 70 under the worst conditions, at least so far.

Hitachi 5400 RPM drives (bottom, 2x 3GB) provide the pure space part of the storage system, while a 115GB SSD drive (out of sight at the bottom of the case) holds Windows 7 and the applications for a super-responsive system. The case provides plug-in disk drive ports for simple disk swaps. There are 4xSATA 3 (6GBit/s) 4xSATA 2 (3Gbit/s) ports, plus an E-SATA port providing support for up to 9 SATA storage devices.

The right side panel will cover the wires. Believe it or not, I tried to be very careful where I placed the wires on the computer, since the case I ended up with has a clear side door. The case provides a number of convenient routing paths that make this a bit easier. The disk drive wires were tough (yellow and red) to run to the bottom as a pass through area didn't quite line up with the board connectors.

Noel Carboni`s Astronomy Tools For Sale

Laptop Upgrade Discussion from 2011:

Multiple Core Computers are critical for image processing! I found my 2004 model single-core laptop just wasn't cutting it when processing images in the field, and I've been watching laptop prices and features carefully since the new Intel 'Core I-' processors came out. Best Buy had a good deal and 11/2010 I acquired a Dell Inspiron N7010 laptop with these features: 17.3' LED screen, Blu-ray optical drive, 640GB hard drive, 6GB memory, Windows 7 64-bit OS, and a Intel Core I5-460M processor. (There has been a worldwide shortage of blu-ray drives for notebook computers, and laptops with blu-ray are hard to find and command a premium price.) Complete specs for the true geeks are further below.

Compatibility: I recently cautioned people regarding 64-bit Windows for astronomy applications due to possible compatibility issues. The advantage of 64-bit operating systems and software is that they can address (use) more than 4GB of memory, which is helpful in processing large amounts of image data. My QHY8 CCD Camera now has 64-bit compatible drivers, which opened up the 64-bit door for me.

Astronomy software compatibility problems with Windows 7:

• As of early 2011 just about everything is working with Windows 7. However, William-Bell's Megastar will not install. I have not received a response to my emailed request for information about work-arounds or future support for 64 bit windows. However, you can manually copy files to your computer and get Megastar to run.

• Happily haven't had any other problems!

New Quad Core, widescreen laptop (left), old workhorse dell on right

The Sky X on the newer Dell, The Sky 6 on the right

Copyright © by Dick Locke. All Rights Reserved.
Contact and Image Use Information

Late 2016 I acquired a Synology DiskStation DS916+ 4-Bay NAS Enclosure and 4 WD 8TB Red 5400 rpm SATA III 3.5' Internal NAS HDD drives.

Reference speeds:

Megabyte (MB) or Megabyte per second (MBps, MB/s) — a unit used for file sizes and often in the end user software, including NetWorx, and
Megabit (Mb) or Megabit per second (Mbps, Mb/s) — a unit used for download speeds advertised by ISPs and reported by on-line tools.

10 MB/s (Bytes)= 80 Mb/s (bits)