Struggles with Stars in Startools

[robonrome]

thanks again Mike, lots to digest here, some I'm aware of, much not. At the very least I'm looping at WIPE and AUtoDev as things I need to approach with a bit more intelligence than I have thus far... in the main using my 3nm NB filters, good flats and cropping before WIPE there's not much to be done in WIPE, but it's often hard to tell whats content (nebulosity) and what's LP or something else. Fortunately I get that WIPE isn't for noise and understand it's an overtsretched view to reveal flaws. ON ROI I feel I have a feel for it, but it's very much a gut feel trying to find a balance between nebulosity detail retained and noise and I have no idea if my gut feel leads to best results.

I did do some playing with AUTOdev yesterday and then trying stuff like deringing in the shrink module with 1 iteration... it helped a little but it looks like the star appearance in the main I am trying to avoid appears even from the initial stretch which makes me think it might be inherent to ST approach and my preferred star appearance may be impossible?

Anyway will keep trying. I also subscribe to Itelescope and have access to datasets from there as well but haven't really used them much as yet.

cheers, rob

Hi Rob,

Yeah that's the thing about ST. The fairly friendly interface, available step-by-step workflow (as Ivo would say, reveal from large to fine scales in that order), and that beginners can often get a decent result just by walking through the defaults, tend to get it tagged as a simplistic processing software. But there's a ton of power under the hood, and along with that comes a decent learning curve. Which I am still very much on, by the way.

It does take time and practice, which you will build up by going through many different datasets. To help with that, in addition to your own, you might also try out user uploads and available top-notch data, all to get a feel for how things react and look.

On the blob stars, I am hesitant to recommend it, but you can always try FilmDev as your stretch after Wipe. This will not be an optimal stretch for dynamic range, however, like you can achieve with AutoDev. In fact, if you think about it, if your stars are blobs, your structural detail may very well end up that way also, and as to both stars and target, you are missing out on one of ST's advantages. A resolved star should be a point source, surrounded by diffraction. Or so I think I am coming to understand. Ivo would have more knowledgeable advice on this subject.

Wipe is just to set the field evenly and look for, plus fix if possible, flaws. So, as you say, vignetting (hopefully taken care of by flats). Gradients. Look for LP gradients and edges, and raise aggressiveness to try to even those out. For NB, you can start with the NB preset and go from there. Raise DAF if needed for cold pixels, or color blotches. It gets a lot more complex. Perusing the online module descriptions, user notes here on the forums, and pdf unofficial manual, can all be of help.

Wipe also handles color casts, and sets up your data to go into the color module later. As Jochen noted, dynamic range freed up can then be used in your stretch. As such, it is not optional and must be part of the workflow, though if you have no gradients or other such issues that you believe need addressing, you can pretty much zero out all the settings.

Don't use Wipe to attack noise. What you are looking for is an even field (though because Wipe hyperstretches the data, it will often "look" quite noisy - not to worry).

The AutoDev, with or without ROI (and other settings) takes practice to get a feel for. But you can always go back and amend your AutoDev stretch at any time while still in tracking. As with any AP processing, too much global stretch can raise noise that you may have difficulty stomping out later, even though there are a lot of opportunities to do so (Contrast module shadow linearity, and several of the SuperStructure presets to name a couple) in conjunction with ST's own noise tracking, which get implemented at the very end.

Well that's probably enough to chew on for now, eh, and no need to get into SVD? A lot of the rest you've probably got a bit more of a handle on anyway based on your use history (those as I am learning, all the modules are more complex than one ever thinks in the beginning). And it's not uncommon for Wipe and AutoDev to remain somewhat perplexing even with a moderate bit of ST time under the belt. For sure was that way with me, before I started getting more comfortable with them.

[robonrome]

thanks Jochen, I'll need to delve deeper into the WIPE settings as I use the presets now as unsure, and occasionally play with settinsg just to see if I think they are having a positive or negative effect to gradients... i check the tool tips but a lot of the words etc dont really "mean" much to me so I continue flailing as see. I was using the full functionality of SV a while back (will check Guy's note again) but gave up as it seemed a bit prone to freezing (That was Beta) so will retry... when you say "snappy stars" what do you mean... whatver stars are supposed to look like I have a strong prefernce they look like relatively soft blobs without a central core...if i see cores in stars my eyes roll back in my head and I collapse

DO you have a link to that inofficial manual...I had it at some point and misplaced.

many thanks again Jochen,

rob

Hi robonrome, I think not using IFD in the first stretch would make no difference. The important thing is to REDO the stretch when selecting second time and use IFD then. In first strectch all You need is to see where the noise is -you need to do nothing here.
in Wipe, use the Correlation filtering to increase SNR, mask out dark anomalies and use enough aggressiveness - try presets if unsure. And Mike is right, don't use Wipe to attack noise - Wipe is to attack gradients, amp-glow, LP etc with low to moderate undulation. In fact if done correctly, Wipe (plus the temp Autodev will reveal the noise floor (usually the shot noise). If you think about it, this makes sense because now you have revealed all detail captured from the noise floor up to white in one global stretch you can now refine locally using Contrast, HDR, Sharp & SVDecon. The shot noise may be tackeled by Denoise, Super Structure, Flux later on (I use most module just a tad to avoid visibility of the denoising "trick")
For SVDecon, check Guy's User Notes: I use to choose 3 stars in each corner and the image center and a few more halfways and along the image borders. Once selected, I switch resampling mode to centroid tracking. This usually creates snappy stars. To accelerate the learning curve a bit, You may have a look in the Tutorial section of the inofficial manual. It contains step-by-step instructions covering modules for the beginner's workflow followed by advanced workflow up to special techniques (for Mike et. al. ). I recommend using the (flawless) IKI datasets from homepage to train these techniques without the hazzle of capturing or stacking imperfection
good luck,
jochen

[robonrome]

thanks again Mike and Jochen, this is great and am glad you went a little off-topic as noise managmnegt is high on my priority list too... i tend to think first and foremost on noise in capture wanting lotsof iteration and using dithering etc...after than I think first do I need and how much binning do I apply for the quality of data I have... am i thinking this right, do you see binning as a fundamental noise step before the others mentioned?

Thanks, Jochen

Yes, I am the king of going off-topic. I can't help myself. My apologies to Rob.

Thank you for your list, it is a nice round-up. I already know of and frequently do (depending on what's in front of me) all 8 of those, except for Flux. I will look for the Flux method in the techniques sections in case that ever needs added to my arsenal.



PS - hopefully your list is also helpful to Rob, as it can be integral to really helping out an image, especially if one were still struggling a little with Wipe and A/D. I will add that in Contrast, in addition to lowering the shadow dynamic range, simultaneously lowering the locality control can help "return" faint nebulous regions of main target - in essence backing off application of heavy contrast therein. YMMV and depends on the dataset.

[admin]

Hi Rob,

At some stage in an astrophotographer's development, it can be beneficial to take a step back and dig a little deeper into the theory and mechanics behind common tools, as well as the relevant physics. Having the confidence to let go of preconceptions (right or wrong), and having the confidence to trust the data you captured is an incredibly important step.

My advice to you is to examine each step and each preference with a critical mind, and to try to articulate a rationale for each processing decision you make, rooted in physics and mathematics. The documentation for each module should help greatly with pointers.

Let me explain; the downside of using StarTools, is that it can let you get by without understanding the fundamentals of image processing - the engine itself needs to make sense of the signal flow to even function. As such it is not an absolute requirement for the user to have an understanding of the signal flow in order to avoid catastrophe. Fundamentally understanding what is going on, however, will greatly help with your evolution as an astrophotographer. More importantly, it will give you a much better idea of the innovations in signal processing that ST brings to the table over more basic software like PI, APP, etc.

For example, it may help trying a more basic application like PixInsight for a while, to get a better feel for how fundamental "naked" algorithms in astronomy behave without signal evolution tracking steering your signal flow in the right direction. Having to work with the tools of old, will make it much clearer why those tools exist(ed) in the first place, what their strong and weak points are, and - having a comparison in ST - how things have improved. With regards to the latter, most of the ST module documentation, has a short section on how particular module in ST improves on such, more basic algorithms. Without understanding those basic algorithm and underlying principles (often rooted in physics), the contents of these sections - or indeed the purpose of the entire module - may indeed remain nebulous.

Now, as alluded to, StarTools is first and foremost about signal recover through signal processing excellence; making the most of your data as recorded. Keeping and/or rendering your stars as fuzzy blobs is pretty much the antithesis of StarTools approach to signal processing; almost everything that makes StarTools unique (and 90% of the time I spend on R&D for StarTools), is about affording you the best possible chance at objectively restoring (which is not the same as subjectively enhancing!) your data as recorded, and coalescing stars back into the point lights that we know they truly are. Images with fuzzy blob stars, are fuzzy in their entirety; fuzziness does not just affect the stars - it affects detail equally (the fuzziness is caused by convolution/"blurring" by a Point Spread Function/"PSF"; the way a point light's energy is spread into neighbouring pixels due to the configuration of our optical train and intervening atmosphere). As such, separate manipulation of stars and detail yields - to the moderately veteran eye - jarring inconsistencies.

Star shrinking/reduction algorithms should be used as a last resort (they are enhancement procedures) and invariably introduce artefacts such as "stringing" that - again to the moderately veteran eye - can be jarring and calls into question the veracity of some detail ("spines" and filaments can form where none exist in real-life).

Contrast this with true deconvolution, with decent enough data; it will not only coalesce stars, but also resolve the fuzzy blobs into diffraction patterns; the highly sought-after quality of a finely tuned optical train combined with exceptionally stable skies, as seen from installations from areas like the Atacama desert. Conversely, fuzzy blobs/stars are associated with film-era chemical responses (or equivalent digital development tools from the 90s), lower quality optical trains and poor seeing conditions.

To be clear, I cannot comment on matters of aesthetics, but I can on matters of sound signal processing practices; fuzzy blobs as stars have always been the hallmark of a poor image, with - even back in the film era - every astronomer going through great lengths to avoid exactly that.

So, other than, indeed, blending back-in compromised stars into cleaner detail (for example using a mask and the Layer module) or using the FilmDev module to emulate the bloat of the chemicals in film wholesale, I'm afraid StarTools does not offer a solution for your particular preference rooted in sound physics or mathematics - it's simply not where a modern, sophisticated signal flow (typically) will take a dataset as it is being processed.

I hope this helps, or at least clears things up. Wishing you clear skies,

[robonrome]

thanks Ivo, I really appreciate you taking the time to provide a detailed and comprehensive reply and one that in the main I understand too (well done ).

Some background that might help explain my point of view.

It certainly wont hurt me to step back and understand what's going on more than over pushing buttons and tweaking sliders and hoping to see something, so will be doing this, but would note not all of us are much chop with maths and physics... I flunked out at school... that said I did claw my way back into electrical and electronic engineering at a tertiary level (and have worked in engineering now for nearly 40 years, albeit the last 15 more as a manager), but while I can do technical stuff I'm really round peg in a square hole when it comes to it... by contrast i have reached far higher to PhD level in social sciences (archaeology) as that's how I naturally think... no right, no wrong, just argument.

You mention trying Pixinsight... I paid for and own it and have attempted to learn several times. I can honestly say I have never in my life come across a piece of software I have found less intutive (to me) than PI (for any purpose) and one that makes even the most basic of tasks (say cropping) an arduous marathon... it's like someone took a negative imprint of my brain and decided to design a software for that negative. That's why I love ST so much. It has the power and science behind it, but has an interface that a mere mortal can use without going back to school all over.

On my preferred look to stars it's worth noting I've been into amateur astronomy for well over 40 years including processing my own b&W film based images back in the day, and that my more recent foray into digital AP actually comes off the back of a longish period as an amateur landscape photographer. This background is a big part of what looks right to me comes from what I have seen though a telescope and created in film days with a heavy dose of landscape imagery aesthetics.

So I suspect I will always find in jarring to see sharp blown-out star cores in stars surrounded by glow as opposed to a soft transition from brightest to darkest part of the blob ...I think calling these blobs or fuzzies isn't accurate either as they look like natural "points" to me just like stars look to my eyes larger if brighter.

I have fewer preconceptions around nebulosity and other non point star detail so more fully appreciate the power of ST for revealing these, and I guess this would be the biggest downside for me of using Film Process dev module to keep stars more to my liking as I would lose detail elsewhere.

Sounds like best for me would be to layer in stars I like. Not sure how best to do that in ST - bringing in layers processed outside I always seem to get compatability issues... right now doing it in PS CC ...taking ST TIF and RGB combine TIF from APP into PS CC running Starexterminator on the APP layer then doing a difference layer from that result to original to get the stars and then blending that into the ST layer using lighten or similar.

And again, please dont get me wrong, I think ST is superb software, i'm just trying to get it to work best for my tastes.

cheers

rob

Hi Rob,

At some stage in an astrophotographer's development, it can be beneficial to take a step back and dig a little deeper into the theory and mechanics behind common tools, as well as the relevant physics. Having the confidence to let go of preconceptions (right or wrong), and having the confidence to trust the data you captured is an incredibly important step.

My advice to you is to examine each step and each preference with a critical mind, and to try to articulate a rationale for each processing decision you make, rooted in physics and mathematics. The documentation for each module should help greatly with pointers.

Let me explain; the downside of using StarTools, is that it can let you get by without understanding the fundamentals of image processing - the engine itself needs to make sense of the signal flow to even function. As such it is not an absolute requirement for the user to have an understanding of the signal flow in order to avoid catastrophe. Fundamentally understanding what is going on, however, will greatly help with your evolution as an astrophotographer. More importantly, it will give you a much better idea of the innovations in signal processing that ST brings to the table over more basic software like PI, APP, etc.

For example, it may help trying a more basic application like PixInsight for a while, to get a better feel for how fundamental "naked" algorithms in astronomy behave without signal evolution tracking steering your signal flow in the right direction. Having to work with the tools of old, will make it much clearer why those tools exist(ed) in the first place, what their strong and weak points are, and - having a comparison in ST - how things have improved. With regards to the latter, most of the ST module documentation, has a short section on how particular module in ST improves on such, more basic algorithms. Without understanding those basic algorithm and underlying principles (often rooted in physics), the contents of these sections - or indeed the purpose of the entire module - may indeed remain nebulous.

Now, as alluded to, StarTools is first and foremost about signal recover through signal processing excellence; making the most of your data as recorded. Keeping and/or rendering your stars as fuzzy blobs is pretty much the antithesis of StarTools approach to signal processing; almost everything that makes StarTools unique (and 90% of the time I spend on R&D for StarTools), is about affording you the best possible chance at objectively restoring (which is not the same as subjectively enhancing!) your data as recorded, and coalescing stars back into the point lights that we know they truly are. Images with fuzzy blob stars, are fuzzy in their entirety; fuzziness does not just affect the stars - it affects detail equally (the fuzziness is caused by convolution/"blurring" by a Point Spread Function/"PSF"; the way a point light's energy is spread into neighbouring pixels due to the configuration of our optical train and intervening atmosphere). As such, separate manipulation of stars and detail yields - to the moderately veteran eye - jarring inconsistencies.

Star shrinking/reduction algorithms should be used as a last resort (they are enhancement procedures) and invariably introduce artefacts such as "stringing" that - again to the moderately veteran eye - can be jarring and calls into question the veracity of some detail ("spines" and filaments can form where none exist in real-life).

Contrast this with true deconvolution, with decent enough data; it will not only coalesce stars, but also resolve the fuzzy blobs into diffraction patterns; the highly sought-after quality of a finely tuned optical train combined with exceptionally stable skies, as seen from installations from areas like the Atacama desert. Conversely, fuzzy blobs/stars are associated with film-era chemical responses (or equivalent digital development tools from the 90s), lower quality optical trains and poor seeing conditions.

To be clear, I cannot comment on matters of aesthetics, but I can on matters of sound signal processing practices; fuzzy blobs as stars have always been the hallmark of a poor image, with - even back in the film era - every astronomer going through great lengths to avoid exactly that.

So, other than, indeed, blending back-in compromised stars into cleaner detail (for example using a mask and the Layer module) or using the FilmDev module to emulate the bloat of the chemicals in film wholesale, I'm afraid StarTools does not offer a solution for your particular preference rooted in sound physics or mathematics - it's simply not where a modern, sophisticated signal flow (typically) will take a dataset as it is being processed.

I hope this helps, or at least clears things up. Wishing you clear skies,

[Mike in Rancho]

Sounds like best for me would be to layer in stars I like. Not sure how best to do that in ST - bringing in layers processed outside I always seem to get compatability issues... right now doing it in PS CC ...taking ST TIF and RGB combine TIF from APP into PS CC running Starexterminator on the APP layer then doing a difference layer from that result to original to get the stars and then blending that into the ST layer using lighten or similar.

And again, please dont get me wrong, I think ST is superb software, i'm just trying to get it to work best for my tastes.

cheers

rob

Oh well, Rob. We may convert you yet. But at least blobs are better than all that star removal stuff that's all the rage, right?

If Ivo doesn't mind -- I would keep it all in ST. You can experiment, but here's how I would do it, if so inclined --

Fully process a final image in normal fashion, to get all your detail, including pointy stars, and save.

Process it again from scratch - same load or compose, same Wipe, same bin, etc., and then FilmDev it to where you want, looking really only at the star profiles. Probably just fine to skip most modules after F/D, unless you like what they do to your stars, and go right to color. Match the color settings of your prior processing (opening the prior log is helpful). Then probably run denoise in the same manner as before. Save as version 2.

Now, go into Mask and do an Auto Stars Do. Adjust as needed (often is) with shrink-grow-different settings, and/or manual touch-ups. Keep.

Go into Layer. Load Version 1. Hit swap to put V1 on the left, V2 in the middle. Probably Lighten mode is best, and just play with things like fuzz and kernel radius mostly, maybe some others too.

Might do the trick? And no messing with outside programs or exterminators and whatnot. All I got. My quick test here with diffraction spikes may not be the best example, but it's what was in front of me.

ST EZResolved2Blob.jpg (447.61 KiB) Viewed 2477 times

[hixx]

Hi Rob,
1) The Inofficial Manual can be found on ST homepage / download
https://www.startools.org/downloads/uno ... sh-manual-
2) Demystfying AutoDev: I use to set the ROI in a way it contains thebrightness levels contained in the target. E.g. in a Galaxy, you want to include its core as well as the outer regions and dust lanes. Most difficult are star cluster's ROIs: these will just contai one or two stars but not too much dark background.
IFD usually darkens the background when dialed in up to a point when it starts to "eat" details. There will be a (flat minimum in brightness - use the lower end of this.

coming from film era photography aesthetics I understand that StarTools have an unusual look. This seems to be a similar discussion as Transistor vs Valve Amps in music. Instead of going through the pain of Layering stars, there is a technique to process stars independently using the undo buffer in Layer after SVDecon - this should give you blob stars. I am sure You'll find this on page 44 of the Inofficial guide -
a) Create a starless image using a star mask in 'Heal'.

• 'Keep' the starless background image when you are happy with it.
  Save the starless image for use later.

b) Create a stars-only image:

• Launch the 'Layer' module.
  Click the preset 'Undo->Bg' - this sets the background (left panel) to what is in the undo buffer - which is the original image.
  Set the 'Layer Mode' to 'Subtract' - and the result (right panel) is the extracted stars.
  'Keep' the resulting stars-only image.
  Save the stars-only image - we will need it later.

c) Process the starless image:

• Click 'Undo' - reverts to the image before the last modules' changes - to restore the starless image.
  Process the starless image as you want (e.g. 'Sharp', 'SuperStructure', 'Denoise', 'HDR' etc.) until you are happy with it.
  d) Merge the stars back in:

• Launch the 'Layer' module - This loads the starless image in the foreground (centre panel).
  Click 'Open' and select the saved stars-only image - This will load into the foreground (centre panel) and the starless image becomes the background (left panel).
  Set the 'Layer Mode' to 'Add'.
  The resulting merged image is in the right panel.
  Click 'Keep' to keep the merged image.

Having said this, I do appreciate the "wrong " StarTools look because its closer to the real thing - OIII looks green no matter what brightness, stars look like points - as they are, etc. When I was a kid, I used to watch space photographs in books shot by Mt Palomar - I can do this with my 4" Apo, APP stacking and StarTools from my insanely light-polluted suburb, so I don't miss splashing about Tri-X Pan Developer and the old look too much.
but honestly, I had to get used to it first as well
cheers,
Jochen

[robonrome]

mike - this is brilliant and grateful you have put the time into a possible solution. Will definitely give this a try and continue to experiment. Be great if I could do it all in ST. Who knows I might even get used to pointy stars . thanks again. rob

Sounds like best for me would be to layer in stars I like. Not sure how best to do that in ST - bringing in layers processed outside I always seem to get compatability issues... right now doing it in PS CC ...taking ST TIF and RGB combine TIF from APP into PS CC running Starexterminator on the APP layer then doing a difference layer from that result to original to get the stars and then blending that into the ST layer using lighten or similar.

And again, please dont get me wrong, I think ST is superb software, i'm just trying to get it to work best for my tastes.

cheers

rob

Oh well, Rob. We may convert you yet. But at least blobs are better than all that star removal stuff that's all the rage, right?

If Ivo doesn't mind -- I would keep it all in ST. You can experiment, but here's how I would do it, if so inclined --

Fully process a final image in normal fashion, to get all your detail, including pointy stars, and save.

Process it again from scratch - same load or compose, same Wipe, same bin, etc., and then FilmDev it to where you want, looking really only at the star profiles. Probably just fine to skip most modules after F/D, unless you like what they do to your stars, and go right to color. Match the color settings of your prior processing (opening the prior log is helpful). Then probably run denoise in the same manner as before. Save as version 2.

Now, go into Mask and do an Auto Stars Do. Adjust as needed (often is) with shrink-grow-different settings, and/or manual touch-ups. Keep.

Go into Layer. Load Version 1. Hit swap to put V1 on the left, V2 in the middle. Probably Lighten mode is best, and just play with things like fuzz and kernel radius mostly, maybe some others too.

Might do the trick? And no messing with outside programs or exterminators and whatnot. All I got. My quick test here with diffraction spikes may not be the best example, but it's what was in front of me.


ST EZResolved2Blob.jpg

[robonrome]

Jochen, thanks so much. I now had a couple of approaches to try with what Mike shared. Such great and helpful support and advice all round, I am impressed with the ST community here

Funny you mentioned the valve versus transistor thing, i'd been thinking similar, vinyl LP versus CD disk... CD is obviously purer and more accurate sound etc... but i do still like the sound on a vinyl LP... suspect it's nostalgia as much as anything... when stars were blobs I was young and had the world at my feet...that kind of thing mmmm I can almost smell that TriX developer

cheers for now... I'm in danger of being washed away in some of the heaviest rains we've had in decades so have plenty of time to play processing~!

rob

Hi Rob,
1) The Inofficial Manual can be found on ST homepage / download
https://www.startools.org/downloads/uno ... sh-manual-
2) Demystfying AutoDev: I use to set the ROI in a way it contains thebrightness levels contained in the target. E.g. in a Galaxy, you want to include its core as well as the outer regions and dust lanes. Most difficult are star cluster's ROIs: these will just contai one or two stars but not too much dark background.
IFD usually darkens the background when dialed in up to a point when it starts to "eat" details. There will be a (flat minimum in brightness - use the lower end of this.

coming from film era photography aesthetics I understand that StarTools have an unusual look. This seems to be a similar discussion as Transistor vs Valve Amps in music. Instead of going through the pain of Layering stars, there is a technique to process stars independently using the undo buffer in Layer after SVDecon - this should give you blob stars. I am sure You'll find this on page 44 of the Inofficial guide -
a) Create a starless image using a star mask in 'Heal'.

• 'Keep' the starless background image when you are happy with it.
  Save the starless image for use later.

b) Create a stars-only image:

• Launch the 'Layer' module.
  Click the preset 'Undo->Bg' - this sets the background (left panel) to what is in the undo buffer - which is the original image.
  Set the 'Layer Mode' to 'Subtract' - and the result (right panel) is the extracted stars.
  'Keep' the resulting stars-only image.
  Save the stars-only image - we will need it later.

c) Process the starless image:

• Click 'Undo' - reverts to the image before the last modules' changes - to restore the starless image.
  Process the starless image as you want (e.g. 'Sharp', 'SuperStructure', 'Denoise', 'HDR' etc.) until you are happy with it.
  d) Merge the stars back in:

• Launch the 'Layer' module - This loads the starless image in the foreground (centre panel).
  Click 'Open' and select the saved stars-only image - This will load into the foreground (centre panel) and the starless image becomes the background (left panel).
  Set the 'Layer Mode' to 'Add'.
  The resulting merged image is in the right panel.
  Click 'Keep' to keep the merged image.

Having said this, I do appreciate the "wrong " StarTools look because its closer to the real thing - OIII looks green no matter what brightness, stars look like points - as they are, etc. When I was a kid, I used to watch space photographs in books shot by Mt Palomar - I can do this with my 4" Apo, APP stacking and StarTools from my insanely light-polluted suburb, so I don't miss splashing about Tri-X Pan Developer and the old look too much.
but honestly, I had to get used to it first as well
cheers,
Jochen

[admin]

On my preferred look to stars it's worth noting I've been into amateur astronomy for well over 40 years including processing my own b&W film based images back in the day, and that my more recent foray into digital AP actually comes off the back of a longish period as an amateur landscape photographer. This background is a big part of what looks right to me comes from what I have seen though a telescope and created in film days with a heavy dose of landscape imagery aesthetics.

So I suspect I will always find in jarring to see sharp blown-out star cores in stars surrounded by glow as opposed to a soft transition from brightest to darkest part of the blob ...I think calling these blobs or fuzzies isn't accurate either as they look like natural "points" to me just like stars look to my eyes larger if brighter.

Understood. I found this fantastic color photo of the Horse Head and Flame region at my local goodwill shop. I could immediatley it was an film-era photo, as it was mostly dominated by Alnitak. Most of the time, such older photos have Alnitak's stellar profile swallow its neighbouring region. HD37742 is always the first casualty and gets completely obliterated. This is a good example where older techniques or practices are demonstrably detrimental to visualising reality; Alnitak should have been a point light (unachievable of course), and the neighbouring star should be readily visible. In digitally processed images within StarTools' AutoDev module, HD37742 is always spared.

@Mike in Rancho and @hixx's suggestions should let you achieve in StarTools what you are looking for. Just please keep in mind situations like Alnitak.

Clear skies!