Been a rough month here weatherwise in the Northern Plains of good old U.S.A. Two weeks ago a four-day blizzard buried the Black Hills and closed our section of US Interstate 90 under 18-36 inches of snow that was whipped up to white-out conditions by 75mph winds. Then, this week a Winter Bomb Cyclone (aka 'Ground Blizzard') hit us - 75mph winds, -20F/-28C ambient temps and -60F wind chills - and shut down Western South Dakota (SoDak) for three more days before slamming the Eastern half of U.S. in the deep freeze.

Needless to say, weather has not been playing along with my astrophotography hobby. Obviously, all that really matters is that everyone is alive and kicking! The stars will still be up above when Mother Nature finally permits - though the Moon seems to be ready to jack up the next few weeks of potentially clear skies. Hehe.

During the down time, lurking Cloudy Nights, I ran across the latest AP post-processing hotness - BlurXTerminator (BXT). After watching several YouTube videos (highlighted by Adam Block's excellent review) I decided to drop USD $90 and run a few of my most recent subs through it.

Wow! As Adam says, BXT is a powerful tool. Adam emphasized that BXT leverages PixInsight's (PI's) built-in deconvolution and PSF capabilities lessened my concerns. His pointers as to the potential for "overdoing it" were also received loud and clear.

Before the big storms hit, I made a quick run at IC410 - The Tadpole Nebula - in Hα with my new QHY268M Pro. The two images in this post were processed in PI v1.8.9-1 (v1.8.9 is required to run BXT) using WBPP with Auto Crop, ABE, EZDenoise, and then EZSoftStretch. One without and the other with BXT's default settings. Both images were saved as TIF's and post here 'as is.'

It appears that BXT is beginning to receive some negative opinion - IMHO the majority of heartburn appears to be how easy it can make sub-par data or lesser equipment capable of producing images with details/clarity without factoring in pixel resolution, focusing, etc. Some are even accusing BXT of 'making up stuff' ala like the arguments around Topaz AI. Given that this technology uses Deconvolution capabilities in PixInsight IMHO the negativity is overblown but such is life when you leverage AI as part of something new.

I hope that the uproar passes quickly, and we can all just make 'pretty pictures' versus bash each other for 'cheating.' I appreciate BXT's results though I will learn how to use it judiciously versus as a crutch.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all. Clear Skies & God Bless!