The Admiral

Just pure eye-candy Barry! Wonderful. Ian

Lovely image Richard. Those Epsilons do produce the goods, though I'm not a particular fan of star spikes. The Trapezium is clear to see too. Ian

I've a feeling that you can have both installed at the same time, but don't hold me to it! Ian

You are welcome! Very strange that the 64-bit version didn't work. Have you actually tried re-installing the 64-bit version, as with the large files of the 450D it is of benefit to be able to use all of the RAM available, and I understand it is faster too. Good luck with PI. I've only ventured into that territory with the trial version, but those who master it swear by it. If you haven't bought it yet it is worth trying out the range of software available. AstroArt is good for stacking as well as processing and control, StarTools is cheap, and there seems to be a bit of momentum behind the AstroPixelProcessor software, all of which are cheaper. Ian

I'm pleased that you got it running Paul. If it's actually possible to load a 64-bit application onto a 32-bit operating system, the fact that it would work with a conventional raw image but not a raw astro image leaves me perplexed! Just for completeness, could you tell us whether your operating system is 32-bit or 64-bit please? If you're not sure how to do that then "How-to-Geeks" say this: " To check whether you’re using a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows 10, open the Settings app by pressing Windows+I, and then head to System > About. On the right side, look for the “System type” entry. It will show you two pieces of information—whether you’re using a 32-bit or 64-bit operating system and whether you have a 64-bit capable processor. " Thanks, Ian

Just another, possibly random! thought, is your image file on an external drive, or otherwise in a different location to your files that you know do work? If so, try copying to the same location and try opening it from there. Long shot, may be! Ian

Well, I don't think that is the issue. Drizzle will take a long time to process and will give you very large FITS files I believe. It is a way of getting more detail out of the image. I wouldn't do that normally (I've never used it). Try this. Tick the little check-box on the LHS of the image line. Then in the "Options" box, click "Recommended", and see what happens. It'll give you some choices. When I tried it with your file I got this: You may find some of the 'headings' in red, which IIRC means that DSS thinks need changing. The top two are the most important. Hope that helps. Ian

OK, should be good. This is what I get when I open your file in DSS v4.1.0 at my default settings. I'm going to "open picture files" and selecting your saved file. Clicking on the file up pops the image. Just to check, do you get the little 'Bayer' icon before the 'path', as you can see here (4 boxes in a square). Ian

Even weirder then! What OS are you using? How much RAM do you have in your computer? Ian

Weird! So it works with a .CR2 file from a conventional photo, but it doesn't with the .CR2 when you take an astro frame. Doesn't make sense. I don't know the 450D, but I assume there isn't a menu setting that says something like "works without lens" is there? Because that surely would be the only difference, other than exposure. Try it the other way then, what happens if you view the astro image in a conventional RAW processor? Is there actually an image? Do the file sizes with astro images match those of conventional images? Sorry, clutching at straws here. Sorry, I thought that you said in your original post that you couldn't use RAW with your 1100D? So, is this the first time you've tried RAW stacking? Ian

Then I'm not sure why the astro ones don't. What about a single astro pic, does that show up? Ian

Well what I meant was a conventional photo, like a view of your garden. DSS comes in 64-bit and 32-bit versions, are you using the correct one? Ian

I'm not a user of DSS any more, but it might be interesting to import a single ordinary photo RAW file from the 450D into DSS and see what it looks like. With an ordinary photo at least you know what to expect. It will probably be darker than you'd get with a conventional RAW processor, because DSS works with linear files, whereas conventional photo processors apply a profile to match what one sees. If that works fine, I don't see why it shouldn't work with astro images. Ian

Or, you could leave it on the table and take the flats by putting a laptop/tablet, displaying a plain white screen, directly in front of the objective. I think you'd still need to diffuse it though, and don't have the screen brightness too high so that you can get a reasonably long exposure (i.e. tenths of a second rather than hundredths or less). Those images are a good start! But galaxies are hard in the sense that they are generally small in the FoV, which makes them susceptible to tracking errors and field rotation, which will smear their tiny details. Also, as Filroden indicated, it is useful to be able to remove gradients 'easily', and not being a user of Gimp, I don't know whether the Photoshop plugins work with it. It might be worth looking at the range of specialist astro processing software that there is available. Not all are expensive. Ian

I like how you've captured the earthshine without the Moon looking hugely over exposed. Nice photo. Ian