What? No stars?

[Demonperformer]

I have attached a single sub from a set I took last night. When I tried to stack them all in DSS, it told me that there were not enough stars for alignment. I have moved the slider all the way down to 2%, and I have tried it with and without the median filter. Always the same result. And yet, I can count over a dozen stars (excluding the nebula) without trying ('estimate star count' resulted in 4).

1. Anyone got any ideas as to why DSS might be doing this?

2. Anyone know of a way I can manually set alignment points in DSS (e.g. telling it where each of three stars are in each of the subs) to give it a helping hand?

Thanks.

[Demonperformer]

OK.

In that case, can anyone recommend an alternative program I could use to stack FITS images, which would enable me to align manually if necessary?

Preferably a downloadable freebie. [not asking much:)]

Thanks

[RogerTheDodger]

I'm in need of an answer to this too, still playing with imaging DSO's with a webcam and with the small FOV there often arn't many stars in the image.

[NickK]

Hmm odd, Nebulosity can cope with stacking single star, 2 or 3 star alignments. It can deal with FITS too.

[Psychobilly]

Registax 6.0?

[lukebl]

Sorry no answer from me, but I would dearly like to know as I often have the same problem. In fact, some of my imaging sessions are sitting there unprocessed for this reason.

...Anyone know of a way I can manually set alignment points in DSS...

If it can't do this, then I'd urge the developers of DSS to find a way of making this possible

[Demonperformer]

@PB: Thanks for the suggestion - I've got 5.1 and I missed the *.FIT option when I had a look before. Just done a quick run through with 5.1 ... think I need to sort out the subs a bit first ... but at least I am on the trail

@Luke: I did go looking on the yahoo site that is listed in the 'contact us' section of their website, but i could not get in ... so maybe there is a way there is something there about how to do it, or maybe that would be a place to suggest it if you can get in?

[lukebl]

I've tried Registax myself, but it didn't stack properly. Also, it only seems to give you the option to load a single dark frame, or am I missing something?

[Demonperformer]

Similar problem except that it wasn't a dark frame (presumably you could make a master dark in DSS and then load that into Registax), but a bias frame, which it does not seem to want to allow me to load at all, it just wants me to input a value ???

Downloaded and tried registax 6 using multiple alignment points, but it ended up with trails in place of all the stars ???

Why is nothing ever simple ???

EDIT: sorry getting a bit frustrated. i will now go and take my medication and calm down.

[Psychobilly]

Trails or rotation? are you still using and Alt/Az mount?

If it was easy everyone would be doing it...

[Luke]

Is this link any help?

Yahoo! Groups

[DoctorD]

Have you tried Iris - I have used it for planetary stacking but have not had a chance with any deep sky.

http://www.astrosurf.com/buil/us/iris/iris.htm

Just got me SDC 435 and still trying to get to grips with it.

Clear skies

Paul

[Demonperformer]

Is this link any help?

Yahoo! Groups

Thanks, Luke, it certainly was - although I had to boost the brightness to 20 to get it to work.

Attached is a quick process of the result, cut, but not enlarged.

[lukebl]

Is this link any help?

Yahoo! Groups

Excellent tip indeed. I'll try that myself.