AstroArt5

[reddoss]

I am thinking of buy AstroArt5 from FLO, mainly for image procssesing, and would like to hear members opinions, especially if A) it is worth the money and if you felt the hand book and tutorials were useful/any good, and C) what more can you do with this software than say a combination of PS3 and Nebulosity 3 (I have both)?

Cheers,

Justyn

[JamesF]

I'm interested in people's opinions on this, too. I have a feeling that Olly P uses AA5, but I'm not certain.

James

[Stephen]

I can't find the post immediately, but I'm pretty sure Olly (sure it was him ...) suggested V5 was a considerable improvement over V4 and shortened the distance between itself and Maxim considerably

[Merlin66]

I've been using AstroArt for the past seven-eight years and now run the AA5.

It handles all my cameras including the DSLR and meets my imaging processing needs for spectroscopy.

I can't comment on PS3 and nebulosity having never used them.

For any additional processing I use PaintShop Pro V4 - does everything PS does for 1/10 of the price.

[ollypenrice]

Hi and yes, I do use AA5. I use it for preprocessing (stacking, calibrating and initial colour combining.) I don't do any post processing in it at all. I export the stacked L, RGB, Ha and O111 into CS3 and PixInsight for the rest of the work. I dare say it has features that might be useful but the key thing about Ps is that you can carry out an operation as a Layer and then keep only as much or as little of that mod as you wish. I do mods in PixInsight then Layer the, in Ps, for instance. AA5 is way better than AA4.

Olly

[JamesF]

Other than the actual CD, is the physical manual the only difference between the downloadable and "physical" versions? Presumably the downloadable version has a PDF/other version of the manual?

James

[JamesF]

And since I'm asking, does anyone feel a strong preference for the version with a paper manual or otherwise?

James

[robbieince]

AA5 is a significant step forward over previous versions I think (I have used AA since v2) as it is significantly quicker and now includes rudimentary curves.

I personally think you still need a PS or some such post processor but i use AA5 for stacking, aligning, deconvolution and colour combining (LRGB etc) but it also does telescope control, guiding with dithering and can be scripted to plate solved accurate positioning.

Definitely worth the cost I reckon.

Regards

Rob

[robbieince]

I also believe the non paper version is perfectly acceptable.

Regards

Rob

[Jessun]

I use AA5 for OSC preprocessing and stacking - no other features really - and for a OSC it wipes the floor with anything I ever tried. Then I chuck it in PS or PI depending on what I reckon the image may need. AA is very capable though, it can do many tricks, but I'm just getting used to using PS and like it too much to leave it out of the processing loop.

Soetimes my M25C plays up in combination with AA5 but that could be related to my laptop or other... So I capture in Neb 3 and then stacks in AA.

In my opinion PS or PI will do the processing for you - it's a question of what you want to bring to that dark site in December wearing gloves... That's when Neb wins for me - just for the actual capture. Stacking etc AA wins. Processing PS and PI win easily.

Expensive but worthwile.

[reddoss]

Many Thanks for all your responces. It seems that AA5 is what I need for prepocessing images from the OSC SXVR M25C which I have yet to use in anger.