Few basic stacking questions

[tingting44]

hey guys, ive not really had a good go at stacking for a while tbh, it was a good couple months ago, mainly as i was getting better results before stacking, but am getting back on it now lol.

Tonight i took about 25 pics of jupiter exposing for the planet with 25 darks, then i took about 10 exposing for jupiter's 4 moons which is on show to me nicely tonight

i shot in RAW and am just looking at the single images now, i just processed one image and it looks loads better then fresh from the dslr, just wondering do i need to process all the RAW's and fiddle about with each individual pic to get the most from each sub? then shove them into Reg of DSS along with the darks? i enjoy taking the single pics but tbh stacking has been annoying me mostly as i keep getting poor results from previous attempts lol

here is just one sub from exposing the plantet it self (nothing touched in the RAW file) only a 100% crop

IMG_4085 - 100% crop by tingting44, on Flickr

here it is after playing with the RAW settings in CS6 little curve adjustment......again only a single sub out of my 25

IMG_4085#1 by tingting44, on Flickr

and one of my other subs for when i was exposing the moons (not jupiter)

IMG_4072 by tingting44, on Flickr

its even hard trying to explain it but hopefully ill get my head around it all, what i would like to do is put all my 25 subs of jupiter into 1 pic, then all my subs of the moons into 1, along with darks, and have 1 final image with both the moons and jupiter all exposed, mhh that sounds easier than it is lol

any help would be very kind i need to know this if i ever get an EQ mount and a guider of sorts in the future......

[atmenterprises]

I doubt DSS is going to stack them - I think it's for wide field and such, not planets.

If you stack them in Registax or AS!2 (one stack for the exposed planet and one stack with the exposed moon shots) do you get any results? If you do, you could take those two resulting tif files then bring them in as two layers in Photoshop and blend them into a single shot.

Does that make sense?

[tingting44]

thanks, i couldnt remember what was best for planet stacking, thank you on that

yes that does make sense, i have not opened up any stacking programs for a while now lol so i will read up more and have a crack and blow the cob webs off R6 tomorrow night lol, all my files are raw so i will have to individually adjust each file right and convert to jpeg before stacking right? im quite tired at the mo, what makes sense in my head is might not come across as that when i type it lol, will be good to see if stacking does give me a better result as to single subs, as before they have not *yawn* right have to get to bed and will catch up on here tomorrow me thinks, night

[atmenterprises]

I don't remember which file types it accepts. Might want to check that first before you convert your raw files over. A 16-bit tif will have more data than an eight-bit jpg. But just doing a quick search on Google tells me if tif isn't an option use bmp as inputs over jpg.

[tingting44]

thanks mate, from what i can remember from when i tried stacking months ago it does not accept canon RAW's indeed i will transfer the files from RAW to tiff or as a last measure bmp's, but even last time when i was trying to stack jpegs, my crappy £150 laptop was struggling with stacking more then 5 jpeg's in a row, it woudl just freeze, so god know's how im ever going to get on with tiff's!

[tingting44]

well i just converted 25 of my jupiter RAW lights to tiff's, which on my laptop took just over 2 hours!!! and this is just converting im not holding my breath as my laptop normally crashes when i try to stack 5 or more jpegs, so i bet i cant even stack these tiff's, probably 1 at a time would even be overlload for my pc any way im going to try, just wondering do my 25 RAW darks need to be converted in to tiff's also? to add to my 25 tiff (lights)

[tingting44]

i just convertted all my RAW darks to tiff's and R6 does not even accept tiff's as darks wth???? ahhh this is really stressing me out

[atmenterprises]

I don't think darks are needed for planetary photography.

[tingting44]

I don't think darks are needed for planetary photography.

REALLY

[atmenterprises]

I've never used a dark for planetary and mine come out just fine.

For DSOs you need darks.

[tingting44]

thats good then, one less thing to worry about for now, i dont think im going to have any luck stacking with this laptop, just tried to stack 15 of my tiff's of jupiter with no darks and keep getting out of memory then it cancel's stacking, great

[atmenterprises]

Yeah that's the thing with big files - memory constraints.

You may have to crop them down to a reasonable resolution by hand. I can't imagine Jupiter takes up very much of each shot. Just make sure your dimensions are exactly the same for each (640x480 for example) and try to stack those.

Sorry to keep taking you down paths that require you to do a bunch of manual work to get a result. Just trying to think of ways to help you get a final image.

[tingting44]

yes it sucks, after the 15 failed, i tried 10, then 8,6,4 and finally 2 tiffs and even with only 2 i got the message "out of memory" and it cancelled the stacking

thanks for the tip on the cropping, i know its more manual work but if it works it will be great, if not i guess i will have to wait until i can afford a better laptop in the future when ever that may be

[atmenterprises]

Do you have a video mode on your camera? That would probably be the way to go next time - and even better if you had a crop mode (640x480) on your dSLR.

[tingting44]

yes i do, i have the 7d, but no crop mode, i did acutally take some video the other night of jupiter, but ive never done editing with video, i did try and use iris with the video but it does not seem to recognise the canon video file (there not avi's)

[atmenterprises]

See if Astrostakker (or whatever it's called) will take your video as an input.

Or you could try Castrator then save it off as an avi for Registax. Or even VirtualDub may read it and let you export it as an avi.

[tingting44]

thanks will check them out, i think im going to be very limited to what i can do with my laptop, its frustrating as i got the images, just no power to process them and bring out the best

[Guest]

What laptop do you have and how much memory is fitted? I have some memory lying around that I can send your way (FOC).

[tingting44]

What laptop do you have and how much memory is fitted? I have some memory lying around that I can send your way (FOC).

thank you kindly but not sure if it will help? the laptop make is ADVENT but can i find a model number any where on it lol even took the battery out but cant find nothing, on registax 6 it says total memory 2048mb so i guess thats how much memory ive got. i bought the laptop from curry's for about £250 ish about 3 years ago, wouldnt have a clue how to add extra memory tho lol

[Guest]

2GB is a reasonable amount of memory, I'm surprised you are getting out of memory errors. Do you have other programs running at the same time that might be using memory unnecessarily?

[atmenterprises]

I think cropping the shots is your best bet with your limited processing power.

[tingting44]

2GB is a reasonable amount of memory, I'm surprised you are getting out of memory errors. Do you have other programs running at the same time that might be using memory unnecessarily?

i know mate its weird isnt it, i made sure i didnt have any thing running, i even restarted the laptop and turned off wifi lol still the same out of memory i guess like you say my best shot is to use cropped tiff's or yucky jpeg's right?

i just tried cropping each of the 25 tiffs, but im having trouble getting them all cropped at the same place if you know what i mean, is there a way to batch crop lol in cs5? was also having trouble getting them all the same resolution after crop grhhhh i think im going to give up for tonight

[atmenterprises]

Well you may not need to crop them in the same place. Registax may be able to identify the planet's position regardless. I think maintaining the aspect ratio is going to be key. Not sure how to batch crop though.

[cgarry]

Yeah that's the thing with big files - memory constraints.

You may have to crop them down to a reasonable resolution by hand. I can't imagine Jupiter takes up very much of each shot. Just make sure your dimensions are exactly the same for each (640x480 for example) and try to stack those.

Sorry to keep taking you down paths that require you to do a bunch of manual work to get a result. Just trying to think of ways to help you get a final image.

PIPP will do the centring and cropping for you, even accepting the RAW files if they were taken with a Canon camera, otherwise you will need to use TIFFs.

I would suggest the following options:

Source Files->Optimise Options For Planetary = Enabled

Processing Options->Enable Histogram Stretch = Enabled

Processing Options->Stretch R, G and B Channels Individually = Enabled

Output Options->Output Format = TIF

You will probably also want to modify the size of the final crop with:

Processing Options->Crop Width

Processing Options->Crop Height

And hit the test options button to see the result.

Finally hit the Do Processing->Start Processing button.

Cheers,

Chris

[tingting44]

PIPP will do the centring and cropping for you, even accepting the RAW files if they were taken with a Canon camera, otherwise you will need to use TIFFs.

I would suggest the following options:

Source Files->Optimise Options For Planetary = Enabled

Processing Options->Enable Histogram Stretch = Enabled

Processing Options->Stretch R, G and B Channels Individually = Enabled

Output Options->Output Format = TIF

You will probably also want to modify the size of the final crop with:

Processing Options->Crop Width

Processing Options->Crop Height

And hit the test options button to see the result.

Finally hit the Do Processing->Start Processing button.

Cheers,

Chris

ohhhhhhhhh!!!!! NOW ya talking buddy, this program sounds right up my street!!!! downloading NOW!! will let you know how it turns out lol, loving the idea that it crops and center's for you and will accept my canon raw's :) right time for downloading lol hopefully it will work, thanks mate