astrotoaster

[shirva]

New bit of software for astronomsoftwaree who broadcasts on nsn was good enough to make and share for free..runs in conjunction with dss..seen it in action couple of weeks ago used by drdave on nsn..fantastic.

never seen anything as good in a while.

astrotoaster is the name of the software

[RobertI]

Yes i had a look at this software and it looks interesting. Someone on CN (same guy as yours?) is using it with an Atik 414 and getting good results. The downside is 'relatively' long exposures at 90+ seconds but great detail and colour.

[shirva]

When its run on nsn as near live its great..via video capture of course

[shirva]

Yeah know the chap you mean..I posted a comment on his post tonight , he had it up a couple of days looks like not a lot of guys know of this software on here..im very shure some of the sammy or pd camera guys will love it . Mallincam camera was used on the broadcast I watched by dr dave s/a

[arkosg]

It's been used by Don and Tom (SoIn) with Atik cameras on NSN as well; slightly longer exposures but some amazing near-live results!

- Greg A

[Dom543]

Those longer exposures have nothing to do with AstroToaster. They are due to the less sensitive cameras that were used. The finer resolution ATIK's have smaller pixels. As a consequence, they need longer integrations to collect enough photons.

It is more difficult to decide, if the stunning image quality is due to the resolution that is considerably higher than what we usually see in near-live or to the stacking in DSS/AstroToaster.

SX also has a camera with the same higher resolution/ lower sensitivity ICX825 sensor, as the ATIK414Ex. In the US the SX camera costs $200 more than the ATIK.

Clear Skies!

--Dom

[shirva]

Dom..I can only repeat what I saw during dr daves broadcast using a mallincam..he was blown away as were the rest of us who were watching. .so I think the process worked for him.

[arkosg]

Dom,

I've watched a number of NSN broadcasts with lots of objects by those two, and while you are correct that the cameras are less sensitive on a 1-to-1 basis, with binning, slightly longer exposures, and Astrotoaster, the results I've seen are pretty stunning. Even the single 60 sec exposures Tom was running were very impressive for the details they captured, albeit with more noise than later stacks.

Chris (Astrogate) was trying out Astrotoaster with his Mallincam last night, and had similarly positive results. As we've seen with Lodestar Live, the stacking feature is very powerful and really allows for much improved S/N. It seems that Astrotoaster allows for these other cams to do something similar, though not as easily as LL does.

So whatever is mostly responsible, the Astrotoaster results are impressive!

Cheers,

Greg A

[Dom543]

Thank you Shirva and Greg,

I cannot watch NSN and my input was based on captures by Lyle and DonBoy posted on CN. Both were using ATIK cameras.

I am somewhat surprised that there is also such a dramatic improvement when using Mallincam analog video cameras. I thought that Mallincamers have long been using stacking in Miloslick.

Just one more question. How can Astrotoaster make a single frame "stunning". Isn't Astrotoaster a front end for DeepSkyStacker? Does it, or daes DSS do anything more than stacking?

As said, I am not able to watch NSN and, due to work, I will not able to do much astro stuff for awhile.

Clear Skies!

--Dom

[arkosg]

Hi Dom,

Yes, Mallincam users have Miloslick & it's stacking - but I believe it does simple stacking, and does not do star registry etc.

I believe there are many different ways to perform stacking - I've skimmed some very technical & detailed reviews of

some of the various algorithms (eg see Craig Stark's blogs) and I think it's probably safe to say all stacks are not

created equal! . At any rate, the 10-stack image of M51 that Chris produced with Astrotoaster and his Mallincam

extreme was impressive - much better than what I'd seen in previously (I'm not on NSN often, however).

And I think I may have given the wrong impression regarding Tom and his Atik 460 - it's the camera, binned 2x2, that

was giving impressive images with his setup in even 60 sec exposures. But some of the results were truly jaw dropping

when he stacked a few of those! So even cameras that might not seem perfectly suited to EAA at first glance can perform

very well given the right gear/conditions/software....

For certain, though, it doesn't seem anywhere near as easy to use as the Lodestar/LL combo!

Cheers,

Greg A

[shirva]

Thanks greg a.. I never went into the tech side, I made my comments on what I saw and reported what the broadcaster had said.. not having a lodestar/ll I cant compare or comment but for me astrotoaster will improve on captures from analogue cameras such as samsung and pd.so cant be a bad thing.

[arkosg]

Hi Shirva,

I'd imagine, based on what I saw of Chris' foray into Astrotoaster with his Extreme, that there is definitely value in Astrotoaster for analogue cams, 

along with a dose of added complexity (lots of files to manage, for example).  I'd seen a few examples of folks using it with higher resolution 

"imaging" cams, and was impressed with what was possible there... but it was neat to see it applied to relatively short subs on a more typical 

EAA cam and see what one could get.  Colour me impressed.  

But don't take my word for it!  For those that can, I'd definitely recommend checking out Tom (SoIn), Don (HeavensDeclareGodsGlory), Chris (Astrogate),

as well as Dr. Dave and others on NSN to see what the process and results look like.  They aren't always on, or always using particular cams/Astrotoaster,

but even hit and miss I've caught a number of relevant broadcasts over the past weeks.

Cheers,

- Greg A

[shirva]

Totally agree greg..catching a broadcast is pretty hard at times especially when most are based southern hemisphere. .most of the times I tune in it's solar captures..ive only caught one broadcast from rock, one from simon in kenya, ken..dragonman and drdave..

best views went to dr dave .simon's saturn images were best planetary best compare and for overall broadcasting went to ken.

looking forward to darker skies in a couple of months and give the astrotoaster a ho on the sammy and pd cams..johnno has had good views via his quark abd sammy so life in the old cams yet