Imaging Software shopping list

[Wpit]

Hi Can anyone provide me with a list of software needed for imaging. I have a Nikon 3100 camera and a Phillips SPC900NC webcam. I'm being a bit lazy I know but I did have this all setup around 6 years ago but never got much chance to use this...children, work etc:-( Now my laptop is updated with Windows 10 and all my old apps have gone. So I'll have to install everything from scratch.

I know have an HEQ5 PRO mount so expecting some good results.

Regards Will

[Pete Presland]

What field of imaging are you going to be mostly doing (planets, DSO's) ?

[happy-kat]

Sharpcap and registax for your webcam and processing (planets/Moon)

DSS 3.3.4 for dslr DSO then GIMP

All the above free.

[Freddie]

For planetary, I prefer Firecapture, AS!2 (stacking) and registax (wavelets)

[ollypenrice]

A relatively inexpensive alternative to DSS is AstroArt for calibration, stacking and some processing. (Cosmetic filters are outstanding.) I do greatly prefer it to DSS but DSS is free.

For me it's then a mixture of Photoshop and Pixinsight.

New kids on the block are Star Tools and the very impressive-looking Asto Pixel Processor. I hardly know either but results look good.

Olly

[Wpit]

19 hours ago, happy-kat said:

Sharpcap and registax for your webcam and processing (planets/Moon)

DSS 3.3.4 for dslr DSO then GIMP

All the above free.

Thanks happy-kat

Downloaded now, thanks for the list. I recognised Sharpcap and registax. But DSS will be a new toy for me to play with, I don't think i had my Nikon DLSR the last time I tried to capture images.

Regards Will

[happy-kat]

If you are sticking with free software then there is an astro plugin for GIMP. I had assumed you hadn't bought any software before as you'd have the licences somewhere.

If buying new software the list is huge so you would need to indicate a budget you'd want to spend but that's really for DSO.

Budgetastro.net Doug has useful guides to get you started and much of the processing in Photoshop can be done in GIMP with a little creativity.

[Wpit]

6 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

If you are sticking with free software then there is an astro plugin for GIMP. I had assumed you hadn't bought any software before as you'd have the licences somewhere.

If buying new software the list is huge so you would need to indicate a budget you'd want to spend but that's really for DSO.

Budgetastro.net Doug has useful guides to get you started and much of the processing in Photoshop can be done in GIMP with a little creativity.

Yes, I'm being mean and sticking to the free software for now. I expect it will be years before I exhaust the capabilities of the free software.

[spillage]

2 hours ago, happy-kat said:

If you are sticking with free software then there is an astro plugin for GIMP.

@happy-kat I had never thought of looking for a gimp plugin so thanks for the info. Do you know if there are any for 2.9 or if the 2.8 plugins will work.

I will have a look tonight if I get the time.

[happy-kat]

There is a thread on this site with the link. I don't have it to hand but I've seen it.