Free Imaging Softwares for Mac

[Scribblecrans]

Hello,

I am wondering if there are any free imaging stackers/softwares for Mac devices. Unfortunately my parents have not been brung to light about the beauty of windows. 

Thanks in advance!

[rpineau]

You can find a long list for Mac astronomy related software there :

https://www.macobservatory.com/mac-astronomy-software

A lot are free.

 

[BCN_Sean]

I was going to suggest some of them that are on the list which @rpineau linked, though there's a lot more on there than I knew about!  SiriL is the main one I use off that list, bit of a steep learning curve but very good.

[Ouroboros]

SiriL looks interesting. Is it quite recent? I don’t recall it being available a few years ago when I went down the Pixinsight route. 

Deep sky imaging seems quite well supported on Mac now. But having tried to dabble in planetary imaging last year I was a tad disappointed in what was available for that. In the end I had to dip back into Windows to use Autostakkert. Pity Autostakkert isn’t available on Mac. 

[rob_r]

Siril is decent but as @BCN_Sean mentions there is a learning curve to it but you can get some decent results from the default scripts it comes packaged with. Is 'Bootcamp' an option to install a Windows partition?

Edited June 2, 2021 by rob_r

[happy-kat]

Siril for stacking DSO, star fields

GIMP for processing

I can't think of a specific planetary processor for MAC and free.

 

 

[barbulo]

+1 for Siril 

+1 for GIMP

++1 for Bootcamp

[Ouroboros]

2 hours ago, rob_r said:

Siril is decent but as @BCN_Sean mentions there is a learning curve to it but you can get some decent results from the default scripts it comes packaged with. Is 'Bootcamp' an option to install a Windows partition?

Now I look again at that link I see SiriL does planetary too. Have you tried it for planetary? Any good?

[Fivel]

Hi scribblecrans.

For planetary stacking and processing there is a free Mac app called Planetary System Stacker.

The main issue is that it requires "terminal" command line installation and opening.

I was able to install and try it out and I am not code savvy.

Here is a link to the website:  https://pypi.org/project/planetary-system-stacker/

It has great support on Cloudy Nights and some here.

It should do well, once you get it (and the python dependency) installed.

 

Good luck 

Fivel

[BCN_Sean]

Just to have a look at PSS, I spent some time installing it earlier, and whilst there's an installer in the binary package from GitHub, there's something awry with it; and installing it from the repo is dependency hell.

Best way after a few attempts was to install it in it's own virtual environment and run it from there; so here's the commands for it (PythonEnvs in this is where I keep my Python Virtual Environments), if you've got virtual environments in a different location, change the path accordingly.

mkdir -p ~/PythonEnvs/PSS
python3 -m venv ~/PythonEnvs/PSS
source ~/PythonEnvs/PSS/bin/activate
pip3 install --update pip
pip3 install numpy
pip3 install scipy
pip3 install psutil
pip3 install planetary-system-stacker

One per line in the terminal, and it will take some time to complete.

And to run : 

source ~/PythonEnvs/PSS/bin/activate && PlanetarySystemStacker

 

13 hours ago, Ouroboros said:

Now I look again at that link I see SiriL does planetary too

Whilst I was reading up on Planetary System Stacker earlier, I found out the author of the planetary stacking part of SiriL and PSS are the same guy and a lot of what he did for the latter found it's way in to the former.

 

Edited June 2, 2021 by BCN_Sean

[rob_r]

21 hours ago, Ouroboros said:

Now I look again at that link I see SiriL does planetary too. Have you tried it for planetary? Any good?

I have but found AutoStakkert does a far better job in my opinion, ditto for lunar.

[iapa]

On 03/06/2021 at 08:57, rob_r said:

I have but found AutoStakkert does a far better job in my opinion, ditto for lunar.

Unfortunately Windows only, OP is looking for MacOS apps.

On 02/06/2021 at 08:34, rob_r said:

Siril is decent but as @BCN_Sean mentions there is a learning curve to it

There is a learning curve to anything new tho’.

On 02/06/2021 at 08:34, rob_r said:

Is 'Bootcamp' an option to install a Windows partition?

Newer Macs with the M1 chip won’t support boot camp. So, OP would need to go the virtualisation route (Parallels or Fusion) each with cost and upgrade charges for major releases.  There is still also the cost of the Windows license.

[Lead_weight]

I'll second Planetary System Stacker. The developer has had direct feedback from Emil who works on Autostakkert, and the algorithms are very close now, there is little to no discernible difference to the same processing done in both applications. And I believe in the latest versions of PSS wavelet processing has been added which you need Registax on PC to do. So now it can all be done in a single application.

[LuckieEddie]

Autostakkert runs flawlessly under wine (in my experience) , which runs on macOS as well as Linux.

Another vote from me for Siril for dso stacking.

[Dazzyt66]

I use only Siril and Gimp on my Macbook. I think Siril will stack planetary too but I've never used it for that. Here's Andromeda stacked in Siril and processed in Gimp:

[powerlord]

On 02/06/2021 at 09:12, barbulo said:

+1 for Siril 

+1 for GIMP

++1 for Bootcamp

And as it's alive again. vmware fusion is now FREE on mac. no reason to ever use bootcamp - m1 or not.

And affinity Photo. it's awesome. cheap. commited to mac and no silly per year charges.

[wornish]

 

All the apps named are FREE

For taking images and controlling all your astro gear including platesolving and guiding then KStars/Ekos is excellent.

For post processing your images Autostakkert3 and Registax6 both work on Mac if you use Wine Bottler. 

For fine tuning images then GIMP is as good as PS.