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I've taken 2 pictures of Barnard's star, with roughly 14 months between the 2 pictures. What I want to do is layer the 2 pictures on top of each other and do a "blink" thing to show the movement. However, they are at slightly different orientations to each other so don't line up properly. 

Is there a way to do this in photoshop? To make it even more difficult, they aren't the exact same framing either as the one I did last year was before I had a GoTo system so it was done manually with a "near enough" center frame. I'd like to get them layered properly, then crop the images to the same FOV.

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Have you tried to import the images as two different layers in PS? You can make one semi-transparent, and then align them using the free transform tool (Crlt-T), which allows rotation. Once they match, restore the opacity to 100%, crop them to the same size and save each layer separately for your animation.

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2 hours ago, Felias said:

Have you tried to import the images as two different layers in PS? You can make one semi-transparent, and then align them using the free transform tool (Crlt-T), which allows rotation. Once they match, restore the opacity to 100%, crop them to the same size and save each layer separately for your animation.

Yes, I have tried that. That was the original method I used but I just can't seem to match them all up

1 hour ago, happy-kat said:

Are there other stars in the images you could use for your aligning?

if I use one that isnt centered and use that to use the transform tool, I can get some stars aligned but further from center, the worse it gets

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You could try stacking the two images in deep sky stacker and from that image opened in PS then layer in and reveal just Barnard's star on each image. This hopefully would make the best of the outer stars in your two images.

Edited by happy-kat
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10 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

You could try stacking the two images in deep sky stacker and from that image opened in PS then layer in and reveal just Barnard's star on each image. This hopefully would make the best of the outer stars in your two images.

I'll give that a go, cheers

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Is this something you will be wanting to do on a regular basis?  

If not, if you want to send the files to me I can do it in Registar for you and send it back.  YOu'll need to take a crop if you want to get rid of the edges that don't match. 

PM me if you wish to do this with your E Mail address. 

I use photoshop and never found a satisfactory way to align images manually.

Carole  

Edited by carastro
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35 minutes ago, carastro said:

Is this something you will be wanting to do on a regular basis?  

If not, if you want to send the files to me I can do it in Registar for you and send it back.  YOu'll need to take a crop if you want to get rid of the edges that don't match. 

PM me if you wish to do this with your E Mail address. 

I use photoshop and never found a satisfactory way to align images manually.

Carole  

I was going to suggest this as well. However, what will Registar think of Barnard's star, which will have moved? Will it reject the alignment request? With luck it will ignore Barnard's as an outlier and align on the others, but it will only put a fifty percent weighting on Barnard's in each position if it does. It won't give you a full application of both Barnard's images, it will be half star from one image and half background sky from the other.

So what you'd need to in Registar would be align and crop/pad one image to fit the other and save it. Don't combine both in Registar. Then go back into Ps and paste the registered image over the reference image as a layer, select  Barnard's and a bit of sky around it, select Inverse, delete the rest and flatten.

Olly

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On 13/07/2021 at 10:01, carastro said:

Is this something you will be wanting to do on a regular basis?  

If not, if you want to send the files to me I can do it in Registar for you and send it back.  YOu'll need to take a crop if you want to get rid of the edges that don't match. 

PM me if you wish to do this with your E Mail address. 

I use photoshop and never found a satisfactory way to align images manually.

Carole  

Hi Carole,

I'll likely be looking to do this once a year. Is Registar a free bit of software? If so, I can give that a go myself. I ended up stacking as per normal and then using that to look at the change in position. But wasn't able to get the short "blinking" thing I wanted to!

It's a shame photoshop doesn't have a way to do this!

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Quote

I'll likely be looking to do this once a year. Is Registar a free bit of software? If so, I can give that a go myself. I ended up stacking as per normal and then using that to look at the change in position. But wasn't able to get the short "blinking" thing I wanted to!

Unfortunately it is not free.  But if you are planning on using Photoshop and later on mono filters, it is an excellent bit of software for aligning images as Olly will also attest. 

Carole 

Edited by carastro
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1 hour ago, MylesGibson said:

This is not sufficient to align properly

The keyboard arrow keys are for fine alignment, moves 1 pixel at a time... to move it further/ faster if you click/ grab the screen layer you can drag it around...

If it won't align due to rotation then you can adjust this rotation in the image tab

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1 hour ago, carastro said:

Unfortunately it is not free.  But if you are planning on using Photoshop and later on mono filters, it is an excellent bit of software for aligning images as Olly will also attest. 

Carole 

Eventually I will be moving to mono, so something like this will probably need to be invested in! Thanks for pointing me in the direction! :) 

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1 hour ago, newbie alert said:

The keyboard arrow keys are for fine alignment, moves 1 pixel at a time... to move it further/ faster if you click/ grab the screen layer you can drag it around...

If it won't align due to rotation then you can adjust this rotation in the image tab

I get how to use the arrow keys. It's just that I cannot get the alignment correct manually. They only move up/down/left/right and not rotational. I've spent long enough and the manual way is just not good enough.

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FB_IMG_1626354214504.jpg.5c4f83b0068f5ace90c25141e2abe01e.jpg

1 hour ago, MylesGibson said:

I get how to use the arrow keys. It's just that I cannot get the alignment correct manually. They only move up/down/left/right and not rotational. I've spent long enough and the manual way is just not good enough.

If you need to rotate a layer go into the image tab, rotation  and abit of jiggery pokery and alot of swearing you will get it aligned 

Edited by newbie alert
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47 minutes ago, newbie alert said:

If you need to rotate a layer go into the image tab, rotation  and abit of jiggery pokery and alot of swearing you will get it aligned 

I appreciate the response, but as I said, I understand the how to do it. When they are framed very differently and are at different angles, photoshop just isn't good enough to do it manually if you want them aligned properly

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2 hours ago, MylesGibson said:

I appreciate the response, but as I said, I understand the how to do it. When they are framed very differently and are at different angles, photoshop just isn't good enough to do it manually if you want them aligned properly

Are you stacking in PS manually? Or are you aligning as a example your separate rgb stacks?

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15 hours ago, newbie alert said:

Are you stacking in PS manually? Or are you aligning as a example your separate rgb stacks?

Stacking has already been done on both sets of data. So I am aligning 2 separate RGB stacks. It's fine, I'll find a way that isn't photoshop

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On 16/07/2021 at 08:07, MylesGibson said:

Stacking has already been done on both sets of data. So I am aligning 2 separate RGB stacks. It's fine, I'll find a way that isn't photoshop

Sounds like you're trying to use a program that you don't like..

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On 16/07/2021 at 08:28, JSeaman said:

Are you happy to upload the pictures? I did exactly what you described this morning in photoshop

I've found a way around it now. I may do next year when I have my next go at this! Lol

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