DSS alternatives

[shropshire lad]

Hi .. does anyone recommend an alternative to Deep Sky Stacker ... thanks in advance.

 

[vlaiv]

Try Siril

[shropshire lad]

1 hour ago, vlaiv said:

Try Siril

Ok thanks .. I'll give that a look.

[shropshire lad]

Wow Siril is really complicated .... cant get it to process my raw images

Any other software out there?

 

Edited February 18, 2022 by shropshire lad

[Alien 13]

Not free although Affinity Photo sometimes have half price deals, great processing software that is a match better than Photoshop and includes a full package of Astro routines including stacking..

Alan

Edited February 18, 2022 by Alien 13

[almcl]

ASTAP is another free alternative.  It doesn't do multi session stacking properly, unlike DSS and it is mind numbingly slow (over an hour to process an image that DSS can handle in 5 minutes) but the results otherwise are OK.

If you find Siril  too bad (and I hate script and CLI based software) then Sirilic gets round some of the problems, although it spends ages copying files from one directory to another and then then doesn't tidy up afterwards.

[shropshire lad]

Thanks for those replies .. does anyone use Sequator or is it too basic?

 

[PeterCPC]

1 hour ago, shropshire lad said:

Thanks for those replies .. does anyone use Sequator or is it too basic?

 

Sequator will not accept FITS files. Have a look at Astro Pixel Processor - not free but really good.

[shropshire lad]

3 hours ago, PeterCPC said:

Sequator will not accept FITS files. Have a look at Astro Pixel Processor - not free but really good.

Do you mean .. wont save result as a FITS file ..... as I am loading CR2 raw files in to be  stacked.

 

 

[PeterCPC]

16 minutes ago, shropshire lad said:

Do you mean .. wont save result as a FITS file ..... as I am loading CR2 raw files in to be  stacked.

 

 

I mean that you can't load FITS files.

[shropshire lad]

1 hour ago, PeterCPC said:

I mean that you can't load FITS files.

Sorry I thought FITS files were the result of stacking my raw files in Sequator or DSS... I am a bit new to all this.

 

Edited February 19, 2022 by shropshire lad

[vlaiv]

1 hour ago, shropshire lad said:

Do you mean .. wont save result as a FITS file ..... as I am loading CR2 raw files in to be  stacked.

You can use FitsWork to bulk convert CR2 raws to fits if you need (some stacking software might only work with fits).

[The Lazy Astronomer]

16 hours ago, shropshire lad said:

Wow Siril is really complicated .... cant get it to process my raw images

Any other software out there?

 

Siril appears complicated at first, but it's actually quite simple and straightforward once you get used to it - check out the tutorials on their website.

[happy-kat]

I find DSS ok to use and if I get problems and it does not stack then it is usually because the stars were out of focus.

 

[Chefgage]

21 hours ago, shropshire lad said:

Hi .. does anyone recommend an alternative to Deep Sky Stacker ... thanks in advance.

 

Any reason for not wanting to use DSS?

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

+1 for Astro Pixel Processor. Not free, but really user friendly. I never really got along with DSS, APP was a breath of fresh air to me.

[shropshire lad]

17 minutes ago, Chefgage said:

Any reason for not wanting to use DSS?

I have been using DSS but lately I'm not too happy with the final stacked image .. my raw files look good but the final image from DSS is way too bright I have removed and reinstalled it but no better.

 

[bottletopburly]

16 hours ago, almcl said:

ASTAP is another free alternative.  It doesn't do multi session stacking properly, unlike DSS and it is mind numbingly slow (over an hour to process an image that DSS can handle in 5 minutes) but the results otherwise are OK.

If you find Siril  too bad (and I hate script and CLI based software) then Sirilic gets round some of the problems, although it spends ages copying files from one directory to another and then then doesn't tidy up afterwards.

I believe it does do multi session by date but maybe @han59 could clarify 

[vlaiv]

1 hour ago, Chefgage said:

Any reason for not wanting to use DSS?

I don't like it because:

1. It uses bilinear interpolation when aligning frames

2. I have no idea of what sort of algorithm is used for frame normalization

[Varavall]

17 hours ago, almcl said:

ASTAP is another free alternative.  It doesn't do multi session stacking properly, unlike DSS and it is mind numbingly slow (over an hour to process an image that DSS can handle in 5 minutes) but the results otherwise are OK.

If you find Siril  too bad (and I hate script and CLI based software) then Sirilic gets round some of the problems, although it spends ages copying files from one directory to another and then then doesn't tidy up afterwards.

ASTAP seems to do multi session stacking for me and in a speedy fashion. Maybe its down to how beefy the computer is!

[almcl]

How do you match the different flats from the various sessions to their respective lights?

[Varavall]

11 minutes ago, almcl said:

How do you match the different flats from the various sessions to their respective lights?

There's an option under darks and flats tabs to "Classify by date for master creation". Then ASTAP picks the correct dark/flat when stacking. Well that's what I understand is what happens. I could be wrong but my images seem OK.

[almcl]

Interesting, thanks. I'll have to investigate that a bit further? 

[happy-kat]

3 hours ago, shropshire lad said:

I have been using DSS but lately I'm not too happy with the final stacked image .. my raw files look good but the final image from DSS is way too bright I have removed and reinstalled it but no better.

 

Are you processing as well in DSS? I use the auto-generated fits file which is linear and I ignore what it had looked like in DSS.

[ONIKKINEN]

Its worth it to try to get Siril to work for you and it doesn't really take that much getting used to. The easiest way is to use the premade OSC preprocessing script found in Siril. Just create a folder on a drive that has plenty of free space on it (and make this the "home folder" for Siril), create 4 subfolders named lights, darks, biases and flats and then put all the raw frames on these folders and click the script. Siril converts your CR2 files to .fits files and then calibrates them and stacks them. It really is that simple.

Check this tutorial if it still doesn't make sense: https://siril.org/tutorials/first-steps/

If you want to have a drag and drop kind of experience like with DSS you can use Sirilic, which uses Siril to do the stacking but with a simple to use graphical interface.

Check it out here: https://siril.org/docs/sirilic/#the-first-steps-with-sirilic

With Sirilic you can do lots of things you cant really do with DSS, like removing background gradients per subframe (subsky) before stacking which helps a lot if you had an unusually strong gradient for some reason.