Star Trails with FIT images?

[BlueAstra]

A typical all-Sky imaging sessions leads me with 1000-2000 FIT images. Is there any software that creates star trails from FIT images? Or can auto detect meteor FIT images? (Not sure if this question should be here or in software)

[vlaiv]

Star trails are easy to produce with any software capable of doing "max" stacking (just using maximum pixel instead of average).

Make sure you don't align frames - just leave them as they are to get trailing.

As for meteor detection - quick google search gave me this link:

https://www.imo.net/resources/software/

There are several pieces of software linked there that all work with meteors (in one form or another).

I'm guessing that extended google search would result in even more resources worth checking.

[BlueAstra]

I think the problem is that most software I’ve tried (PShop, etc) do not accept FIT images, so I’m trying to find something that does.

[vlaiv]

Take a look at ImageJ

It is very versatile tool. It was developed for scientific microscope image manipulation, and has a bunch of plugins for various tasks. For what you are intending to do - you won't need any of them, stock app is capable of opening fits and stacking them, but you might be able to find some sort of motion tracking plugin that will help with meteor detection.

It's open source and runs on Java - hence it's cross platform.

[ONIKKINEN]

Deep sky stacker, Siril, Sequator are all tools made for the job with the difficulty in using going from the easiest sequator->deep sky stacked->siril but siril being the most powerful. They are also free.

Edited May 16, 2023 by ONIKKINEN

[Earl]

This might give some pointers , it not 100% what your looking for.