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Which stacking software to start with


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1 hour ago, Bill-T said:

I am new to astro but have bought Zyrene ( https://zerenesystems.com/cms/stacker ) and used it successfully for macro photography but I'm sure the requirements for astro pictures are more specialised. Any recommendations for a starter software package please? 

It largely depends on what type of files you are capturing your astro images in.

I use Zerene for macro photography and it's excellent but it won't work for stacking fits files in astrophotography as it only works with tiff and jpeg files, if you are capturing your astro images in those files it might be worth a try as you already own Zerene.

As mentioned DSS works well, I stack my images in Siril and 99% of the time it's perfect. For the other 1% that Siril rejects I've used DSS and it works well for those, just one of the many mysteries of astrophotography processing!

Edited by LaurenceT
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If you are patient and have some time to spare for learning, then Siril as it is very good but a bit difficult for a total beginner to use. Otherwise go with DSS, its very simple to use and does an ok job at stacking.

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I'm obviously bored this morning with time on my hands, I batch converted some fit files of the Eastern Veil nebula to jpegs in Irfanview and then stacked them in Zerene. As you can see the final result is less than stellar (pun intended).

eastern veil zerene PMax.jpg

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If you're willing to spend money, and don't want to get involved with PixInsight then have a look at AstroArt v8. It will do pretty much everything including capture.

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For a beginner (as I am) siril.

Name 4 folders correctly, lights, darks, biases, flats and put the correct files in those directories.

Launch siril, click scripts, choose osc. Wait for stack to finish, will depend on how powerful your pc is.

I think dss is a bit less simple for a complete beginner but I still use it before stacking to help me rate my sub quality.

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2 hours ago, LaurenceT said:

I'm obviously bored this morning with time on my hands, I batch converted some fit files of the Eastern Veil nebula to jpegs in Irfanview and then stacked them in Zerene. As you can see the final result is less than stellar (pun intended).

eastern veil zerene PMax.jpg

I have seen similar artifacts in macro work using Serene

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2 hours ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

For a beginner (as I am) siril.

I found Siril to be overly complex for a simple stack. Counterintuitive in fact! Indeed, any software that needs the instructions reading just to open the virtual box loses me very early in the mating process!! 😇 We just sat there looking at each other waiting for one of us to do something.

So my vote goes to DSS.

I do most of my stacking in ASTAP nowadays, but it does need a bit of setting up to access it's many other functions and might frighten away a new-start imager. 

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3 hours ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

For a beginner (as I am) siril.

Name 4 folders correctly, lights, darks, biases, flats and put the correct files in those directories.

Launch siril, click scripts, choose osc. Wait for stack to finish, will depend on how powerful your pc is.

I think dss is a bit less simple for a complete beginner but I still use it before stacking to help me rate my sub quality.

TiffsandAstro - You really should try manual stacking in Siril which gives you access to the plot tab.  You can then view sub quality on different criteria including FWHM, roundness, number of stars, background etc in a really easy to see graphical form (or table if you prefer) and excluded them from stacking directly. I'm sure it would be quicker and easier than culling via DSS. Alternatively I'm pretty sure I could provide an osc script so it will process  everything but stops immediately before stacking so you can review/cull before stacking if you want to continue with scripts.

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41 minutes ago, PhilB61 said:

TiffsandAstro - You really should try manual stacking in Siril which gives you access to the plot tab.  You can then view sub quality on different criteria including FWHM, roundness, number of stars, background etc in a really easy to see graphical form (or table if you prefer) and excluded them from stacking directly. I'm sure it would be quicker and easier than culling via DSS. Alternatively I'm pretty sure I could provide an osc script so it will process  everything but stops immediately before stacking so you can review/cull before stacking if you want to continue with scripts.

I sort of do that (mostly) when stacking multiple sessions. To have a quick look see what I got osc script is ideal.

Confession time, I still haven't fo a manual stack of one session, apart from for   comet A3. So I'm getting nearer :)

Siril only offers fwhm to compare on the plot though, while dss gives me that, %bacground and #stars in list I can sort.

That's a very kind offer to make a script for me, but I'd rather get used to manual stacking.

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