Which stacking software to start with

[Bill-T]

I am new to astro but have bought Zerene ( 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? 

Edited 7 hours ago by Bill-T

[DaveS]

Deep Sky Stacker is free and pretty damn good. Worth starting out with before spending real money.

[LaurenceT]

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 11 hours ago by LaurenceT

[Elp]

DSS for simplicity, Siril for better control and also post processing options. Both free.

Edited 11 hours ago by Elp

[ONIKKINEN]

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.

[LaurenceT]

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).

[bottletopburly]

Siril is a fine program, Deepspace Astro has a lot of Siril content, scripts are easy to use too in Siril 

 

[DaveS]

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.

[Albir phil]

Yea Deep Sky Stacker, it dose the job and so easy to use and it's free 

[PhilB61]

Deep Sky Stacker is free and easy to use, SIRIL is also free and much more capable and flexible but requires a bit more effort to master.

[ollypenrice]

I haven't used DSS in ages but found it terribly slow compared with AstroArt.

Olly

[TiffsAndAstro]

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.

[Bill-T]

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).

I have seen similar artifacts in macro work using Serene

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I have used DSS, but didn't get on with it. I now use Astro Pixel Processor (not free, but not very expensive either), and much prefer it. It is far more intuitive to use, I find.

[Paul M]

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. 

[PhilB61]

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.

[TiffsAndAstro]

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.

[ONIKKINEN]

31 minutes ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

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

Nope, star count, roundness and background level is also there. As well as the "weighted FWHM" number which is a combination of FWHM and star count.

For background level to show up you might need to run dynamic PSF on the registered data first. Been a while since i checked that as i am watching the data as its being captured so dont need to check afterwards but i think Dynamic PSF was required.

[TiffsAndAstro]

Just now, ONIKKINEN said:

Nope, star count, roundness and background level is also there. As well as the "weighted FWHM" number which is a combination of FWHM and star count.

For background level to show up you might need to run dynamic PSF on the registered data first. Been a while since i checked that as i am watching the data as its being captured so dont need to check afterwards but i think Dynamic PSF was required.

You're right, but i have to add multiple conditions to the rejection algorithm. I use dss first just deleting clearly bad frames like only 5 stars or really high fwhm or background.

When stacking I'll usually only reject by one, usually fwhm or stars. Might be worth me trying multiple conditions when stacking in addition to dss first.

Also dss has scores. I like scores.

[ONIKKINEN]

48 minutes ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

You're right, but i have to add multiple conditions to the rejection algorithm. I use dss first just deleting clearly bad frames like only 5 stars or really high fwhm or background.

When stacking I'll usually only reject by one, usually fwhm or stars. Might be worth me trying multiple conditions when stacking in addition to dss first.

Also dss has scores. I like scores.

You can drag a selection box around the bad subs in the plot tab and reject them that way. No need to set the specific rejection filter since you can go through all the stats and reject as you see fit and stack whats left.

The wFWHM value is kind of like a score, you'll like that as much as the DSS score. Give the plot tab an in depth look, its one of the best features in Siril IMO.

[Swillis]

31 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

You can drag a selection box around the bad subs in the plot tab and reject them that way

That's great. I didn't realise that.

When stacking multiple sessions, you can easily see if one session was better or worse than the others just from looking at the plot.

I certainly find the graph a much better way to visualise this than just a list of numbers.

[ONIKKINEN]

2 hours ago, ONIKKINEN said:

For background level to show up you might need to run dynamic PSF on the registered data first.

Just checked and this is not necessary. The following stats become available in the plot tab after registration:

I think it may have been the case in an older version that you had to run Dynamic PSF first, or i am remembering wrong. Anyway, there it is in the current version.

[PhilB61]

1 hour ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

You're right, but i have to add multiple conditions to the rejection algorithm. I use dss first just deleting clearly bad frames like only 5 stars or really high fwhm or background.

When stacking I'll usually only reject by one, usually fwhm or stars. Might be worth me trying multiple conditions when stacking in addition to dss first.

Also dss has scores. I like scores.

If you like scores, you'll love the Siril plot tab, each of the measured parameters is given a score and then displayed (or tabulated whichever you prefer). You can then de-select the individual poor frames based upon all or any of these parameters so these are not included in your stack, you can then choose (or not) to weight the stacking algorithm also based upon these parameters, I usually choose wHWFM which is a bit like an overall score. The attached image shows the plot tab with 117 sub frames, in this instance displaying roundness which is selected via the drop down box. Very easy to see outliers and to view or remove them by right clicking on the graph, or as in this case drag a box around to de-select a group.

With manual processing you can also after your first stack just go back to the plot tab and change your sub frame selections or parameters and restack to see what effect adding in or leaving out frames does, without needing to redo any of the pre-processing and registration stages again.

If you want to do a very quick initial cull try Tenmon, developed by one of the Cloudynight contributors. I use it to view/remove frames affected by wind and clouds etc by "blinking" through each frame marking the poor ones with the M key, at the end just choose to delete or move to a folder all the marked frames. My 52mb fits files open and move to the next as fast as I can click and view so even large numbers can be reviewed very quickly.

[Ardsley Astro]

No one mentioned ASTAP. I'm just trying a stack of M27

[TiffsAndAstro]

13 minutes ago, PhilB61 said:

If you like scores, you'll love the Siril plot tab, each of the measured parameters is given a score and then displayed (or tabulated whichever you prefer). You can then de-select the individual poor frames based upon all or any of these parameters so these are not included in your stack, you can then choose (or not) to weight the stacking algorithm also based upon these parameters, I usually choose wHWFM which is a bit like an overall score. The attached image shows the plot tab with 117 sub frames, in this instance displaying roundness which is selected via the drop down box. Very easy to see outliers and to view or remove them by right clicking on the graph, or as in this case drag a box around to de-select a group.

With manual processing you can also after your first stack just go back to the plot tab and change your sub frame selections or parameters and restack to see what effect adding in or leaving out frames does, without needing to redo any of the pre-processing and registration stages again.

If you want to do a very quick initial cull try Tenmon, developed by one of the Cloudynight contributors. I use it to view/remove frames affected by wind and clouds etc by "blinking" through each frame marking the poor ones with the M key, at the end just choose to delete or move to a folder all the marked frames. My 52mb fits files open and move to the next as fast as I can click and view so even large numbers can be reviewed very quickly.

Ok this is new to me and looks interesting. Need to stack something to try it.

I still like the idea of dss first, but I didn't realise plot had that much control I was using it very basically.

Edited 40 minutes ago by TiffsAndAstro