ImagesPlus alternative/ beginning in astrophotography

[roboticsound]

Hi,

I have been looking to take a first step into astrophotography, using my canon 1000d dslr. I found a good guide which recomends the program ImagesPlus.

I was wondering if there are any alternatives to this (preferably free) and if you have any tips ect. it would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Louis

[simon hicks]

Hi Louis,

First thing you will need is DeepSkyStacker (freeware!). This will calibrate, align and stack all of your images along with flats, darks and bias frames. And if all that is unfamiliar then check out the help on the DeepSkyStacker site and lots of threads on this forum. Its a lot to explain in one go....prepare to do lots of reading on the internet.

Once you have your calibrated, aligned, stacked image then you will want to post-process it. There is a range of programs to do this with....some are basic image processing packages and some are designed especially for astrophotography. I think all of the astrophotography specific ones will be commercial....i.e. you need to pay. But if you have spent money on a decent camera , scope , mount, etc, etc....then this will be well worth it IMHO. I use PixInsight and would really recommend it to anyone. I'll leave it to other's to recommend other packages....and I'm sure they will.

Its a long and rewarding road. Good luck!

Cheers

Simon

[MartinB]

You can get all you need for free. As Simon says, DSS will combine your images nicely. GIMP is free image processing software. It's supposed to be very powerful but I've never used it. If you get into guiding PHD is free.

ImagesPlus is very very good. It does everything - will control your camera, allow you to calibrate your images, combine them and it is a very powerful image processor which has some very complex tools which go beyond what you can do with PS. It is a neater solution than using lots of different free bits but you have to pay. The thing I really like about ImagesPlus is the comprehensive video tutorials that accompany it.

[roboticsound]

Thanks a lot for the replies.

But do any of these other progs control the camera or is there something I can use for that?

[themos]

The EOS Utility that comes with the camera should be enough for controlling the exposures.

[simon hicks]

Louis,

For controlling a Canon DSLR there are three free packages I can think of...

DSLRShutter DSLR Shutter

Delphinus Delphinus homepage

and the very new APT www.astroplace.net - APT - Introduction

IMHO Delphinus was the best up until very recently....better than DSLRShutter. Now APT looks very attractive though I am still to try it in the field.

Cheers

Simon

[roboticsound]

Thanks Simon yeah ive been looking at APT looks very good but will have a look at delphious too.