DSS alternative.

[raymo]

As DSS won't work on my comp, I am looking for an alternative that has similar features. Being a decidedly non affluent OAP I am hoping to find something suitable that is also freeware. I am led to believe that Autostakkaert is for stacking video files.
raymo

[mswhin63]

If it doesn't work, what is your operating system?

[raymo]

W10 Malcolm. It does crazy things such as when I try to import an image
I click on a row of images to select them, and it allows one to be selected and then the cursor shoots off to the upper left corner of the screen almost as fast as the eye can follow. Another fun thing is when I try to save the final stacked image, it saves one of the pre stacked single frames as it came out of the camera.
I had multiple serious problems with this new laptop, and assumed that the DSS problems arose from that, but after being forced to reinstall W10 and the laptop then working fine, the DSS problems are still there, despite having
deleted and reinstalled it from different sites.
I have been using DSS for years on my other older laptops with XP, and W8
with no problems whatsoever.
raymo

[LewisM]

Still sounds like a potential Malware issue Ray. Unwanted mouse cursor movement can be Malware trying to execute uncommanded inputs.


Anyway, alternatives to DSS:
CCDStack (HIGHLY recommended, despite the price)
PixInsight (as above re price)
AutoStakkert

A couple others too, but names elude me.

[mswhin63]

I cant explain why it is not working, I just installed DSS on my Win 10 machine and it works fine.

DSS is fairly old and no updates that I am aware of since my last use. I think commercial products have better support and features and becoming more popular. While DSS still works on my PC, I will continue to use it

[raymo]

I tried Autostakkert Lewis, but it doesn't seem to have any instructions, and
I couldn't make head nor tail of it once I imported 4 subs, so I'll have to see if there are any videos on Utube. In the meantime I'll have to use DSS on
my old unreliable laptop.
raymo

[sharkbite]

Raymo...

some pretty good instructions here:

https://www.astrokraai.nl/software/Sky%20&%20Telescope%20-%20September%202016%20[68%20-%2072].pdf

I get far better results for planetary with this, and late one night i accidentaly put a stack of DSO TIFFS in it...
(dragged and dropped a bunch of them)


it processed them in seconds where DSS would have taken minutes...

it may not have too many options to play with, but for a novice like me thats a good thing!


P.S.

"the DSS problems are still there, despite having
deleted and reinstalled it from different sites."

i thought DSS was here: "http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/download.htm"

this might be your problem - you've picked up malware from a dodgy site...

[raymo]

Hi sharkbite, the autostakkert related site you posted could not be found by my browser.
I'll try downloading DSS from the site you posted .
raymo

[raymo]

The DSS site you posted was the first site I downloaded DSS from.
I always try to use the original sites rather than third party ones such
as CNET. Anyway I just downloaded it again, and its still stuffed.
raymo

[luka]

Which version are you running Raymo?
Version 3.3.6 was released on the forums which never made it to the main site. That may fix the issues.

[raymo]

Thanks, I'll have a look for that.
raymo

[chuckywiz]

Hey Raymo
Long time buddy. If still no luck i can try get you the version i use works fine on my windows 10 64 bit pc. Maybe teamviewer i can transfer the file might be too big to email

Ben

[raymo]

Hi Ben, I'll try anything, although not sure what teamviewer means.
I routinely send images up to 10Mb by email.
raymo

[chuckywiz]

Private message your email ill send you a copy that use

Any issues. Teamviewer is a remote control software. Where i can control your pc and easily file share. Could be worth looking at whats going on before during and after the install. Unless your coming up to perth anytime soon

[raymo]

PM sent last night.
cheers raymo

[raymo]

Hi Ben, my grandson turned up today, and he is a computer whiz. He
looked at my comp and said the problem is overwhelmingly likely to
be in the registry, and that a straight forward reinstallation of W10
will not fix it. He said that it needs a complete reformat, which he will
do for me shortly.
cheers Raymo

[mswhin63]

If the registry is the problem, I usually enlist the help of CCleaner software. Has worked well in cleaning up the registry, but doesn't always work.

[chromus]

Assuming you are using the latest version of DSS, it is a 64bit aware, 32bit application. What this means is, it runs as a 32bit program but can handle larger memory space than 2GB.

BUT

This function isn't enabled by default.

You can activate it by using an application called "Large address Aware" to change a flag in the executable to allow it to access your RAM beyond 2GB limit. This solves issues when stacking particularly large files (over 24MB) or large numbers of sub 24MB files.

Another note, the dialogue they use dislikes selection of more than 100 files at a time. You can use many more, but only do the import at around 100 files at once.

[raymo]

Thanks for the replies Malcolm and Phil.
I have downloaded several different versions inc 32 and 64; all display
the same problems, and all stack o.k. once I can get the images accepted,
and I can play with the final image, but not download it.
My W8 laptop did a long auto update the other day, and magically
reappeared with W10, and DSS on that laptop is now displaying some of the same problems my new W10 laptop has, so it looks like W10 and DSS
are mortal enemies. I have an old W7 laptop with a working DSS on it,
so I'll have to make sure I stay offline with it.
raymo

[chromus]

No issues with Win10 here.

Where did u get the 64bit version? it isn't an official release from the original author

http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/download.htm

[raymo]

I'm bu-----d if I know, I just worked my way down the offered list of DSS downloads after using the official site first. The only specific site I recall
is CNET. What beats me is that my recently involuntarily updated W8 to W10
laptop is now displaying one of the two issues with DSS that my new laptop does, but not both yet, which makes me think there must be a connection to W10.
raymo

[raymo]

Malcolm, I installed and ran CCleaner, and now on my frequently used sites, such as this one, the comp won't remember my user name and password, so I have to go through the rigmarole every time, and, even more annoying,
every few minutes I get a 75mmx60mm blinking window telling me CC has cleaned up x amount from Google Chrome, and the icon on the task bar
blinks whenever it is monitoring. Thank goodness I only tried the
trial, so can get rid of it without it costing me anything; I bet my password situation doesn't go back to normal though. Thank goodness I'm not on my new comp.
raymo

[mswhin63]

I though the use of remember passwords is not very secure. You can un check the clean passwords option but that is only the cleaner section. There is another tab for the registry, very different cleaning system to the registry issues cleaner.

I use a password manager (Dashlane paid version) as I can sync it to different devices.

[raymo]

I only use "remember me" on sites that I don't care if someone else accesses
them. I have very convoluted passwords for the only two sites that I like to keep private; and yipee, having deleted CC, my comp now "remembers me"
again, for ---knows what reason.
raymo

[chromus]

I dug a little deeper, I believe you are confused by 32bit application vs handling 64bit tiff files.

[raymo]

Maybe Phil, my poor old octogenarian's brain struggles to get its head
around this stuff.
raymo

[AstroJason]

Haven't posted on here for a while but recently found a good alternative to DSS called Sequator. Sorry if it has been mentioned before.

https://sites.google.com/site/sequatorglobal/home

Stacks images very quickly, can put flats and and darks in and it also removes hot pixels. But the feature I like is that you can mask out land if you're dong wide field shots with a landscape.

Pretty good tutorials on youtube such as this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql4bEnJc4hE

Cheers

[raymo]

Just noticed your post Jason; thanks very much, I'll give it a go.
raymo

[glend]

A new updated version of DSS that has just been released. There is a thread about it on Cloudy Nights forum.
I use, and like, DSS. No complaints at all.

[luka]

Great find Glen :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
It is even open source now.

(You should post a separate thread about it, some people may not be following this thread.)

[raymo]

This is very interesting Glen. I have three laptops, an old very slow one with
W7; DSS has always and still does, work properly, albeit a bit slowly;
a newer one had W8.1 and DSS worked fine until it recently spent an
hour doing what I thought were updates, but emerged with W10.[ This was
done by Microsoft, I didn't initiate anything],DSS still worked for a very short while[a day or two] and then started to develop weird problems, until after a week or two it became unusable.
My new one[W10] had all the weird problems with DSS from the word go.
I reinstalled W10, but it didn't help. Go figure, as the youngsters would say.
raymo