Processing DSO FITS files

[Forge]

Hi there, apologies for the super basic questions below but I'm about as new as one can be to this whole world.

I managed to use Live Stack in Sharpcap to capture eagle nebula last night and have saved it as a 32-bit FITS file. I've spent a lot of time today reading that you can use FITS Liberator to pre-process and convert the files into TIFF and then use something like GIMP to sharpen and enhance it finally.

However FITS Liberator will work on monochrome and therefore you need 3 files (R,G,B) to be converted into TIFF and then combined in GIMP. Sharpcap only gave me one FITS file, but with 3 planes in it (selectable via a drop down under Image Data in FITS Liberator). I assumed planes 1,2,3 were R,G,B respectively but that hasn't worked properly.

Could someone please help me out with how should I go about processing the Sharpcap FITS file? AM I using the right tools? I've been following this guide - https://lco.global/how-to-create-stunning-colour-images-of-the-cosmos/ - with lots of complimentary Googling.

Thanks in advance

[Merlin66]

I had a similar experience Re fits files and found PIPP helped me......

[Forge]

Thanks for the quick reply!

You mean this one - https://sites.google.com/site/astropipp/

So you could load the Sharpcap FITS file into this and work with RGB even for DSO?

[Merlin66]

I had a fits series of images (800 frames!!!) which PIPP converted into a usable AVI file.

[billdan]

If Gimp will not open FITs files, then you can try Fitswork, this software is free and can also do processing as well, so you may not need Gimp.

https://www.fitswork.de/software/softw_en.php

Cheers
Bill

[cometcatcher]

If you have multiple FITS files just load them into Deep Sky Stacker and it will stack and spit out a TIFF if you want.

[Merlin66]

I should have explained.....
My series of fits files were all independent images of the solar spectrum taken with a spectroheliograph. These are NOT suitable for stacking into a final image, they must be processed (spectral line merge) as an AVI or SER video.
So, basically finding any software which could produce an AVI file (without stacking or manipulating) from a series of Fits files was my challenge.
A bit different from DSO stacking.......

[redbeard]

Nebulosity is a great program for what you want to do. Not free but very good and cheap cost. There is a trial you can download for free.

Cheers
Damien

[Gavin1234]

Before getting Pixinsigt I always loaded my FITS into deep sky stacker. Once stacked it creates a TIF file which you can use with other processing software.

[Forge]

Thank you all, I'll try DSS and Nebulosity trial

[sil]

Yes , theoretically. I've encounterd fits files that arent really properly formatted and fail to load into other software. especially the highest bit depth saves, try a 16bit fits ouput from sharpcap if you can. So yes you can just disable any processing in pipp and use it purely for format conversion if you like. just taken note the output file formats from pipp tend to be limited in bit depth perf file format basis. I havent used for your purpose but when you select the output format i think in the bottom right of the file format area it'll save 8bit, 16bit etc to tell you what the output bitdepth of the file will be, rather than give you options per file. i've found though its usuall the highest bitdepth possible for each format and the files always load for me in other programs for processing.