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Thank you for your comments. Here is a brief explanation of my animation preparation.
First up you need a tracking mount, I also use a Hynode solar auto guider. Then you choose your imaging area.
I use Firecapture for imaging.
Set the exposure and gain on your camera and make sure the camera saves the captures as .SER files, enable autorun. I capture 20 frames at 30 second intervals using autorun.
This animation had 50 captures (about 25 mins worth).
Batch stack your SER files in Autostacker ,saving the best 5%, you can also sharpen them if you want to when you stack.
Open up file manager
Create around 5 subfolders in the folder where you have stacked your captures. If you always save to the next folder in the chain you can always go back to the previous stage and not overwrite your work.
Open up ImPPG(Free software) and use the align image sequence in the tools section. Save the aligned images in the first sub folder that you have created
Open up Irfan view(Free software) and view your aligned images in Slide viewer. If they don't play smoothly you may have to go back to the previous stage and tweek the settings and repeat your alignment.
If you wish to Blank out the disk in your images to give your prominence better contrast ,you can use Corono (Free software) or you can use photoshop and mask the disk in a batch process by creating an action. Save your files in the next sub folder.
Open up Gimp(Free software)
select - file - open as layers - select your files - open
let them load, it might take a while.
select - filters - animation - optimize for Gif
select - filters - animation - playback
play your animation if you are happy with it you can then crop or resize your animation.
Select - file - export as
choose your save in folder
select - file type(by extension) choose GIF image
click the export box
a save box will appear with Gif options
uncheck - GIF comment
check - as animation and loop forever
click - export
Your animation is completed.
This might seem complicated but once you set up your macro's and templates it's quite a simple workflow.
Martin
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