Canon Astrophotography edit program

[skytry]

Hi all,
any help would be appredciated,
I am running windows 7 home edition,
I have down loaded SharpCap to edit astro photography,
at presen that program does not recognise the canon 1000D,
or the philips tuocam, with the provided soft ware loaded,

do you require a program to edit the photo's,

got me beat,

regards,
Peter.

[Screwdriverone]

Hi Peter,

You can use the Digital Photo Professional that comes with the Canon 1000D disk, or, do as I do, and capture shots from my 1000D with Backyard EOS (excellent program) as well as PHD for the guiding which will recognise both the modded and unmodded Toucams for guiding, using the Windows WDM webcam and LE (Long exposure) modded settings in the camera drop down.

For viewing and image manipulation, I use Nebulosity or Deep Sky Stacker (the latter for only stacking) and then save to TIFF to process in Photoshop CS3.

Although some have simply used the DPP (canon) I mentioned above which reads RAW .cr2 files from the camera as well as the JPGs.

[skytry]

hi Chris,
thank you for the helpful info,
now the research begins,

regards,
Peter

[skytry]

hi Chris,
I have been looking at Backyard EOS,
also Backyard EOS with ascom plugin,
as it says it is a payable editing program, which too use?,
apprently you can also have a free trial period
assuming it will edit my Canon 1000D,
shall it also run the Philips SPC900NC,
can you assist,
regards,
Peter.

[Screwdriverone]

Hi Peter,

Backyard EOS will only allow you to control the camera from the laptop rather than have to use the shutter button, however, it allows you to set up complex imaging runs where the shutter time and ISO can be varied from step to step.

It is not for editing, but you will see the results displayed on the screen as each picture is taken. The ascom plugin for Backyard EOS allows the program to "dither" between each image taken which tells the mount to slightly move between each image so that when you stack the final sets of images, any hot or dead pixels in your camera aren't in the same spot and therefore when the stacking program tries to detect these, it does a better job at removing them. Its not strictly necessary, but I have tried it and it works (a bit tricky to get the timing right before the next photo is due to be taken in the sequence)

PHD is a free program that displays the image from the philips webcam and also (using the ASCOM driver) learns and controls the mount to "tell" it via the data cable to move back to a star if it drifts away from where the camera sees it.

I plug my hand controller on my HEQ5 Pro into my laptop's DB9 serial port and set the controller to "PC Direct mode" and then start Stellariumscope, which uses the ASCOM driver to interface to the computer. Then I start PHD and select the Philips camera, set it to loop every 1 sec (max the gain on the camera settings) and see stars in the guidescope. Once I see a suitable star, I select the mount and then click on the star and press the guide button.

Once I do this, PHD "learns" the orientation of the camera to the mount by pulsing West and then East, followed by North and then South (using the mount's motors) to determine how much it needs to PUSH or PULL the mount in those directions based on how far it is seeing the "star" move when it does its learning.

That then calibrates the PHD to the mount and once its finished, the box around the star will turn green and have green cross hairs, indicating you are guiding using PHD.

You can now FIRE away using Backyard EOS on the target you have on the screen (if its already there) or alternatively, pause guiding, slew to the target using Stellarium or the hand controller, set guiding again, and then start your captures.

Once they are taken, I use Deep Sky Stacker to debayer the RAW images from the camera (or you can use Jpegs if you want, it accepts both) and then stack them together to improve the signal to noise ratio.

Then I save these to TIFF and edit them in Nebulosity or Photoshop CS3, or Digital Photo Professional (canon)

So, Backyard EOS is simply a capture program, controlling and taking photos from your PC remotely rather than you having to press the button on the camera and set all the settings using the dials and menus on the camera itself.

PHD is to view the webcam images and guide the scope to keep it on track.

Photoshop CS3, or GIMP (free) or Digital Photo Professional (free with camera) can be used to process the images taken.

Lots of info, sorry, hope it helps.

Cheers

Chris

[skytry]

hi Chris,
thank you,
lots of information I do appreciate,
starting too understand the programs required to make it all happen,
also, lots to learn, and still learning,
regards,
Peter.

[ZeroID]

Nice explanation Chris, Thanks. Clarified a few things for myself. I might figure out what I am doing now.

Cheers

[Screwdriverone]

No worries Brent and Peter,

Glad I could help.

I might add that I use the EQAscom plugin so that the mount talks to the PC and I can slew using the on screen buttons, great for centering the object with test shots on Backyard EOS.

With StellariumScope, this spawns the EQascom driver and then allows me to start Stellarium so that I can navigate to objects using Stellarium's on screen planetarium, this is UBER cool as you can find many more interesting objects up in the sky for the current time and then click on the PC screen and hit CTRL-1 and the PC tells the scope to GOTO the object. The "telescope" target in Stellarium shows me the current location of the scope and can even simulate the field of view of what you will see in the eyepiece using the "ocular" Stellarium plug in.

Its so funky and fun, sometimes I just use the camera and guidescope as a remote eyepiece and snap single shots of things I havent seen before and then slew to the next target, simply for the fun of it.

AND the kids and wife can see on the screen much better than trying the contortions / ladders etc to reach the funny eyepiece position on the newtonian OTA.

Good fun when you couldnt be bothered sitting there in the cold waiting for sub exposures to complete and just want a whirlwind tour of the night sky, using a more sensitive imager than your humble retina....

Cheers

Chris

[stardust steve]

Good info Chris:thumbsup:
I have bookmarked this thread for later reference :D

[Screwdriverone]

Cool Steve,

Next time its a full moon and I have the scope out, I might make up a tutorial with some screen caps as a start to finish example of how it all works.

It might help to lay it all out for anyone who wants to reproduce the set up.

Cheers

Chris

[skytry]

hi to all,
I am trying for a free software program to accept my
photo's from my Canon DSLR 1000D & Philips SPC900NC imaging camera,
as I have just downloaded Registax6, is there a easy program
I can use in conjunction with the latter, any help I would appreciate,
regards,
Peter.

[Screwdriverone]

Hi Peter,

Deep Sky Stacker is free, this is good for you to view and stack your 1000D images, Gimp for processing (also free) and Registax will stack and align as well as process somewhat the philips webcam video files.

These arent exactly "press the button and its all automatic" type programs, they require a bit of fiddling around and learning, but they arent too bad. There are some astro processing tutorials here and on the web, but if you get stuck, simply ask here and you should be able to get some help.

Cheers

Chris

[skytry]

hi Chris,
again, thank you,
there seems plenty of work ahead, to enhance good optical gear,
these programs suggested shall be viewed with interest,
regards,
Peter.