This polar alignment is harder than it seems. I've done the best I can do, but am still getting some mis-tracking over the 20 sec frames I want to take of stars.
OK, Plan B - employ Star Rounder!
Would someone kindly tell me what I have to do to run Star Rounder on an image in Irfanview. I have the .8bf file downloaded (150kByte) from here: http://www.grekalova.com/photo_Astroplugins.html
What do I do now? Were do I put that file? How do I tell Irfanview it is there? How do I run it on an open JPEG? Will my questions never end?
Wait a minute - I think I've got it! I didn't have the 8bf_filters.dll - mustn't have been there when I downloaded all plugins for Irfanview previously.
No No
Try another Star Rounder action. With luck it won't affect the rest of the image too much. But if you put the image through Neat Image afterwards, it should tidy it up.
Sorry, I should have added a grin to my PAINT suggestion for Asi!
They were early attempts - I have to sit and play with the parameters to find what works best. That was an attempt to rotate the image until the elongation was in one axis only so I could play with just two parameters - % and one axis. I also want to rotate 90 degrees from that so I can do the same with the alternative axis.
Still easier than lying on my back trying to see the end of my laser pointer beam through the polar scope! But I think the mechanics of a beat-up EQ5 mount aren't up to much better than I have reached. I'm actually quite happy - I think I'll achieve what I want.
"Neat Image" - OK, I'll search that one out. Thanks JJJ
The problem with using star rounder is that while it often does a good job on the stars, it stuffs up the nebulosity if the adjustment is too big. If you have Photoshop, you get a much better result if you select the stars only and put them in a separate layer and then work on them without affecting the background. This process is well-described in Ron Wodaski's book "The Zone System"
Geoff
good o
