Astrophotography software.

Liz · #1 27-12-2011, 10:09 AM

I know this has been covered before, but did a search, and trawled through many pages, but didnt find what I wanted (impatient now).

I wanted to know what peoples favourites were re software for tweaking your images. I know PS is a big fav, but unable to spend those $$, plus it is a HUGE program that I have had a play with and struggled with.

Also tried GIMP which has been OK, but always seems to freeze my PC these days, despite reloading of program.

I dont want to do major tweaking (not that I could anyway), just a bit, so dont want a mammoth piece of software.

Am happy to pay a little, so what is out there? Any new bits of software that people are enjoying??

Cheers and thanks
liz

A23649 (Nathan) · #2 27-12-2011, 05:01 PM

Ivo on here has created Startools, I like it a lot because it is simple to use and gives back excellent results. It costs $60 so not very much and it is a lot of bang for your buck.

Liz · #3 27-12-2011, 06:44 PM

Cheers Nathan, will have a look at it.

renormalised (Carl) · #4 27-12-2011, 07:29 PM

You could also try Photoshop Elements, for $146, at Dick Smith's.

Liz · #5 27-12-2011, 08:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by renormalised

You could also try Photoshop Elements, for $146, at Dick Smith's.

Oh, havent even heard of that, how come u know everything Carl??

Downloaded the trial version of StarTools, but wont take any of my images which are jpegs mainly ..... better read the directions.

renormalised (Carl) · #6 27-12-2011, 08:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Liz

Oh, havent even heard of that, how come u know everything Carl??

Alas, Liz, I don't

Dennis · #7 27-12-2011, 09:08 PM

Hi Liz

Some image processing software is designed specifically for astrophotography. Typically, they have the functions to:

Subtract dark frames.
Apply Flat Fields.
Perform mathematical operations on images, such as normalising them to make the background even in each frame.
Align several images.
Stack those aligned images.
Combine the aligned & stacked images

Etc.

Then you have the more earthly apps such as Photoshop, Paint Shop pro, etc. which are more geared towards terrestrial photography.

I think that many astro photographers use the more specialised astrophotography software to perform the calibration, aligning, stacking and combining of their images and then move that image for further processing into say, Photoshop.

A lot of the more specialised astrophotography software is designed to provide rich capabilities and functionality for processing images from astro CCD cameras and can also cater very well for DSLRs. From what I have seen, apps like ImagesPlus seem to be able to bridge the different characteristics between dedicated astro CCD cameras and DSLRs, whereas others tend to have their strengths when used with specialised astro CCD cameras.

Astro CCD cameras tend to produce FITs or TIF files whereas DSLRs produce proprietary RAW files or JPGs, although the RAW files can be converted to TIFs, usually with software provided by the camera manufacturer.

I’ve done most of my image processing using CCDSoft and CCDStack (specialised astro apps) to prepare the image before them moving into Photoshop to finish it off, so I don’t really know what apps like Photoshop Elements and other do, but maybe someone else can help here?

Good luck

Cheers

Dennis

rcheshire (Rowland) · #8 27-12-2011, 10:29 PM

Star tools. Open jpeg in GIMP save as 24bit .bmp (which is the default), open in Startools. ST is great, but you must read the manual and the tips - question mark alongside the particular algorithm. Ivo is only too happy to help.

Liz · #9 28-12-2011, 08:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rcheshire

Star tools. Open jpeg in GIMP save as 24bit .bmp (which is the default), open in Startools. ST is great, but you must read the manual and the tips - question mark alongside the particular algorithm. Ivo is only too happy to help.

Thank you Rowland. Busy busy, but will have a serious look. I usually shoot in jpeg, but my version of Gimp is not working. Hmm ... as I said, musty read the manual.

Thank you Dennis too.

I am the most basic processer, and actually dont enjoy that part of it, but know its waht the 'big boys and girls' do to improve their images.

Merlin66 (Ken) · #10 29-12-2011, 08:31 AM

I've been using AstroArt for the last seven years....will handle any/ all cameras CCD/ DSLR etc etc
Certainly worth considering - it punches well above it's weight.

irwjager (Ivo) · #11 29-12-2011, 10:19 AM

Hi Liz,

Happy to help with any questions you may have about StarTools, or recommend other software.

ST is meant for astrophotographical specific post-processing, with an emphasis on fixing common beginners' problems and protecting them from bad (destructive) decisions. For all your other needs, there is some great software available for free that does the pre-processing such as stacking and alignment (Deep Sky Stacker, Registax, AVIStack).

If you're looking for a nice all-in-one solution that also doesn't break the bank, also have a look at Stark Labs' Nebulosity. Its post-processing side is a bit more basic though.

It must be said that if you're shooting in JPEG, you're not doing yourself any favors when doing astrophotography. This is especially true if you're only doing single exposures.

A JPEG image only stores 256 levels of brightness (it is said to have a 8-bit depth), ranging from 0 (dark) to 255 (white). As you know, the nature of most interesting objects in space is that they're very very faint when viewed from earth. This means that the interesting stuff in your picture always sits in the 'very faint' region in your JPEG (let's say brightness levels 0-15).
It's the job of the post-processing software to pump up those brightness levels to something we can see and admire.
The trouble is that having only a few distinct (16 in our example) brightness levels to work with, is really not enough for any software to work with and create a nice image from.

What you'll want is having your data recorded in a 'higher-bit-depth' format (such as a TIFF or FITS) that stores more than just 256 brightness levels - let's say 65536 (the latter corresponding to a 16-bit depth). In that case the very faint stuff in our example sit in the range of 0-4095. Now we have 4096 distinct brightness levels to work with - this should be enough for any software to use.

Also note that converting your JPEG to another format will unfortunately not help things. The 256 distinct brightness levels will just be spread over the new range (let's say 0-65536) in such a way that they will be evenly spaced. E.g. 0 becomes 0, 1 becomes 256, 2 becomes 512, 3 becomes 768, 4 becomes 1024, and so forth. The brightness levels between 0 and 256, 256 and 512, 512 and 768, etc. will simply not be used, so unfortunately you're not gaining anything.

To make a long story short, this is why using 8-bit images (such as JPEG) for astrophotography is a bad idea. It is also the reason why StarTools does not import JPEGs - it is to discourage beginners from accidentally using them, as they will lead to bad results.

Again, happy to help!

Cheers,

Liz · #12 29-12-2011, 07:35 PM

Thank you for your response Ivo.

The last lot of images I took of Comet Lovejoy, I did shoot in RAW and JPEG but still cant open them, nor the DSS image I had stacked a few days previous. No, still havent read the manual.

Have DL the other program which will not open the DSS I stacked, though will open the RAW.

I normally shoot jpeg, but occ do RAW, i just find jpeg easier to manage.

Bassnut (Fred) · #13 29-12-2011, 08:57 PM

Liz, you just can't shoot astro in Jpeg. Use the software that came with you cam to convert RAW to TIFF at least. Then they are easily openable and can be used with any processing software (that doesn't recognize canon RAW)

irwjager (Ivo) · #14 30-12-2011, 12:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Liz

Thank you for your response Ivo.

The last lot of images I took of Comet Lovejoy, I did shoot in RAW and JPEG but still cant open them, nor the DSS image I had stacked a few days previous. No, still havent read the manual.

Have DL the other program which will not open the DSS I stacked, though will open the RAW.

I normally shoot jpeg, but occ do RAW, i just find jpeg easier to manage.

Save your single RAW or (preferrably) a stacked series of RAWs, to a 16-bit TIFF file or (preferrably) a 32-bit FITS file and you should be good to go.

You can stack multiple JPEGs if you have no other choice, but the end result will always be worse than if you were using RAWs. If you camera does not save in RAW, be prepared to stack *a lot* of JPEGs for any sort of signal that comes close to just a few RAWs, especially for the fainter stuff.

Bear in mind though that there is no condition under which just a single JPEG frame will suffice for any sort of serious processing.

Hope this helps!

ZeroID (Brent) · #15 01-01-2012, 06:59 PM

Have to thank you all for this thread. I've been using jpeg and couldn't get the results I expected. Now I know why.
Switching to RAW now ....
Live and learn eh ...?

Mark_Heli (Mark) · #16 01-01-2012, 08:04 PM

Hi Liz,

Paint.NET is a reasonably good image editing software for Windows and is freeware.

It includes all the standard functions like curves, levels etc.

You can download it from their homepage - http://www.getpaint.net/

Cheers,
Mark

irwjager (Ivo) · #17 01-01-2012, 09:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark_Heli

Hi Liz,

Paint.NET is a reasonably good image editing software for Windows and is freeware.

It includes all the standard functions like curves, levels etc.

You can download it from their homepage - http://www.getpaint.net/

Cheers,
Mark

Hi Mark,

That's really interesting! Can you confirm Paint.NET does (at least) 16-bit manipulation (e.g. you can bring out fait objects?) If so that would be very interesting software indeed for beginners that want to dip their toe into astrophotography!

Mark_Heli (Mark) · #18 01-01-2012, 11:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by irwjager

Hi Mark,

That's really interesting! Can you confirm Paint.NET does (at least) 16-bit manipulation (e.g. you can bring out fait objects?) If so that would be very interesting software indeed for beginners that want to dip their toe into astrophotography!

Hi Ivo,

That's a great point around the support for 16 bit operations. I am not sure. I did a quick google search but there was no obvious information around whether this is supported - maybe not...

Cheers,
Mark

Poita (Peter) · #19 04-01-2012, 02:46 PM

I'm a fan of nebulosity for processing:
http://www.stark-labs.com/nebulosity.html

netwolf · #20 06-01-2012, 01:24 AM

Nebulosity is what i went for as well when i first started using my DSLR, recently i aslo got Pixinsight. I have tried Startools and must admit it was very easy to use. Pixinsight has a steeper learning curve but I find it suits me well.

Nebulosity will do DSLR and CCD capture and its possibly the cheapest software to do this. It also can do post processing as well. And not to mention the same author also is behind the famous PHD guiding software.