It has a very simple interface and is far easier to use by beginners. So I was very interested to see how Sequator handled the raw files. So, along with quite a number of other astrophotographers, I have been first converting my raw files into Tiff files before stacking in Deep Sky Stacker. This could possibly be that Raw Therapee uses a more sophisticated de-Bayering algorithm or that Deep Sky Stacker overexposes them when processing the raw files so increasing their size and reducing their saturation. NEF raw files in Deep Sky Stacker and that the star images were somewhat tighter. I discovered that the result when stacking the Tiff files derived by Raw Therapee gave a far better colour to the bright blue stars within the cluster than that derived directly from the. It could be well worth reading this article. NEF raw files were first converted into Tiff files. In an extensive article, ‘ Deep Sky Stacker: could it be worth first converting raw files into Tiffs? A case study imaging M35 and NGC 2158’, I came to the conclusion that the best results were obtained when the. I was not using a field flattener, but the stellar images were perfect across the unvignetted field of view. As a result, the field was significantly vignetted but the two clusters were well covered. The telescope has a 3-inch focuser but, having a 2-inch barrel, could not be expected to cover the full frame sensor. The D610 was controlled over a USB cable from an Android tablet using the program qDslrDashboard and took 56, 20 second, exposures at an ISO of 800. The raw frames had been taken using a full frame Nikon D610 attached to a CFF Telescope’s 127 mm apochromat refractor employing an aspherical oil-spaced triplet objective. I currently do not have any wide angle data to try out, but decided to test Sequator with a set of Nikon raw files that I have extensively tried out with Deep Sky Stacker. As a result, the stars within the sky will be sharp as will be the foreground. The programs will then stack the sky area accounting for the movement of the stars across the sky but stack the foreground with no movement. The sky area is selected leaving the foreground unselected. In this case, a fixed tripod is used with exposures short enough to prevent star trailing. They both have the ability to treat the sky and any foreground separately – great for wide angle night landscapes. The former is only available for the Mac and the latter for Windows. More recently, two new stacking programs have become available Starry Landscape Stacker (~£38.99) and Sequator (free, but a contribution by paypal for a cup of coffee or two is suggested). The latest 64-bit version seems very stable. The examples below are testament to the results you can achieve with this method.For many years I have been using Deep Sky Stacker to align and stack my short exposure frames to give the result of a longer exposure. Most smartphones come with a “Pro Mode” in the camera app that allows you to capture RAW files, so all you need to do is capture multiple images, the more the better, and stack them yourself. For Windows users the best option is Sequator and for Mac users the best option is Starry Landscape Stacker. Unfortunately no other smartphone offers automatic stacking but there are apps that allow you to do the stacking process yourself. All you have to do is put the smartphone on a tripod, press the shutter button and wait. Whilst it doesn’t offer much creative control, it’s certainly a really accessible way for beginners to try astrophotography. What’s more impressive is that in order to do the stacking process the software is stacking the foreground first, separating the sky and aligning the stars in each frame before stacking those and blending it back onto the foreground. The resulting image is a pretty clean, decent looking astrophotograph. The final edit of the image is then applied by AI which Google has trained by making it assess thousands of astrophotographs captured by professional cameras. As the noise is random in each exposure, creating an average will remove the noise and the scene that remains constant throughout shines through. The smartphone then captures multiple 15-second exposures and stacks them to create an average, which removes a lot of the noise. At maximum it will be 4-minutes long, but maybe shorter if you’re not in such a dark environment. There are no options for manual control, you just press the shutter button and then a timer starts. You first have to go into Night Sight mode and then your smartphone has to be on a tripod, or by some other means perfectly still, and then it will automatically suggest that you try astrophotography mode. Let’s first take a look at the Google Pixel line which has a built-in astrophotography mode.
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