StarTools

Hi guys,

I have read some good comments about the program and saw perfect examples on youtube. So why don't give it a try.
I opened a single shot from M45 Plejaden in TIFF format and after 3 clicks it's over for me. What am I seeing here, is the picture that bad? This happens with al my shots. It doesn't matter if I do a simple stack with 20 pictures or register 20 pics with darks, (dark)flats, bias etc.
I try to show what happens with some screenshots.

First step from .CR2 to TIFF. No changes made in the RAW convertor I choose the 2nd option Click on Autodev and I am lost What am I doing wrong, what do I see on the image, I went through all the steps of the program it only gets worse.
At this moment the outcome from DSS is even better.

Regards from Eric

Please forgive me for making mistakes in english it isn't that good

Hi Eric,

Thank you for your post and interest in StarTools.

You may find this quick start tutorial useful.

As you can read there, if there is something "wrong" with your image, AutoDev will show you exactly what it is so that you can fix the problem. If nothing is wrong with your image any more (because you have fixed all problems), you can then use AutoDev to stretch your image.

What AutoDev is currently showing you, is that you have a big blue bias in your data. This bias is probably due to light pollution or sky glow and is totally normal. The Wipe module can model and subtract this bias (light pollution is added light - if we can figure out how much was added, we can subtract it so we are left with just the signal of the object).

Other things to look out for in AutoDev are stacking artefacts (crop these away first) dust, noise, oversampling, etc.

Once you have subtracted the bias with Wipe, launch AutoDev again to see if there are any other problems left that need fixing. If you're just left with a lot of noise, then click & drag on the image to define a Region of Interest - AutoDev will then optimize the levels & curves automatically to show the area you specified in the best possible way.

Once you're happy with your final stretch, you can go on with using other tools and modules.

Before you do anything though, please make sure that the data you give StarTools is linear, unstretched, not color balanced. From the screenshot I can tell you gave StarTools data that was modified by Adobe Camera Raw (don't use that software). A single TIFF will not contain enough data - a stack of multiple subs is required.

Hope this helps!