StarTools

Hi! to all

Question being a new to AP is DNG,TIF, and RAW the only format that StarTools well recognize?

Farscape1 wrote:Hi! to all

Question being a new to AP is DNG,TIF, and RAW the only format that StarTools well recognize?

Hi!

Welcome to the hobby (or money pit as some like to call it ).
StarTools recognises TIF and FITS files, fore the sole reason that these are the resulting image files that you get when you stack multiple RAW (or DNG, or CR2, etc.) files.
Stacking multiple frames and calibrating your data (using 'flat', 'bias' and/or 'dark' frames) is a virtual necessity to get some usable signal.
A free program that stacks your RAW/DNG/CR2 files is Deep Sky Stacker - use its virgin output (32-bit integer FITS files preferred) in StarTools and you're good to go post-processing!

Good luck!

Hi Ivo

I have been looking for a more 'intuitive' package, since I do struggle with Iris.

StarTools looked like it might be the perfect answer. However, I use a DSLR and from the above post, StarTools will not deal with RAW files and you suggest DSS for dealing with these and stacking. This does seem to detract from the 'one shop stop' I was hoping for with your product.

Are there any ongoing plans to allow StarTools to deal with the usual DSLR formats, creating the sort of programme that I am hoping to find?

Thanks,

Callum

celticcallum wrote:Hi Ivo

I have been looking for a more 'intuitive' package, since I do struggle with Iris.

StarTools looked like it might be the perfect answer. However, I use a DSLR and from the above post, StarTools will not deal with RAW files and you suggest DSS for dealing with these and stacking. This does seem to detract from the 'one shop stop' I was hoping for with your product.

Are there any ongoing plans to allow StarTools to deal with the usual DSLR formats, creating the sort of programme that I am hoping to find?

Thanks,

Callum

Hi Callum,

Welcome to the StarTools forum and astrophotography!
I cannot stress enough how important it is to stack and calibrate and dither your images to get a usable data set. Otherwise these data sets will exhibit gradients, dust donuts, dead/hot pixels, pattern noise or simply lack enough signal to bring out the object of interest. Note that these things do not cost anything, yet are biggest improvements you can make to your data right of the bat. RAW files unfortunately, do not cut it as a sole data source and results are very likely to disappoint. As such, the use of a stacking and calibration solution is required in conjunction with StarTools.

If despite this advice you would still like to use a single RAW file as a datasource, you can convert such RAW files using free software like RawTherapee to an uncompressed 16-bit TIFF file, which can be imported into StarTools.

The good (and exciting) news is that one of our users is working on a Stacking solution right now that promises to yield better results than other solutions when used in conjunction with StarTools. It's early days but experiments look promising!

Hi Ivo

Thank you for your reply. Please excuse my ignorance but I am very new to imaging DSOs and indeed using a DSLR!

I was always advised to set my camera for RAW files for this sort of work (the idea being to use IRIS afterwards, which I think converts these possibly to TIFs and then stacks them?).

I have had issues with DSS (it will not stack more than one picture) though it has been suggested by a couple of others that I might have the wrong version of DSS for my camera (Canon 600d). I really need to try to find out if this is the case.

So can I just confirm that your programme is designed to process a stacked set of images? Sorry to be a nuisance

Regards,

Callum

Hi Callum,

No problem at all, and we're here to answer all your questions (where the only rule is that the only 'dumb' question, is the question that never got asked ).

celticcallum wrote: I was always advised to set my camera for RAW files for this sort of work (the idea being to use IRIS afterwards, which I think converts these possibly to TIFs and then stacks them?).

That advice is definitely correct (use RAWs for everything!). The stacker (e.g. DSS) will convert the RAWs to the format it needs internally and then lets you export the final stacked result as a TIFF or FITS file (32-bit integer FITS preferred).

I have had issues with DSS (it will not stack more than one picture) though it has been suggested by a couple of others that I might have the wrong version of DSS for my camera (Canon 600d). I really need to try to find out if this is the case.

Grab the latest beta version from the Yahoo forums. There are some other things to be mindful of when using DSS, but we'll cross this bridge when we get to it (just ask here!).

Also - and this might sound strange coming from a (perceived) competitor - depending on what you have to spend and whether you mind the steep learning curve involved, you might also want to check out PixInsight which incorporates stacking and pre-processing tools (superior to DSS), as well as post-processing (though UI and signal processing engine of the latter not being very modern, smart or user friendly). They have a 45-day trial.

So can I just confirm that your programme is designed to process a stacked set of images?

That is correct; post-processing of a stacked data set only. Do give StarTools' trial/demo a spin with your own data to see if you like it and to see whether it works well on your system (ST can be very hardware-intensive due to it's 'Tracking' processing engine). Here to help as well if you'd like a demonstration/work flow of how to process your data.

Hope this helps!