Using Regim with StarTools
Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 7:38 am
I was inspired by the post here to have a look at Regim by Andreas Rörig as an alternative to Deep Sky Stacker (DSS).
I thought it might be useful to share the setup I am currently using - and would be interested in others' experience and advice.
EDIT: Others have reported a problem with colours in some circumstances but I am having difficulty isolating the reason for this. I'll investigate this and will provide an update when I have a resolution. If anyone has similar issues please let me know.
One reason for problems with colour is that the camera is not supported directly by Regim and you need to set up DCRAW support.
I have described a simple colour test below so that you can check to see if you need to set up DCRAW support.
Installing:
- In the 'Preprocessing' Menu select 'Preprocessing'
Select 'Calibration' tab:
Select 'Files' tab
When complete the resulting image is displayed -
The image is automatically stretched just for viewing - to see the unstretched image press the function key F4
You can adjust the stretch by moving the black and white point sliders on the right. This does not change the saved image.
Note: If colour, the resulting image is not white balanced.
Save the file in Tiff or Fits format.
Load into StarTools:
- If it is a (stacked) RAW monochrome image select 'Linear, was not Bayered or is white balanced'
- If it is a (stacked) RAW DSLR or OSC colour image select 'Linear, was Bayered, is not white balanced'
For more information on loading files in StarTools see StarTools Main Window Use.
Notes:
RAW Support:
- Regim makes a number of temporary .fit files which can be deleted after completion.
Memory use and Performance:
The cmd file you start Regim with affects how much memory is used and performance.
- regim.cmd uses 2GB RAM
- regimSmall.cmd uses 1GB RAM but will be slower
- regimLarge.cmd uses 3GB RAM and should be faster
Bicubic Interpolation Setting:
Checking Regim Settings:
Other functions
Regim also has some other interesting functions and tools not used here - it is worth exploring further. These include Photometry, Plate Solving and listing the stars in an image.
I'm still refining the settings and will update this post if my process changes
I'd be interested if anyone else has different settings they prefer - or any other experience or advice regarding Regim.
Guy
I thought it might be useful to share the setup I am currently using - and would be interested in others' experience and advice.
EDIT: Others have reported a problem with colours in some circumstances but I am having difficulty isolating the reason for this. I'll investigate this and will provide an update when I have a resolution. If anyone has similar issues please let me know.
One reason for problems with colour is that the camera is not supported directly by Regim and you need to set up DCRAW support.
I have described a simple colour test below so that you can check to see if you need to set up DCRAW support.
Installing:
- Follow the instructions on the web site and in the manual for installing it - make sure you have Java Runtime Environment 1.6.0 or higher installed.
- Start Regim by clicking on regim.cmd (or regimSmall.cmd - which uses less memory - if that doesn't work)
- In the 'Preprocessing' Menu select 'Preprocessing'
Select 'Calibration' tab:
- Repair defects -unticked - only available for mono images
Files are RAW -ticked - for DSLR and OSC images only
Standard DSLR -ticked - for DSLR - tick 'Custom' for OSC CCD or if camera not recognised
Stretch RAW to 16 bit -ticked - Output uses full 16-bit dynamic range
Auto scaling -unticked
Auto offset -unticked
- 'Manual one star/Comet' - unticked
Parameters below kept at default:- Number of stars - 130
Star min. brightness - 0.05 - Lower threshold for star detection - see the 'Status' field for number of stars found
Star max. brightness - 1.0 - Upper threshold
FWHM low limit: - 2.0
Transform mode - Linear
Search radius - 10 - arcsecs/pixel - depends on image scale
Same scale -ticked - if all images have the same scale
bicubic interpolation -ticked - untick if you have problems and image is oversampled
normalize background -ticked - tick if using 'Sigma' or 'SDmask' - untick for 'Median' and other combination methods - Number of stars - 130
- Option - 'Sigma' -with a sigma of 1.6 or 'Median' - select from: Blend, Median, Sigma, SDMask or Maximum
Ignore black border -ticked - ignores any black border during combination
Select 'Files' tab
- Navigate to the correct folder.
Select the type of sub-frame (RAW, TIF, FITS or JPEG) using the 'Files of Type' drop down list.
Select Lights files and press 'Add to images'
Select Darks files and press 'Add to darks'
Select Flats files and press 'Add to flats'
Select Flat Darks (Dark Flats) and press 'Add to flat darks'
- You can use Bias frames instead of dark flats here if the Flats exposure time is not longer than a few seconds.
do calibration -ticked
do deblooming -unticked - tick if using a camera without antiblooming
do normalisation -unticked
do register -ticked
do preview -unticked
do combination -ticked
Press the 'OK' button at the bottom of the form and processing will start
When complete the resulting image is displayed -
The image is automatically stretched just for viewing - to see the unstretched image press the function key F4
You can adjust the stretch by moving the black and white point sliders on the right. This does not change the saved image.
Note: If colour, the resulting image is not white balanced.
Save the file in Tiff or Fits format.
Load into StarTools:
- If it is a (stacked) RAW monochrome image select 'Linear, was not Bayered or is white balanced'
- If it is a (stacked) RAW DSLR or OSC colour image select 'Linear, was Bayered, is not white balanced'
For more information on loading files in StarTools see StarTools Main Window Use.
Notes:
RAW Support:
- Regim supports RAW files itself using jrawio for RAW file conversion - which supports fewer cameras than dcraw. You can check support using the instructions below.
- If your camera is not supported you may need to install dcraw (if not already installed) and point to where it is installed:
'File' Menu - Preferences:
'Use DCRaw' - tick- - set the path to point to the location of the dcraw .exe file (e.g. C:\Program Files\dcraw\dcraw-9.24-ms-64-bit.exe)
- Note: Version 8.98 (32-bit) of dcraw didn't work for me - it worked OK with version 9.27 (32-bit and 64-bit)
- - set the path to point to the location of the dcraw .exe file (e.g. C:\Program Files\dcraw\dcraw-9.24-ms-64-bit.exe)
- jrawio produces images which are slightly different in size to dcraw. So if you want to compare Regim with DSS directly you will need to use the dcraw option.
- Regim makes a number of temporary .fit files which can be deleted after completion.
Memory use and Performance:
The cmd file you start Regim with affects how much memory is used and performance.
- regim.cmd uses 2GB RAM
- regimSmall.cmd uses 1GB RAM but will be slower
- regimLarge.cmd uses 3GB RAM and should be faster
Bicubic Interpolation Setting:
- The user manual says not to use bicubic interpolation if the image is oversampled. However, problems have been reported which have been fixed by turning bicubic interpolation on. This is why the recommendation is to turn it on.
- If you are experiencing problems which may relate to registration - try turning it off:
- 'Register' tab - bicubic interpolation - unticked
Checking Regim Settings:
- Preprocess the single RAW file Colour_Test_1_RAW.CR2 on its own using Regim.
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- Colour_Test_1_CDPP_TIFF-small.jpg (12.21 KiB) Viewed 55821 times
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- The Camera it was taken with was an unmodified Canon 1000D which is not supported directly by Regim so you will need to either:
- set up DCRAW support as described above, or
- in the 'Calibration' tab you will need select 'Custom' and tick 'First row contains red pixel' - Preprocess as described above but don't set up 'Register' tab and keep 'do register' unticked
- Save the result as a tiff file
- The result should look like SigmaCombinedFiles-dcraw-16b.tiff
- The short fatter blue pen should be on the right and the red pen on the left.
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- SigmaCombinedFiles-dcraw-16b-small.jpg (3.79 KiB) Viewed 55822 times
- If not, there is a problem with the Regim settings - go back and check them.
- If the image is very dark it might be because you have not ticked 'Stretch RAW to 16 bit' on the 'Calibration' tab. -
- Take a similar image with your own camera and repeat the test and check the image looks as expected.
- If not, then the camera is not being properly supported and you will need to set up DCRAW support as described above.
Other functions
Regim also has some other interesting functions and tools not used here - it is worth exploring further. These include Photometry, Plate Solving and listing the stars in an image.
I'm still refining the settings and will update this post if my process changes
I'd be interested if anyone else has different settings they prefer - or any other experience or advice regarding Regim.
Guy
