Tiff into DSS and Then FITS into startools

General discussion about StarTools.
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U308041
Posts: 12
Joined: Tue May 21, 2019 5:32 pm

Tiff into DSS and Then FITS into startools

Post by U308041 »

I have been happily using StarTools for three years now. All my Sony mirrorless raw frames taken off the SD card in camera ,stacked in DSS and then FTS file moved into StarTools for processing. When I started guiding and looking for software to trigger the camera , I found Nina (outputs FITS) and Sharpcap (outputs TIFF or FTS). If I go with Sharpcap and stack TIFF files will my StarTools end product suffer in quality.? Thanks for any input
Mike in Rancho
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Joined: Sun Jun 20, 2021 10:05 pm
Location: Alta Loma, CA

Re: Tiff into DSS and Then FITS into startools

Post by Mike in Rancho »

I doubt it. I don't use either, so can't say for sure.

Your RAW files are likely 14-bit. I would think the TIFF or FITS conversion will be to at least 16-bit, maybe 32. DSS' Autosave file, whether TIFF or FITS, is 32-bit after stacking.

The only drawback I could think of in selecting the TIFF files is that DSS does not have a digital development settings window for it, whereas it does for RAW and FITS. I suppose that could be trouble if those files still need debayering, or in rare cases where you need to make adjustments.

But I don't have any such RAW-like TIFFs to experiment with, so can't say for certain how DSS will handle them. Since you say Sharpcap allows FITS also, why not just stick with a well-known input file?
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