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Sequator - Another Stacker possibility
Jan 18, 2017 00:12:49   #
JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA
 
Yi-Ruei Wu, a cellphone SW engineer in Taiwan, decided to write his own stacker program. He introduced this program last may in the Astronomy section of DPREVIEW.COM.

You can find this free program at: https://sites.google.com/site/sequatorglobal/

One thing I always struggle with (well, maybe not the only thing) is keeping color in the stacks. DSS is notorious for turning images to B&W. I took some images a couple nights ago and here is one of Alpha Persei which is part of a moving group, also known at Melotte 20. This is a small stack of only 8 images, and it stacked the RAWs very quickly and the color is still in the stars. I can find some marching hot pixels (I did this with the ALT-AZ mount which I do when I don't want to fight to get a good polar alignment.)

To the left, you can also see NGC1245, a tiny open cluster.

I also made an image with Starry Night for comparison.

The way this stacker program works, is first you identify a reference image, which is your best image you can find in the stack and then add all the other lights, give it an output file and let it rip. It is quite fast. It allows you to add Noise images and Vignetting images plus there are some questions to answer. See the bottom attachment to show how I answered the questions. I find it works with RAWs. But don't try FITs.

The result was taken to Photoshop where I adjusted the background color as it had a bit too much green. And I lightly did a levels adjust and ended up with this. I was using a Rokinon 135mm f2.0 lens. Shot at ISO 1600 and the sky was not dark enough to expose for more than 15 sec for each image. I also can see some tiny other DSOs in the image, but I haven't tried to figure out what they were. I'm just pleased that my stars still have some color.

Image 4 is also processed with Sequator and is Andromeda. Considering there were only 30 images of 15 sec each, this was about a good as it was going to get. The sky was just not dark enough for longer exposures.

RAW Images stacked using Sequator
RAW Images stacked using Sequator...
(Download)


(Download)




(Download)

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Jan 18, 2017 07:55:37   #
Marc G Loc: East Grinstead, West Sussex, England
 
JimH123 wrote:
Yi-Ruei Wu, a cellphone SW engineer in Taiwan, decided to write his own stacker program. He introduced this program last may in the Astronomy section of DPREVIEW.COM.

You can find this free program at: https://sites.google.com/site/sequatorglobal/

One thing I always struggle with (well, maybe not the only thing) is keeping color in the stacks. DSS is notorious for turning images to B&W. I took some images a couple nights ago and here is one of Alpha Persei which is part of a moving group, also known at Melotte 20. This is a small stack of only 8 images, and it stacked the RAWs very quickly and the color is still in the stars. I can find some marching hot pixels (I did this with the ALT-AZ mount which I do when I don't want to fight to get a good polar alignment.)

To the left, you can also see NGC1245, a tiny open cluster.

I also made an image with Starry Night for comparison.

The way this stacker program works, is first you identify a reference image, which is your best image you can find in the stack and then add all the other lights, give it an output file and let it rip. It is quite fast. It allows you to add Noise images and Vignetting images plus there are some questions to answer. See the bottom attachment to show how I answered the questions. I find it works with RAWs. But don't try FITs.

The result was taken to Photoshop where I adjusted the background color as it had a bit too much green. And I lightly did a levels adjust and ended up with this. I was using a Rokinon 135mm f2.0 lens. Shot at ISO 1600 and the sky was not dark enough to expose for more than 15 sec for each image. I also can see some tiny other DSOs in the image, but I haven't tried to figure out what they were. I'm just pleased that my stars still have some color.

Image 4 is also processed with Sequator and is Andromeda. Considering there were only 30 images of 15 sec each, this was about a good as it was going to get. The sky was just not dark enough for longer exposures.
Yi-Ruei Wu, a cellphone SW engineer in Taiwan, dec... (show quote)


Many thanks for this Jim, looks like a real alternative to DSS, great examples of what the software can achieve too
Regards

Marc

Reply
Jan 18, 2017 19:28:51   #
CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.
 
JimH123 wrote:
Yi-Ruei Wu, a cellphone SW engineer in Taiwan, decided to write his own stacker program. He introduced this program last may in the Astronomy section of DPREVIEW.COM.

You can find this free program at: https://sites.google.com/site/sequatorglobal/

One thing I always struggle with (well, maybe not the only thing) is keeping color in the stacks. DSS is notorious for turning images to B&W. I took some images a couple nights ago and here is one of Alpha Persei which is part of a moving group, also known at Melotte 20. This is a small stack of only 8 images, and it stacked the RAWs very quickly and the color is still in the stars. I can find some marching hot pixels (I did this with the ALT-AZ mount which I do when I don't want to fight to get a good polar alignment.)

To the left, you can also see NGC1245, a tiny open cluster.

I also made an image with Starry Night for comparison.

The way this stacker program works, is first you identify a reference image, which is your best image you can find in the stack and then add all the other lights, give it an output file and let it rip. It is quite fast. It allows you to add Noise images and Vignetting images plus there are some questions to answer. See the bottom attachment to show how I answered the questions. I find it works with RAWs. But don't try FITs.

The result was taken to Photoshop where I adjusted the background color as it had a bit too much green. And I lightly did a levels adjust and ended up with this. I was using a Rokinon 135mm f2.0 lens. Shot at ISO 1600 and the sky was not dark enough to expose for more than 15 sec for each image. I also can see some tiny other DSOs in the image, but I haven't tried to figure out what they were. I'm just pleased that my stars still have some color.

Image 4 is also processed with Sequator and is Andromeda. Considering there were only 30 images of 15 sec each, this was about a good as it was going to get. The sky was just not dark enough for longer exposures.
Yi-Ruei Wu, a cellphone SW engineer in Taiwan, dec... (show quote)

Very nicely done Jim I'm going to give Sequator a good try.
Craig

Reply
 
 
Jan 19, 2017 15:23:02   #
SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA
 
I downloaded it and when I tried to install it BOTH Windows and Norton stopped it.

Someting smell like last months fish heads...

And I had such high hopes too.....

Reply
Jan 19, 2017 15:28:03   #
CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.
 
SonnyE wrote:
I downloaded it and when I tried to install it BOTH Windows and Norton stopped it.

Someting smell like last months fish heads...

And I had such high hopes too.....

My antivirus and windows 10 didn't have any problems running the install.
Craig

Reply
Jan 19, 2017 15:53:50   #
JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA
 
SonnyE wrote:
I downloaded it and when I tried to install it BOTH Windows and Norton stopped it.

Someting smell like last months fish heads...

And I had such high hopes too.....


I didn't have any problems. But try suspending while installing.

Reply
Jan 19, 2017 17:57:53   #
Albuqshutterbug Loc: Albuquerque NM
 
My windows 10 didn't like that it's from an unknown source. I told it to get over it and it loaded without issue. Just need to find time to learn it.

Reply
 
 
Jan 19, 2017 19:21:40   #
CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.
 
Albuqshutterbug wrote:
My windows 10 didn't like that it's from an unknown source. I told it to get over it and it loaded without issue. Just need to find time to learn it.

It's pretty easy if you setup the parameters the way Jim H did.
I got some decent results.
Craig

Reply
Jan 19, 2017 21:22:28   #
JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA
 
CraigFair wrote:
It's pretty easy if you setup the parameters the way Jim H did.
I got some decent results.
Craig


I need to read up on what each of those switches do. I find some stacks don't look so good with auto brightness for example.

And it has a feature to sense what is land and to use just one of the images for that portion of the image while stacking the sky. I haven't tried that yet.

Reply
Jan 20, 2017 02:28:04   #
Marc G Loc: East Grinstead, West Sussex, England
 
JimH123 wrote:
Yi-Ruei Wu, a cellphone SW engineer in Taiwan, decided to write his own stacker program. He introduced this program last may in the Astronomy section of DPREVIEW.COM.

You can find this free program at: https://sites.google.com/site/sequatorglobal/

One thing I always struggle with (well, maybe not the only thing) is keeping color in the stacks. DSS is notorious for turning images to B&W. I took some images a couple nights ago and here is one of Alpha Persei which is part of a moving group, also known at Melotte 20. This is a small stack of only 8 images, and it stacked the RAWs very quickly and the color is still in the stars. I can find some marching hot pixels (I did this with the ALT-AZ mount which I do when I don't want to fight to get a good polar alignment.)

To the left, you can also see NGC1245, a tiny open cluster.

I also made an image with Starry Night for comparison.

I am too having issues installing it on windows 7 pro 64bit, keep getting missing dl file???????

The way this stacker program works, is first you identify a reference image, which is your best image you can find in the stack and then add all the other lights, give it an output file and let it rip. It is quite fast. It allows you to add Noise images and Vignetting images plus there are some questions to answer. See the bottom attachment to show how I answered the questions. I find it works with RAWs. But don't try FITs.

The result was taken to Photoshop where I adjusted the background color as it had a bit too much green. And I lightly did a levels adjust and ended up with this. I was using a Rokinon 135mm f2.0 lens. Shot at ISO 1600 and the sky was not dark enough to expose for more than 15 sec for each image. I also can see some tiny other DSOs in the image, but I haven't tried to figure out what they were. I'm just pleased that my stars still have some color.

Image 4 is also processed with Sequator and is Andromeda. Considering there were only 30 images of 15 sec each, this was about a good as it was going to get. The sky was just not dark enough for longer exposures.
Yi-Ruei Wu, a cellphone SW engineer in Taiwan, dec... (show quote)

Reply
Jan 20, 2017 02:43:01   #
Marc G Loc: East Grinstead, West Sussex, England
 
SonnyE wrote:
I downloaded it and when I tried to install it BOTH Windows and Norton stopped it.

Someting smell like last months fish heads...

And I had such high hopes too.....


Win 7 pro 64 bit kicked it out, missing dll file, but fault maybe within windows visual 2015 C++
keep you posted if i find a work around

Reply
 
 
Jan 20, 2017 09:49:29   #
CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.
 
Marc G wrote:
Win 7 pro 64 bit kicked it out, missing dll file, but fault maybe within windows visual 2015 C++
keep you posted if i find a work around

Hey Marc, I had to copy all the file to the same folder.
Craig

Reply
Jan 20, 2017 11:48:01   #
SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA
 
If you guys all get a computer bird flu, don't send it to me Please.

I was just surprised two different things acted like it was the plague.

Reply
Jan 21, 2017 04:30:17   #
Marc G Loc: East Grinstead, West Sussex, England
 
CraigFair wrote:
Hey Marc, I had to copy all the file to the same folder.
Craig


lost me on that one Craig?

Reply
Jan 21, 2017 05:29:41   #
Marc G Loc: East Grinstead, West Sussex, England
 
finally figured out how to get this to work on win 7 so frustrating.
First thing you're going to want to do is uninstall visual c++ 2015 completely restart your computer.
Then go to control panel go to all control panel items go to Windows update in the control panel go to change settings and then enable never check for updates.Restart your computer.
Then go to this website https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2999226 and download x86 or x64 install it then restart pc.
Then install visual c++ 2015 restart your computer.
you're done it's fixed I hope this helps because this problem was a nightmare. at least for me. works for Windows 7 most likely will work on all operating systems from Microsoft.

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