Useful Software

Tzetze

Dark Library

Taking darks during an imaging session can use up a lot of time that is better spent collecting photons. Building up a library of darks at various exposure/ISO/temperature is very well worth doing.

Dark Library is a great freeware app that will keep track of all your darks. It hasn't been updated in quite some time so may not read latest RAW formats but is definitely worth trying.

With Dark Library you can import a Deep Sky Stacker generated filelist of sub-exposures. Scan the list to read exif data for the lights and then auto match darks to fit exposure, ISO and temperature range (ideally you want a temperature range of +/- 1 degree). Save the filelist to include the darks and re-open in DSS, ready for stacking.

You can download the exe via rapidshare here.

Tzetze

CCD Calc

Here's a useful tool to show how over 230 different objects (Messier, IC, NGC, Solar System, and more) will appear in the FOV for any combination of CCD/DSLR, Telescope/Lens, Barlow/Reducer.

Link

Tzetze

Astrotortilla

This is a wrapper software that controls a mount via ASCOM and camera through any of the most used image capturing software (Maxim DL, APT, Nebulosity, etc). It also incorporates Astrometry.net's plate solving algorithms.

This is a very impressive tool, that can quickly and accurately aid polar alignment using 2x 5s exposures of anywhere in the sky.

Without any GOTO calibration, you can point AT to an image of your target and it will get you there automatically within a couple of minutes!

Astrotortilla Home

Popoutman

http://www.astrosurf.com/buil/us/iris/iris.htm
IRIS freeware astrophotography tool. Huge capability, some of the functions are definitely extremely resource intensive.

I've used this for alignment and stacking of DSLR frames, as well as dark generation. The image processing is reasonable but not as good as some other tools, but definitely better than e.g. paint.net for most astro processing functions.

ZeRoY

Popoutman wrote: »

http://www.astrosurf.com/buil/us/iris/iris.htm
IRIS freeware astrophotography tool. Huge capability, some of the functions are definitely extremely resource intensive.

I've used this for alignment and stacking of DSLR frames, as well as dark generation. The image processing is reasonable but not as good as some other tools, but definitely better than e.g. paint.net for most astro processing functions.

Main issue for me is that its rather old and doesnt support the RAW files from my 1100D

ZeRoY

Tzetze wrote: »

CCD Calc

Here's a useful tool to show how over 230 different objects (Messier, IC, NGC, Solar System, and more) will appear in the FOV for any combination of CCD/DSLR, Telescope/Lens, Barlow/Reducer.

Link

Very similar Online version with more Cameras and telescope:

http://www.12dstring.me.uk/fov.htm