Durham Astronomical Society
Useful software links
There are quite a few astronomical packages on the market. We have put together a few of the most useful free software packages available.
Star Chart
Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like you would see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.
It is being used in planetarium projectors. Just set your coordinates and go.
​
Also Stellarium Mobile Sky Map is available to purchase on Google Play.
It
is a
fully-featured
planetarium
for
your
phone.
It
shows
a
realistic
and
accurate
night
sky
map,
just
as
you
would
see
with
the
naked
eye,
binoculars
or a
telescope.
The
sensor
control
will
also
enable
you
to
identify
a
star
in
just
a
few
seconds,
just
by
pointing
the
phone
at
the
sky!
Star Chart
Cartes du Ciel
(Linux, Windows, Mac OS X)
This
program
enables
you
to
draw
sky
charts,
making
use
of
the
data
in
many
catalogs
of
stars
and
nebulae.
In
addition
the
position
of
planets,
asteroids
and
comets
are
shown.
The
purpose
of
this
program
is
to
prepare
different
sky
maps
for
a
particular
observation.
A
large
number
of
parameters
help
you
to
choose
specifically
or
automatically
which
catalogs
to
use,
the
colour
and
the
dimension
of
stars
and
nebulae,
the
representation
of
planets,
the
display
of
labels
and
coordinate
grids,
the
superposition
of
pictures,
the
condition
of
visibility
and
more.
All
these
features
make
this
celestial
atlas
more
complete
than
a
conventional
planetarium.
Star chart and Space Simulator
Celestia
(Linux, Windows, Mac OS X)
Celestia is a 3D astronomy program created by Chris Laurel. The program is based on the Hipparcos Catalogue and allows users to virtually travel through an extensive universe, modeled after reality, at any speed, in any direction, and at any time in history.
Useful software links
Star Chart
C2A (Computer Aided Astronomy)
(MS Windows)
C2A is a Planetarium software that allows you to build detailed views of stellar fields. It is only available for the Microsoft Windows Operating System (all versions). An important objective of this software is to take into account the main catalogues available to professional and amateur astronomers in order to prepare observations on small fields as well as astrometry and photometry works. C2A is also an easy to use general purpose Planetarium software with many functions.
Star Chart
Aladin Sky Atlas
Java based runs in (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc)
Aladin is an interactive sky atlas allowing the user to visualize digitized astronomical images or full surveys, superimpose entries from astronomical catalogues or databases, and interactively access related data and information from the Simbad database, the VizieR service and other archives for all known astronomical objects in the field.
Aladin Desktop provides direct data access to most of the astronomical servers over the world (CDS, NED, ESO, CADC, MAST, HEASARC, NRAO, ROE, IMCCE, etc), and obviously, local user data.
Also Aladin lite which is a lightweight version of the Aladin tool, running in the browser and geared towards simple visualization of a sky region.
​
Star Charts and More
KStars
(Windows/OSX/Linux)
KStars Lite
(Android)
KStars is
free,
open
source,
cross-platform
Astronomy
Software.
It
provides
an
accurate
graphical
simulation
of
the
night
sky,
from
any
location
on
Earth,
at
any
date
and
time.
The
display
includes
up
to
100
million
stars,
13,000
deep-sky
objects,all
8
planets,
the
Sun
and
Moon,
and
thousands
of
comets,
asteroids,
supernovae,
and
satellites.
For
students
and
teachers,
it
supports
adjustable
simulation
speeds
in
order
to
view
phenomena
that
happen
over
long
timescales,
the
KStars
Astrocalculator
to
predict
conjunctions,
and
many
common
astronomical
calculations.
For
the
amateur
astronomer,
it
provides
an
observation
planner,
a
sky
calendar
tool,
and
an
FOV
editor
to
calculate
field
of
view
of
equipment
and
display
them.
Find
out
interesting
objects
in
the
"What's
up
Tonight"
tool,
plot
altitude
vs.
time
graphs
for
any
object,
print
high-quality
sky
charts,
and
gain
access
to
lots
of
information
and
resources
to
help
you
explore
the
universe!
Included
with
KStars
is
Ekos
astrophotography
suite,
a
complete
astrophotography
solution
that
can
control
all
INDI
devices
including
numerous
telescopes,
CCDs,
DSLRs,
focusers,
filters,
and
a
lot
more.
Ekos
supports
highly
accurate
tracking
using
online
and
offline
astrometry
solver,
autofocus
and
autoguiding
capabilities,
and
capture
of
single
or
multiple
images
using
the
powerful
built
in
sequence
manager.
Useful software links
Useful software links
Astro Imaging
APT
(MS Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10)
APT stands for "Astro Photography Tool" and it is like Swiss army knife for your astro imaging sessions. No matter what are imaging with - Canon EOS, Nikon, CCD or CMOS astro camera, APT has the right tool for planning, collimating, aligning, focusing, framing, controlling/tethering, imaging, synchronizing, scheduling, analyzing and monitoring. All its features are packed in an easy and comfortable to use interface with design that had no alternative back in 2009 when it was released. Since then APT is constantly being improved and refined by the real experience of many astro photographers from all over the world including one of the APT authors.
The demo can be down loaded free to try with no time limit. The full version can be purchased for about 18.70 Euro. With a yearly fee of 6 Euro if you wish to keep up to date with the latest updates.
Image
Manipulation Software
(DeepSky)
DeepSkyStacker
(Windows XP SP2, Windows 2000, Windows 2003 Server, Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10)
DeepSkyStacker is a freeware for astrophotographers that simplifies all the pre-processing steps of deep sky pictures.
- Registering -
- Stacking -
- Simple post-stacking processes to quickly view the final result -
- Saving the resulting image to a TIFF or FITS file (16 or 32 bit) -
After
a shooting night you
give all your pictures
(light frames, darks
frames, offset/bias
frames, flat frames) to
DeepSkyStacker and you
go to bed. The next
morning (or is it
afternoon?) you can see
the result and start
post-processing.
Planetary Imaging PreProcessor
(FREE)
PIPP - Planetary Imaging PreProcessor
(MS Windows, Linux and macOS)
PIPP is a Windows application designed for pre-processing planetary images before stacking them with image stacking software such as Registax. PIPP's main purpose is to crop each image frame and select only the best quality frames to reduce the memory and processing requirements of the stacking software. For example, this would allow the best 1500 frames from a 7200 frame AVI (2 minute AVI at 60 fps) to be cropped ready for stacking by Registax. On my PC, Registax does not handle AVI files with that many frames but can easily handle 1500 pre-processed bitmap files so this is very useful.
PIPP was originally written to speed up the my own processing of the multitude large AVI files that that each planetary imaging session seems to generate. Now that PIPP has reached the point where it does actually speed up my processing workflow I decided to make it available to others to see if they find it useful and maybe give a little back to the astronomy community.
​
Image Capture Suite
Sequence Generator Pro v3.0
(Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10)
About Sequence Generator Pro
Sequence Generator was conceived under dark skies in 2010. While we know that engineers, in the absence of any real tasking, will normally be dangerous (at best), we actually used this time as the genesis of something we consider to be quite useful. Originally designed to act as a front end to the Nebulosity imaging suite, Sequence Generator started showing its potential immediately. Suddenly we were able to produce and execute fairly complex sequences without having to reset or perform manual actions for something as minor as a filter change. The best part was that we didn't need to spend a fortune to get access to this level of functionality. Over the next two years Sequence Generator, due do a variety of restrictions we faced when using third party imaging interfaces, created its own native interface. The "Pro" version of Sequence Generator morphed into a highly configurable, best in class, image capture suite.
​
The the full program can be down loaded free to try with a time limit of 45 days. The full version can be purchased for : $149.00 now then $59.00 / year.
Image
Manipulation software
(Planetary Luna and
Solar)
Registax 6
(Windows and Linux)
Registax 6 is image processing software for amateur astrophotographers released as freeware, designed to run under Windows but which also runs on Linux, under wine. Its purpose is to produce enhanced images of astronomic observations through combining and aligning consecutive photographs (an image"stack") of the same scene, that were taken over a short period of time. The stack of images can be in the form of individual consecutive shots or from frames of a video trained on the scene. The process relies on the subject (e.g. a planet) being unchanged between photographs, so that any differences can be assumed to be random noise or atmospheric interference.
Image
Manipulation software
(Planetary Luna and
Solar)
AutoStakkert
​(MS Windows)
AutoStakkert! is all about alignment and stacking sequences of image, to minimise the influence of atmospheric distortions (seeing). To create high quality images of the Planets, the Sun, and the Moon, showing features that in a single shot image would be smudged out by seeing.
Useful software links
Planetary Capture Software
FireCapture
​(Linux, Windows, Mac OS X)
FireCapture is the most popular capture software and it supports a number of different cameras. Over the years it has grown into a multifaceted tool for planetary image acquisition. Automating every thing from focusing, filter changing and tracking of objects.
Image
Manipulation
Software
(DeepSky)
StarTools
(Windows 32-bit and 64-bit, Intel MacOSX 64-bit, Intel Linux 32-bit and 64-bit, and ARM Android 32-bit devices)
StarTools
is a
image post-processing
application
built
from
the
ground
up
exclusively
for
modern
hardware
and
modern
astrophotographers.
By
tracking
signal
and
noise
evolution
during
processing,
it
lets
you
effortlessly
accomplish
hitherto
"impossible"
feats
like
deconvolution
of a
heavily
processed
image,
or
autonomous
denoising
without
local
supports
or
masks.
Having
per-pixel
knowledge
of
signal
and
noise
levels
at
all
times,
StarTools
effortlessly
produces
results
that
have
a
high
fidelity,
while
making
it
far
easier
to
use
than
traditional
astrophotography
software.
StarTools
puts
the
onus on
the
software
to
understand
the
user's
intentions,
rather
than
putting
the
onus
on
the
user
to
understand
the
software.
This
belief
has
seen StarTools
become
the
tool
of
choice
for
a
many
thousands
of
enthusiasts,
schools
and
institutions.
​
You can evaluate the trial version for as long as you like before buying. It is fully functional, apart from being unable to save your work.
A StarTools license is currently priced at 65 AUD (approximately 50 USD, 45 EUR, or 40 GBP).
​
Telescope Guiding Software
PHD2
(Windows, Mac OS X)
PHD2 is telescope guiding software that simplifies the process of tracking a guide star, letting you concentrate on other aspects of deep-sky imaging or spectroscopy.
-
Easy-to-use, “push here dummy” guiding for beginners
-
Sophisticated guiding and analysis tools for experienced users
-
Extensive support for commonly-used equipment
-
Easy upgrade/co-installation with PHD1, including many new features
-
Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux
-
Extensive online help and responsive product support
Telescope Guiding Software
AstroTortilla
(Windows)
AstroTortilla is a package of common astrophotography tools intended to automate basic tasks such as polar alignment and goto correction.
Features include
-
Integrates existing solutions without reinventing the wheel
-
Automated plate-solved GoTo correction
-
Fully automatic blind GoTo calibration
-
Fast, quantitative polar alignment by plate-solving
-
Automatic slew to an existing astrophotgraphy location
-
Automated drift alignment shot
Useful software links
Deep Sky Image Stacking and Processing Software
Deep Sky Image Stacking and Processing Software
Astro Pixel Processor By Aries Productions
(Runs on: Linux (RPM & DEB), Windows & MacOS 64bits Operating Systems)
One of the main goals in the development of APP, is to make a complete Deep Sky Image Processing application that maintains ease of use while automatically using the most advanced algorithms to provide excellent results without the need to tweak dozens of parameters. APP will give very good results with default parameters on a wide range of datasets.
You can try with a free 30 days trial
A full licence is £143 and is a one off covering all updates.
Deep Sky Image Stacking and Processing Software
Astro Pixel Processor By Aries Productions
(Runs on: Linux (RPM & DEB), Windows & MacOS 64bits Operating Systems)
One of the main goals in the development of APP, is to make a complete Deep Sky Image Processing application that maintains ease of use while automatically using the most advanced algorithms to provide excellent results without the need to tweak dozens of parameters. APP will give very good results with default parameters on a wide range of datasets.
You can try with a free 30 days trial
A full licence is £143 and is a one off covering all updates.
Deep Sky Image Stacking and Processing Software
Astro Pixel Processor By Aries Productions
(Runs on: Linux (RPM & DEB), Windows & MacOS 64bits Operating Systems)
One of the main goals in the development of APP, is to make a complete Deep Sky Image Processing application that maintains ease of use while automatically using the most advanced algorithms to provide excellent results without the need to tweak dozens of parameters. APP will give very good results with default parameters on a wide range of datasets.
You can try with a free 30 days trial
A full licence is £143 and is a one off covering all updates.
Deep Sky Image Stacking Software
Sequator
(Windows)
Sequator is a free software which can track stars on multiple images, align stars and stack them.
If you don't have an equatorial mount, by stacking non-blur star images in short-time exposures, the result will be almost similar to long-exposure on an equatorial mount. However, Sequator can control the exposure properly by auto-brightness or HDR-mode output, in 16-bit TIFF for further post processing. Additionally average random noises, rather than over-exposed on a physical equatorial mount.
-
Easy; user friendly
-
Fast
-
Automatic determination for best parameters
-
Capable under heavy light pollution
-
Powerful correction for wide-angle & complex distortions
-
Intelligent sky mask
-
Foreground detection & stacking
-
Star light enhancement function
-
Light pollution reduction function
-
Support star trails mode
-
Batch processing for time-lapse
-
Support RAW & 16-bit TIFF
Planetary Mapping and Image Processing Software
_.jpg)
WinJUPOS
(Windows, (2000 / XP / Vista / 7 / 8 / 10, x86 processor 32 / 64 bit)
Linux with WineHQ (x86 processor 32 / 64 bit))
WinJUPOS is a free program and is the result of long-time work of amateur astronomers to support observation and analysis of phenomena on planets of our solar system. The core of the software is a database of positions of objects in the atmosphere, or on the surface, of the planets and the Sun.
What can you do with WinJUPOS ?
It
helps the observer in
the preparation of an
observation. For that
purpose, you can use the
modules Ephemerides and
Planning of
observations.
The visual observer of
Jupiter and Saturn can
record his Central
Meridian transits of an
objects with the module
Recording of Central
Meridian transit timings
in the
database.
Observations made with
the help of digital
images (CCD images or
digitalized photos)
require a more complex
processing.
Deep Sky Image Stacking and Processing Software
Astro Pixel Processor By Aries Productions
(Runs on: Linux (RPM & DEB), Windows & MacOS 64bits Operating Systems)
One of the main goals in the development of APP, is to make a complete Deep Sky Image Processing application that maintains ease of use while automatically using the most advanced algorithms to provide excellent results without the need to tweak dozens of parameters. APP will give very good results with default parameters on a wide range of datasets.
You can try with a free 30 days trial
A full licence is € 198.00 incl. VAT and is a one off covering all updates.
Deep Sky Image Stacking and Processing Software
Siril
(Runs on: AppImage Linux, 64-bit Windows & MacOS 64bits Operating Systems)
Siril is an astronomical image processing tool.
Which is specially tailored for noise reduction and improving the signal/noise ratio of an image from multiple captures.
Siril can automatically or manually align, stack and enhance pictures from various file formats, even image sequence files (films and SER files).
Calibration
Remove unwanted signal and pattern from RAW images is the main goal of the first step of preprocessing. Siril can of course deal with BIASES/DARKS/FLATS master files.
Stacking
Improve signal to noise ratio by combining many registered individual images. Outliers rejection will reduce noise even more.
Enhancement
The stacked image can be improved before publication by calibrating the colours, applying deconvolution, stretching histogram and more.
Science
Because images can contain valuable scientific data, Siril provides tools to analyze star brightness variation. A powerful astrometry interaction will quickly give you information about objects in the image.
Deep Sky Image Stacking and Processing Software
Astro Pixel Processor By Aries Productions
(Runs on: Linux (RPM & DEB), Windows & MacOS 64bits Operating Systems)
One of the main goals in the development of APP, is to make a complete Deep Sky Image Processing application that maintains ease of use while automatically using the most advanced algorithms to provide excellent results without the need to tweak dozens of parameters. APP will give very good results with default parameters on a wide range of datasets.
You can try with a free 30 days trial
A full licence is £143 and is a one off covering all updates.
Deep Sky Image Stacking and Processing Software
Siril
(Runs on: AppImage Linux, 64-bit Windows & MacOS 64bits Operating Systems)
Siril is an astronomical image processing tool.
Which is specially tailored for noise reduction and improving the signal/noise ratio of an image from multiple captures.
Siril can automatically or manually align, stack and enhance pictures from various file formats, even image sequence files (films and SER files).
Calibration
Remove unwanted signal and pattern from RAW images is the main goal of the first step of preprocessing. Siril can of course deal with BIASES/DARKS/FLATS master files.
Stacking
Improve signal to noise ratio by combining many registered individual images. Outliers rejection will reduce noise even more.
Enhancement
The stacked image can be improved before publication by calibrating the colours, applying deconvolution, stretching histogram and more.
Science
Because images can contain valuable scientific data, Siril provides tools to analyze star brightness variation. A powerful astrometry interaction will quickly give you information about objects in the image.
Astroberry Server
Astroberry
(Runs
on: Raspberry
Pi
Support for Raspberry Pi 3 and 4, Pi Zero and...
probably any other Raspberry Pi
version released so far)
Astroberry is a full flavor remote desktop system, designed for Raspberry Pi. The system can be accessed via a web browser or VNC client from any location in the world! It sits at your telescope, wherever it is, and lets you remotely control all your astronomy equipment from behind your desk, using recognized astronomy software such as KStars, Skychart/Cartes du Ciel or Stellarium. You can slew your telescope by simply clicking on a skymap, change focus, capture images, plate solve images and much more!
Image Processing Utility
IRIS
(Runs
on: Windows
)
​
-
Deep-sky image projection into galactic system. Correction of lateral chromatism of photographic lens.
-
World Coordinate System compatibility
-
Deconvolution functions
-
World Coordinate System compatibility
-
Deconvolution functions
-
Interactive perspective correction
-
Cometary images sequence stacking
Astrometric Stacking Program
ASTAP
(Windows,
Linux, MacOS 64
bit and
Raspberry
Pi)
ASTAP is a free stacking and astrometric solver (plate solver) program for deep sky images. In works with astronomical images in the FITS format, but can import RAW DSLR images or XISF, PGM, PPM, TIF, PNG and JPG images. It has a powerful FITS viewer and the native astrometric solver can be used by CCDCiel, NINA, APT or SGP imaging programs to synchronise the mount based on an image taken.
Image
Processing and
Stacking
Program
Affinity
Photo
(Windows,
(10
and 11 64
bit 8.1 and
(7 with Service Pack 1;
Platform Update KB2670838;
Aero enabled)
Mac
and
Ipad)
Affinity is very similar to Photoshop but costs only £47.99 and comes with its own built in astrophotography setup.
Astrophotography Persona (for desktop only)
-
Dedicated Persona for stacking
-
RAW and FITS image support
-
Stack light and calibration frames (dark/dark flat/flat/bias)
-
Stack, tone stretch and retouch entirely in 32-bit
-
Stack files from different sessions using file groups
-
Create full colour, composite (HaRGB, SHO), greyscale or false colour images
-
New
Edit stacked image names for better organisation
-
New
Stack images for different filters simultaneously using file groups (auto-alignment avoids resampling)
-
New
Open FITS files directly in Photo Persona (control over demosaicing)
-
New
Support for FUJIFILM X-Trans sensor images
Noise reduction and sharpening program
WaveSharp
(Windows,
Linux,
MacOS)
This beta release is available for Windows and Linux, a MacOS specific version can currently not be created. MacOS users can read the instructions (generously supplied by Cheng-yang Tan) to run waveSharp in Wine on Mac
The new denoise window allows de-noising of images using FastFourierTransform techniques
ASCOM telescope Driver support
Green
Swamp
Software
(for Windows)
Green Swamp Server (GSS) is a driver for ASCOM telescope support and the Synta Protocol. It supports the SkyWatcher and Orion mounts: EQ8, EQ8-R, HDX110, AZ-EQ5GT, Sirius Pro AZ/EQ-G, AZ-EQ6GT, Orion Atlas Pro AZ/EQ-G, Atlas II EQ-G , EQ6-R PRO, NEQ6, HEQ5, EQ5, EQ4, AzGTi, and others.