DeepSkyStacker is geared toward astrophotographers and provides a simplified option for pre-processing images.

This app will be helpful after a night photography session; you can give all your pictures (light frames, dark frames, offset/bias frames, flat frames) to DeepSkyStacker. From there, you can view the results and start post-processing your images.

This app includes almost everything needed for image processing. It consists of the ability to auto-detect stars and auto-determination of darks, flats, and offsets to be applied to the pictures using ISO speed and exposure time.

DeepSkyStacker Features:

● Automatic registration of a set of pictures
● Automatic detection of stars using all the picture area
● Preview of registered stars
● Subpixel registration
● Automatic derotation
● Automatic creation and use of offsets, flats, and dark frames
● Subpixel alignment and stacking
● Supported bitmaps formats: 8, 16, and 32-bit color and monochrome TIFF files, 8, 16, 32, and 64-bit color and monochrome FITS files, JPEG, BMP, PNG
● Native use of RAW files from most DSLRs (CR2, NEF, CRW, DNG ...) without using an intermediate file format (TIFF or other).
● Darks, Flats, and Offsets computed from and applied directly to the RAW picture before any interpolation.
● Stacking methods: average, median, kappa-sigma clipping, auto adaptive weighted average, entropy weighted average, maximum
● Preview of all pictures (including RAW)
● Simple post-processing with RGB levels, luminance curve, and saturation adjustments.
● Save the resulting picture to 16 or 32-bit TIFF or FITS files with or without adjustments applied.
● Simple and intuitive user interface
● Optimal memory usage: the same amount of memory is required to register and stack 10 or 500 pictures.
● Optimal use of all available processors (hyperthreaded, multiprocessors, duo and quad-core processors)

DeepSkyStacker Advanced Features:

● Automatic determination of Darks, Flats, and Offsets to be applied to the pictures using ISO speed and exposure time
● Several methods to optimize the processing of the RAW files by using the best of the Bayer matrix without interpolating the missing pixels
● Option to automatically detect hot pixels during the registering process
● Options to automatically detect and remove hot pixels and bad columns during the stacking process
● Options to detect and clean hot and cold pixels remaining after calibration
● Automatic flat calibration to equalize luminosity differences
● Automatic calibration of pictures background for each channel
● Automatic Dark Optimization
● Automatic use of a bicubic, bilinear, or bisquared alignment transformation depending on the number of stars
● Creation of File Lists to speed up loading of often used files (darks, flats, offsets/bias)
● Comet Stacking
● Manual edition of stars and comet positions
● Drizzle option (x2 or x3) during the stacking process
● Possible use of B&W 16-bit FITS files like RAW files (automatic use of a Bayer Filter Pattern)
● Use of File Groups to simplify multiple nights on the same object file management
● Options to create a calibrated and registered file for each light frame
● Debloom
● Cosmetic options to detect and clean the remaining hot/cold pixels from calibrated images
● Feature to create Star Masks
● Feature to batch multiple stacks
● Command-Line arguments

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