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Astrophotography is closer to science than art, and there is no such thing as “getting it right in camera.” This means you cannot simply point the camera at the sky and snap away.
In astrophotography you cannot avoid post processing your images, so stacking and editing your images serves three main purposes:
- Reduce noise and deal with light gradients and vignetting.
- Improve signal to noise ratio.
- Reveal the faint details in the image.
Image stacking is the technique used to improve the signal to noise ratio, and it is the only noise reduction method that will boost the image details rather than smear them out.
In this article, we will discuss some of the most popular software available for astrophotography image stacking.
Note: Don’t miss the detailed video at the end of this article, It was created to help show you how to quickly start using some of the stacking software mentioned in this article.
Click here to skip to our Image Stacking Demo Video.
What Does Stacking Photos Mean?
The concept behind image stacking is simple, but to appreciate how it works, there are a couple of things we have to consider:
- A stack can be visualized as a pile of images all stacked one on top of the other;
- Each digital image is formed by a set of pixels, all having a certain value: dark pixels will have a lower value than the bright ones;
In the simplest form of image stacking, the pixels values for all images in the stack are averaged to produce a single image.
What is the purpose of stacking photos?
The result is a single image with improved signal to noise ratio, i.e., with better details and lower (random) digital noise and better details.
The scheme below illustrates the concept.
If the considered digital noise affects the pixel values randomly across the stack, then the result of averaging the stack is that the random component of the noise to the pixel value is significantly reduced.
ISO noise and Luminance noise and Chrominancenoise are examples of digital noises that are random.
The image below shows a real-life example from stacking 30 images from my Sony RX10 bridge camera taken at ISO 6400. As you can see, the original images showed a greater deal of noise (grain) than the stacked one.
The More Images You Stack, The Better
The more images you stack, the cleaner the resulting images are, as shown in the comparison below.
While Image stacking creates a cleaner image, it often softens the image: digital sharpening techniques are then used to recover sharp looking details.
Finally, bear in mind that the progression of image quality is not linear.
If stacking 4 images improves the image quality of 50% respect what you got by stacking only 2 images, to improve a further 50% the image quality from stacking 50 images, you may need to stack 300 images or more.
Image Stacking And Movement
If nothing moves between shots, like in the previous real life example, implementing image stacking is very simple: just group the images and average them to smooth out the noise.
With a moving subject, grouping and averaging the images will not only smooth out the noise, but also the subject itself.
This is the same principle for which long exposures of passing traffic and crowd result in a street image without cars nor people.
This effect is amplified with the number of images used, and the moving subject could simply disappear from the stacked image.
To resolve the issue, you have to align the images based on their content before stacking.
Due to image alignment, you may have to trim the edges of the stacked image to get rid of artifacts, but your target will not be lost.
Note that while in theory you can stack images of a static scene taken with the camera on a tripod, in reality, those images will probably differ at the pixel scale due to micro-movements. It is always beneficial to align the images before stacking.
How To Shoot For Exposure Stacking Your Images
Image stacking can be done with any camera and even camera phones and with images in both RAW and JPEG format.
Nonetheless, some things can be done to improve the final result:
- Lock the focus, so that the camera will not hunt for it between images. This will also help to keep the focus consistent through the shooting sequence.
- Keep the same settings, in particular shutter speed, aperture, and focal length: you don’t want to change the camera field of view during the sequence, nor the brightness of the images or the depth of field.
- If you are shooting on a tripod, disable image stabilization. If you want to shoot handheld, do so only for short sequences at very high shutter speed.
Image Stacking In Astrophotography
Related:Astrophotography Software & Tools Resource List
As said previously, image stacking is a standard technique implemented in any astrophotography editing workflow for,
- A star field from a fixed tripod.
- A deep sky object from a tracking mount.
- The Moon handheld.
- A starry landscape from a fixed tripod or tracking mount.
Every astronomy image will benefit from image stacking.
List Of Photo Stacking Software For Astrophotography
Here is a list of software used in astrophotography for image stacking. Yugioh game.
Adobe Photoshop
Complete Image Editor | Commercial – Subscription Plan Photography Bundle $9.99 / Month | Mac OS X, Windows
Pro
- Versatile
- Available for Mac and Windows
- In bundle with Adobe Lightroom CC, Bridge, Camera Raw, and web space
- Many action packs and plugins available for astrophotography
Cons
- Subscription Plan only
- Can’t be used to calibrate light frames
- Stacking capabilities are somehow limited
If you are interested in photography, chances are you know Adobe Photoshop is the standard in the industry and does not need introductions.
With Adobe implementing a subscription plan for their applications, if you are using Lightroom CC for your everyday photography, your plan subscription will also include Photoshop CC and Bridge CC.
And for astrophotography, Photoshop is what you need. Lightroom cannot stack your images nor perform the histogram stretching, two crucial steps in the editing workflow for astrophotography.
In this article, we have already covered in detail how to stack astrophotography images with Photoshop.
Sequator
Deep Sky And Starry Landscape Stacker | Freeware | Windows
Pro
- Free
- Easy to use
- Fast
- Suitable for both Starry Landscapes and Deep Sky images
- Can create Star Trails
Cons
- Windows only
- Limited set of options
- Not suitable for Planetary astrophotography
Sequator is an easy-to-use and intuitive astrophotography software for stacking both starry landscape and deep-sky images. It can also be used to create star trails.
While not as advanced as other stackers, it nonetheless allows you to calibrate your light frames with dark and flat calibration frames. It also allows you to remove light pollution, reduce noise, and perform other simple tasks on the stacked image.
Starry Landscape Stacker
Starry Landscape Stacker | Commercial, $39.99 | Mac OS X
Pro
- Fast
- Easy to use
Cons
- Mac Os X only
- Does not read RAW files
If you are into starry landscapes and you are a Mac user, Starry Landscape Stacker is a must-have.
Easy to use, it allows you to stack and align the sky and the foreground independently by letting you easily mask the sky.
Unfortunately, the software lacks the support for RAW formats, thus forcing you to convert your RAW images in the more heavy TIFF format.
Aside from that, it works very fast and the final image is of good quality. You can also save the sky only, which is useful to further edit the shot in Photoshop or similar editors.
Starry Sky Stacker
Deep Sky Stacker | Commercial, $24.99 | Mac OS X
Pro
- Fast
- Easy to use
Cons
- Mac Os X only
- Does not read RAW files
- Basic
Starry Sky Stacker is Starry Landscape Stacker brother and it has been created to stack deep sky astrophotography images.
As Starry Landscape Stacker, Starry Sky Stacker is very easy to use and intuitive, although very basic.
If you are a casual star shooter and a Mac user, this could be a good choice for you.
Deep Sky Stacker
Deep Sky Stacker | Freeware | Windows
Pro
- Free
- Easy to use
- Fast
- Full light frames calibration
- Features Comet stack modes
- Can Drizzle
- Many advanced stack options and methods available
Cons
- Windows only
- Post-processing is quite limited
- Not suitable for Starry Landscapes nor for Planetary astrophotography
Deep Sky Stacker, better known as DSS, is arguably one of the most widely used software to calibrate and stack astrophotography images.
With DSS, you can fully calibrate your images with Darks, Flats, Dark Flats, and Bias calibration frames for the best results possible. Light frames are analyzed and scored by quality so that you can decide which percentage of best images you can stack (Best 75% by default).
A very interesting feature is that with DSS, you can easily combine images taken during different imaging sessions, to produce images of higher quality.
Autostakkert!
Planetary Stacker | Freeware | Windows
Pro
- Free
- Easy to use
- Suitable for Planetary, Lunar and Solar images
- Stack full planetary disk and lunar surface close-ups
Cons
- Interface a bit confused
- It does not offer wavelet sharpening
- Windows only
Autostakkert!, also known as AS!, is a very popular free software among the solar system astrophotographers. With AS! it is easy to stack both images showing the full Planetary (or Lunar or Solar) disc and images showing lunar surface close-ups.
The interface is a bit confusing, particularly in the beginning, but it is easy to navigate through the different steps for the stacking.
Unfortunately, AS! does not offer wavelet sharpening, which is a widely used technique in planetary and lunar astrophotography. For this, you can load your stacked image in Registax, another freeware software for Windows only that, sadly, is now “abandoned-ware.”
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Lynkeos
Planetary Stacker | Freeware | Mac OS X
Pro
- Free
- Has deconvolution and wavelet sharpening
- It is probably the only freeware planetary stacker for Mac OS X
Cons
- Not very intuitive
- Somewhat slower than Autostakkert!
Lynkeos is perhaps the only freeware planetary stacker software for Mac OS X, sparing you from turning to Windows for using Autostakkert!.
The interface is quite intuitive to navigate, but not when it comes to performing the different tasks. Ford sync 4.4.
On the other hand, it offers a deconvolution method and wavelet sharpening, a must-have for a planetary stacker. Definitely worth having a look at it if you are a Mac user.
SiriL
Deep Sky Astrophotography Editor | Freeware | Mac OS X, Windows, Linux
Pro
- Free
- Cross-Platform
- Active development
Cons
- A bit convoluted and not as intuitive as other stackers
SiriL is a freeware, cross-platform, astrophotography package that will let you calibrate, stack, and develop deep sky astrophotography images.
While not as easy and intuitive as Sequator or DSS, it offers a lot of options and produces good results. There is an active community, and it is under constant development.
Astro Pixel Processor
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Deep Sky Astrophotography Editor | Commercial $60/Yr Renter License Or $150 Owner License | Mac OS X, Windows, Linux
Pro
- Full-grown astrophotography package
- Fairly easy to use
- Mosaics are created with ease and are of great quality
- Active and constant development
- Cross-Platform
- 30-days Trial period
- Affordable yearly subscription
Cons
- Only for deep sky astrophotography
- No Comet stacking mode
With Astro Pixel Processor (APP), you step in the realm of full-grown astrophotography packages, with many advanced options and methods to calibrate, stack, and post-process your deep-sky images.
Compared to PixInsight (PI), the software benchmark for the category, APP is cheaper and way easier to use, which makes it one of the best PI alternatives.
If you decide to buy it, you can choose between the renter’s license for $60/yr, to always get the latest version of APP, or the owner’s license for $150, but you will have to purchase the license again for major update releases.
PixInsight
Astrophotography Editor | Commercial – €230+VAT | Mac OS X, Windows, Linux
Pro
- It has all you need for astrophotography
- 45 days trial period
- A lot of tutorials and information available
Cons
- Expensive and without subscription plan
- Extremely steep learning curve
- Long and convoluted process
- Needs a powerful computer
When it comes to astrophotography, PixInsight is the software of reference against which all others are measured. It offers everything you may possibly need to produce pro graded images, and it is objectively the best software in the field.
But user experience can be frustrating, as the learning curve is very steep, the editing is long and convoluted, and your computer must be quite recent and powerful to make it run smoothly.
The €230 + VAT price tag is also quite steep: sure it is worth every penny, but this makes PI be even more the software of choice for professional and keen amateur astrophotographers.
A Comprehensive Demo About Image Stacking
In this video, I show you how easy it is to wet our feet with image stacking.
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This is particularly true if you use Starry Landscape Stacker, Sequator, Deep Sky Stacker and Autostakkert!, as I showed in the video below.
Conclusion
Image stacking is one of the crucial steps in the astrophotography editing workflow.
You’ll need the appropriate stacker for each type of astrophotography: starry landscapes, star trails, or deep-sky and planetary images.
In this article, we have covered the most popular astrophotography stackers available on the market, both freeware and commercial.
And while Windows users have the more extensive choice, some notable stackers are available for Mac and even Linux users.
Astronomy is a natural science that’s all about the earth and the universe. While it’s a broad research field driven by professional scientists around the world, it’s also a personal hobby of many who are interested in the study of celestial objects such as stars, moons, planets, nebulae and galaxies. Beside of using your naked eyes, binocular or telescope to obverse these fascinating sky objects, you can also make use of some astronomy software to help you access the mystery of space.
Today we’ve compiled a list of astronomy software and online applications that help your work and hobby become more effective and interesting. These softwares are suitable to both professional and amateur astronomers and the best part is that they are all free to use!
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Aladin Sky Atlas
This sky atlas software enables users to view astronomical images, superimpose entries from astronomical database, and gain access to most of the astronomical servers worldwide such as VizieR service, Simbad database, Hubble images, etc.
C2A (Computer Aided Astronomy)
C2A is an easy-to-use planetarium software that allows you to create detailed views of stellar fields, suitable to both professional and amateur astronomers. The software provides most of the star catalogues including SAO, GCVS, Guide Star, USNO, etc. Also, the deep sky object catalogues such as Messier, NGC, PGC and IC.
Stellarium.org
Stellarium shows you a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with your own naked eyes or through telescope. The planetarium software has catalogues with millions of stars, illustrations of constellations, nebulae images, as well as planets and their satellites. Other features include fisheye projection, time control, equatorial and azimuthal grids, eclipse simulation, star twinkling, and many more.
Sky-Map.org or WikiSky.org
These sites are basically interactive sky maps that contain myriads of stars and celestial objects. Users can zoom out for the whole star sky viewing or zoom in for details. In addition, users can edit the star information by including links, writing articles, uploading relevant photos, and other editing tasks.
WWT
WWT (WorldWide Telescope) allows users to explore the space, combining both images from ground and space-based telescopes with 3D navigation. WWT comes with 2 versions: Windows Client and Web Client. Both enable you to pan the sky and to zoom in on celestial objects, including stars, nebulae, and planets.
Cartes du Ciel’s SkyChart
This is planetarium software that contains a number of catalogs ranging from stars, planets and nebulae to comets and asteroids. You can make use of their data to draw your own sky chart for particular observation. There are many options and features given in helping you to create a complete sky map such as changing space objects’ color and dimension, adding coordinate grids and labels, superimposing celestial images, and many more.
Celestia
A free space simulation that lets you travel throughout the solar system, and explore over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy. The software has a number of catalogs of stars, galaxies, planets, moons, asteroids, etc. You can easily navigate and zoom in to the objects you like.
Orbiter
Orbiter is a free and realistic space flight simulation software that allows users to experience space flight missions from the pilot’s perspective. In addition, you can also recreate historic flights, plan interplanetary slingshots, design your own rockets and many more.
Home Planet
Home Planet’s Earth map displays day and night regions, moon location and phase, as well as earth satellite’s locations. The software also has sky map, based on SAO catalogue or Yale Bright Star catalogue which contain millions of stars, planets, asteroids, comets, Messier objects and NGC objects.
Winstars
Winstars enables users to view realistic 3D maps showing the celestial objects in our solar system. The software contains a database of over 2 millions stars and a catalogue of 10 thousands nebulae, star clusters and galaxies, with details information about each object. You can also view the outline of the planetary orbits, celestial equator, ecliptic, etc.
WinOrbit: Satellite Tracking
WinOrbit is a free software that computes and displays the position of artificial earth satellites, together with information like bearing, distance, and elevation above the observer’s horizon. The information can be updated in real-time, manual, or simulation modes.