Combining Deep Sky Images - Orion StarShoot Pro V2.0 Instruction Manual

Figure 17.
The Convert Raw to Color
window converts your raw StarShoot Pro
images to RGB color.
2. Select Convert Raw to Color in
the Process menu.
3. Select StarShoot Pro High
Quality in the Camera Type pull
down menu (Figure 17).
4. Click OK and the image should
appear in color. You can make
several adjustments to the Color
Balance if needed (see "Color
Balance").

Combining Deep Sky Images

Each individual deep sky image is faint and has a noticeable amount of noise.
Combining the individual deep sky images eliminates the noise and enhances
the detail in the deep sky object by improving the signal to noise ratio. The
more images you combine, the better the resulting image will look. (Figure 18a
and Figure 18b).
Now that you have multiple images of the deep sky object, you will combine
the images to form one high-quality resultant image. To do this:
1. Select Combine From Disk from the File menu. Find the folder you indi-
cated with Folder, open it, and select all images for stacking using the
mouse left-click and the Shift key, then click Open.
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18a
18b
Figure 18a.
Before your images are
combined, an individual deep space
image will have more noise and less
detail.
Figure 18b.
Combining multiple deep
space images greatly increases the detail
in the resulting combined image
Note: The Combine From Disk fea-
ture enables you to combine all of
your images at once without having
to open each image which saves sys-
tem memory.
2. The Combine From Disk win-
dow will appear (Figure 19). For
Align Mode, choose Manual 1
star – shift only. (If you have field
rotation due to a poor polar align-
ment or if you are using a motor-
ized altitude-azimuth mount, then
you can use the Manual 2 stars
align mode.) In the Output box,
select Average. Make sure the
Use Centroid and Auto Next
boxes are checked.
3. Find a well-shaped (circular) star in
the first image displayed. Use the
mouse to center the crosshairs on
the selected star and left-click.
Note: In addition to Average men-
tioned above, 3 other different com-
bining methods can be chosen: Sum,
Median, and Sigma-Clip. To learn
more about these combine methods,
see "Image Processing – Combine
Methods".
The program automatically moves to the next image.
4. Center the crosshairs on the same star in this new image, and left-click
again. Repeat this for all the open images; a chime will sound when you
have gone through all the open images. (If you use the Manual 2 stars
align mode, then select another alignment star in the first image displayed
after you hear the chime).
5. If you find an image that looks poor, you can reject it by clicking the Reject
Image button. Use the Next Image (and/or Previous Image) button to
continue going through the open images after an image is rejected.
At least one image must be used as the reference image for the stacked
images to be overlaid upon. The default uses the first image for the reference
image. If you reject the first image or otherwise want to use another image as
the reference, click the Set As Reference button. If the image currently cho-
Figure 19.
The Combine From
Disk window allows "stacking" of
individual images into one high-quality
resultant image.
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