AT A GLANCE Collimate your telescope in realtime with your CCD camera in focus. Realtime analysis of focus, seeing and tracking quality. Software for Astrophotography. There are several different types of software that you may be interested in for astrophotography DSLR Camera Control. Macintosh Starry Night HomePage Sienna Software. Computerized Shutter Control of Canon DSLRs Important Updates. Joe Zeglinski has developed a variant of the control cable design for Nikon DSLR Cameras. Strict Standards Nonstatic method ApplicationgetInstance should not be called statically in varwwwvhostsclijsen. Deprecated. ImagesPlus image processing software creates a flexible environment for image enhancement and image restoration in Windows XP, Vista, Win 7 and later. Software for Astrophotography. There are several different types of software that you may be interested in for astrophotography DSLR Camera Control. Software Assisted Focusing. DXO_Optics_9_Pro_review_photo_editing.jpg' alt='Maxdslr Software' title='Maxdslr Software' />Image Acquisition Automation. Image Calibration, Aligning and Stacking. Image Correction and Enhancement. Autoguiding Software. Photo Utilities. Photoshop Filters and Actions. Tutorials on Image Processing of Astrophotos. Planetarium Programs and Atlases. DSLR Camera Control. With camera control software, you can use your computer to control all of the functions and settings of your camera, such as setting the ISO and opening the shutter. With the current generation of Canon EOS DSLR cameras 4. D, 4. 50. D, 1. D Mark III software by the camera manufacturer will control all functions of the camera. This is accomplished through a single USB 2 Cable and includes control of the bulb setting for exposures longer than 3. This software also allows viewing of the Live view real time image on the computer and focusing. With previous camera generations of Canon DSLRs 2. D, 3. 0D, 3. 00. D, 3. D, 4. 00. D and all Nikon DSLR cameras, the camera manufacturers software could control all camera functions except one critical one for astrophotography the ability to shoot exposures longer than 3. This major drawback necessitated the use of third party software such as Images Plus or Max. DSLR to control the camera and access bulb exposures longer than 3. So for previous generation cameras, two cables were necessary for astrophotography one USB cable to control camera functions and one serial to bulb port cable for long exposures. Software Assisted Focusing. The latest generation DSLR cameras allow focusing through the camera manufacturers software. This can be done by manual focusing and visual inspection of the Live view image on the computer, or by autofocus if the camera is shooting through an autofocus lens. For previous generation cameras without Live View, an image had to be downloaded to the computer and then visually examined for focus accuracy. Programs such as Images Plus or DSLR Focus could also download an image and then examine a star and give a readout of the stars diameter or brightness. This metric assisted focusing was objective and did not rely on any visual interpretation to determine focus. Through a process of manual trial and error, accurate focus could be achieved through software assisted focusing. The latest camera manufacturers software can make focusing very easy with Live view, however, this software does not provide any type of metric assisted focusing for astrophotography. Image Acquisition Automation. Serious deep sky astrophotography requires shooting many short exposures. This can be done manually, but it is very tedious. For example, faint deep sky objects may require several hours worth of 5 minute exposures that are later stacked or combined in subsequent image processing. Software such as Images Plus or Max. DSLR can automate this process. You simply specify in the software that you want the camera to shoot, say, 2. ISO 1. 60. 0 with a pause of 1. The latest software provided by Nikon and Canon also provides the functionality for this type of automated image acquisition with the latest generation of DSLR cameras. Image Calibration, Aligning and Stacking. Advanced astronomical imaging requires the calibration of the raw original images. Calibration means removing unwanted fixed signals such as thermal current and bias, and correction for signal modifications such as vignetting so that the raw image accurately represents the intensity of light incident on the sensor during the exposure. We will discuss these topics in detail in future sections, but right now lets just talk briefly about the software required for image calibration. Both Canon and Nikon usually include image processing software with their cameras, but this software is for processing normal daytime images. You can not use it for image calibration, aligning, or stacking at all. To calibrate your original raw astronomical images, you will require some type of special astronomical image processing software, such as Images Plus, Max. DSLR, AIP Astronomical Image Processing, Astro. Art, IRIS, Deepsky Stacker or Regim. Stacking means combining many individual short exposures into a master image by any of several mathematical processes such as averaging, or addition. The term originates in the days of film astrophotography where images were literally stacked on top of one another to improve contrast and color. You will also need to align your images so that the stars in them line up perfectly. Whatever software you use for image calibration will almost certainly also do aligning and image stacking. It is possible to align and stack images in Photoshop, but for more than a couple of frames, the process is extremely tedious and not as accurate as with a dedicated astronomical image processing program. Image Correction and Enhancement. Once your images are calibrated, aligned and stacked, you will want to correct for things such as color balance, and increase the contrast to make faint details more visible. You will probably also want to apply some type of noise reduction, and you may want to apply more sophisticated enhancement techniques. Oracle For Windows 7 32 Bit. These processes can be done in the previously mentioned astronomical image processing programs such as Images Plus, Max. DSLR, AIP Astronomical Image Processing, Astro. Art, and IRIS. However, at this stage of image processing, many astrophotographers prefer to switch to a general image processing program such as Photoshop. Autoguiding Software. For long exposure deep sky astrophotography, guiding during the exposure can be very useful in producing higher quality images. By manually or automatically following a star by making corrections in right ascension and declination higher tracking accuracy is obtained. Autoguiding involves using a separate CCD or Webcam to monitor a stars position and then send corrections to the telescopes mounting to guide or follow the star with high accuracy to compensate for inaccuracies in the mounts tracking. SBIG used to make the ST 4 and ST V which were stand alone autoguiders which did not require a computer. These units have been discontinued but can be found used on Astromart. CCD cameras and webcams can be also be used as autoguiders, but software, such as Guide. Dog and PHD, is required to run on a computer that interfaces between the autoguider and mount. Photo Utilities. These programs perform useful functions like allowing you to open FITS format files, perform noise reduction, and create thumbnails for indexing and archiving. Photoshop Filters and Actions. These filters and actions work inside of Photoshop and perform specialty functions for astronomy, such as gradient and noise reduction. Tutorials on Image Processing of Astrophotos. Tutorials in book and video format teach you how to do astrophotography, and use programs such as Images Plus for image calibration and Photoshop for image correction and enhancement. Planetarium Programs and Atlases. Planetarium programs and atlases let you find out what is up in the sky, and plan your observing and astrophotography session. Astronomical Software For the PCDSLR Camera Control. RIS Free DSLR control, image acquisition automation. Citing A Software Program In Apa more. Palm. DSLR Free DSLR control with a Palm computer. APT Astro Photography Tool Camera control, focus, image acquisition automation.