Looks stunning in Mac OS Mojave Dark Mode iClock replaces Apple's old menubar clock app and adds modern time management & productivity tools. IClock adds a drop down menu to it's time menu to show any city/timezone in the world. View time & date simultaneously in any format, font or color.
- Step 1 If Citra is already running, restart it first. Navigate to Emulation - Configure (Citra - Preferences on Mac) and in the Debug tab, click on Open Log Location. Make sure the Global Log Filter is set to.:Info before continuing to Step 2. Step 2 Run the game you are having issues with until it reaches the point where it crashes or encounters the bug. Exit out of CItra.
- For normal stygian, you need to complete the last Darkest Dungeon quest. You can, if you want, skip all the bosses from normal dungeons. You lose if 12 or more heroes are killed, or if you are not done by week 86 (85 is the last playable week) Stygian can be completed around weeks 60-70 if you keep a good pace (faster if you are perfectly.
- You can find frantic shooters, low-key indies, grand strategy behemoths, and much more for your Mac. Here are the best Mac games you should have in 2021.
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.
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.”
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.
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
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.
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A Comprehensive Demo About Image Stacking
In this video, I show you how easy it is to wet our feet with image stacking.
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.
If you're a follower of the lunar cycle, you know that the moon can undergo so many different phases and expressions. Between blood moons and super moons, blue moons and so many more, it’s as if the moon is constantly swinging from mood to mood like a pendulum, what with all the different colors and variations it’s capable of embodying. So it should come as no surprise the moon also comes in black. All these mysterious names that seem to adorn our capricious moon also come with lofty meanings, which I'm sure is leaving you on the edge of your seat as you wonder what a black moon is exactly.
Aside from black moon, this type of moon is also called 'dark moon' or even 'Lilith moon' by certain astrologers and witches alike. It's considered a powerful and potent time with many different definitions clinging to it. Regardless of which one you choose to abide by, all of us lunar lovers can agree that its energy must be harnessed.
The most common and widely accepted definition of a black moon is a second new moon that occurs during one calendrical month, which definitely explains where it got its name from. To make things simple, it's essentially the opposite of a blue moon. With the moon indulging in a little more alone time than usual, it's a month full of more pitch black skies than usual. This is a relatively rare occurrence and it only happens about once every 29 months.
A black moon can also mean a third new moon during one of our four seasons when it contains four new moons instead of just three. This is a more complicated form of the black moon and it occurs roughly every 33 months. This is the type of “black moon” that will take place on August 18 at 10:41 p.m. ET, so make sure to mark your calendar.
A rarely used but downright interesting definition of a black moon has a lot to do with the month of February. A black moon is also sometimes considered a February without a new moon or without a full moon. It's the shortest month out of the year, so it's no wonder it's bound to miss an important moon phase here and there. This is the rarest of all black moons, only occurring every 20 years.
While some might simply enjoy the black moon as a fun anecdote to bring up during small talk, the spiritual and mystical of the lot take it more seriously. The new moon is an important time for witches to set their intentions for the month, to start anew with fresh goals in mind, and to cast a spell or conduct a ritual that wipes the slate clean. The black moon only amplifies this cleansing energy, dragging your deepest strengths and desires to the forefront, uninhibited.
According to renowned witch Skye Alexander, the black moon is also an ideal time to manifest your spells and wishes more quickly. So if you're itching to ask the universe for something important, the black moon is the perfect time to do it.
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On the other hand, astrologers also have their own idea of what the black moon is all about. Some believe the moon will pull out your darkest feelings, our scariest skeletons, everything we keep hidden and would rather continue to avoid. It's a time that drama might ensue, for all the negative emotions of the spectrum, like envy, hatred, and revenge, will sit at the surface of everything. It's recommended that we remain patient during this time and to think twice before going through with a risky action. These unflattering emotions are a product of pain and if we embrace them with full force, they will only breed more pain. However, they have to be released sometime, and the black moon is here to help with the purging process.
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Some astrologers also believe that the black moon will bring out all of our opposite qualities, as described in a concept called the 'anima' by Carl G. Jung. So, in all aspects, it's bound to be a time where people will surprise each other.