Astrophotography Software Windows How To Use This
Astrophotography Software Windows Download My Premium

Any photos with football-shaped stars from hiccups in autoguiding are tossed in the recycling bin.

This useful and easy-to-use freeware tool simplifies the pre-processing steps of creating a beautiful deep sky image.

In this post, I will explain the DeepSkyStacker settings I use to stack and register all of my astrophotography images.

The version I currently use to stack and register my astrophotography images is DeepSkyStacker 4.2.3.

Astrophotography Software Windows How To Use This

It is well worth your time to learn how to use this free software successfully, as you will enjoy it for years to come.

FIT files from a CCD camera (or dedicated CMOS), the right settings can be the difference between a good image, and a great one.

This is the reason why amateur astrophotographers spend multiple nights collecting pictures on a single deep sky target.

Calibration is another vitally important component of the process, as this removes unwanted elements from your image that would otherwise spoil the picture.

This includes everything from untracked DSLR and camera lens shots to deep sky astrophotography through a telescope.

Most of my experience with this software has been on a Windows 10 PC, stacking Canon RAW files from a DSLR.

To run Deep Sky Stacker on a Mac computer, a workaround such as using a virtual machine is necessary.

Page 44 of my premium astrophotography image processing guide.

The steps outlined on this page are most useful for beginners using a DSLR camera to capture their images.

The official website offers some great resources for understanding how the process works.

It does not include the robust image processing tools of an application like Adobe Photoshop.

The image below shows a stacked image before and after processing in Photoshop.

Read my Photoshop image processing tutorial for a basic walkthrough of the process.

Astrophotography Software Windows Download My Premium

Or, download my premium processing guide for an in-depth look at all of the techniques I use to process astrophotography images.

However, DeepSkyStacker is completely free and continues to receive new updates from the developer (version 4.2.2 was published in August 2019).

I shoot through heavy light pollution in my backyard, which means I need to capture up to 4x or more the amount of exposure time someone living under dark skies would (see this article for a better understanding of this calculation).

DSS includes a handy recommended settings tab, that will highlight helpful settings to use based on your image data.

These support files (calibration frames) will go a long way towards improving your final image.

I recommend capturing new calibration files for each night of imaging unless you are certain that your master files match your light frames.

I use a RAW image preview application called Adobe Bridge to review and organize my images.