astrophotography stacking software sequator

ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY STACKING SOFTWARE SEQUATOR FULL
ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY STACKING SOFTWARE SEQUATOR ISO
ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY STACKING SOFTWARE SEQUATOR FREE

Under the ‘Composition’ tab simply select ‘Trails’ (not ‘Align stars’, which will line up your stars but blur your foreground)

This can help to lift areas of your image that are a bit darker in this case, it brightened the foreground light on the church. In the next box down on the left side, double-click the Composition tab.įrom the box that pops up at the bottom, select Trails – otherwise the software will align the stars, which will blur the foreground.īelow this, double-click the Auto brightness tab. Underneath them double-click the Output tab, then choose the folder you want to save the stacked image into.Ĭlick the Filename box and type in a suitable file name. In the top-left box you will now see that your images and dark files have been loaded into those tabs. If you have taken dark calibration frames, then once you’ve finished importing your star images, select all of your dark frames and drag and drop them into Sequator too, this time selecting Noise images from the image category box so that they don’t get accidentally added to the star image frames. When the image category box pops up, select Star images. Select all of your image files and drag and drop them into the program. To make your star trails image, start by opening Sequator software. Double-click on ‘Output’ and choose where you’d like to save your final image Using Sequator software to create star trails Open the freeware Sequator, load your image files and calibration frames. These were captured by simply putting the lens cap on the camera, covering the viewfinder and then taking 20 images with the same settings. To help reduce signal noise from the camera and other artefacts in my image, dark calibration frames were shot at the end of the imaging session. This is the beauty of star trails photography: as long as you’re not pointing directly at the Moon, you can still create gorgeous images in a moonlit sky.

ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY STACKING SOFTWARE SEQUATOR FULL

The photos were taken during a full Moon and from a position where moonlight nicely illuminated a church.

ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY STACKING SOFTWARE SEQUATOR ISO

I took 83 exposures of 30 seconds at ISO 800 and f/4.5. Credit: Mary McIntyreįor this star trails software guide, my images were taken using a 10-year-old Canon 1100D DSLR camera fitted with a Canon 10–18mm wide-angle lens.īut you could use an 18–55mm or fixed 50mm lens instead.

ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY STACKING SOFTWARE SEQUATOR FREE

Simple steps The final star trails image after using free and easy-to-use software to stack, align and denoise her 83 exposures of 30 seconds, all taken on a static tripod.

This star trails software is free, easy to use, stacks quickly and also has several useful features that can be applied to the output image during the stacking process, reducing the need for further image processing. There are several free pieces of software available that will create star trails, but in this example we are using Sequator. This means that even if you don’t capture many meteors or your aurora alert resulted in a no-show, you’ll still get a lovely image from the data. In addition to shooting images with the intention of creating star trails, you can also create them from photographs taken during other imaging sessions.įor example, if you’ve been photographing a meteor shower, aurora display or even a noctilucent cloud display, as long as your camera was on a static tripod and has not been nudged, you can take the images and create a star trail photograph with them. One of Mary’s original frames, showing a church prominent in the foreground and a clear night sky behind. The great thing about star trails photographs is that they’re very easy to produce and can be done with very basic camera equipment. That's beautiful in itself, but when it incorporates a nice foreground it really elevates the shot. Star trails images are a very rewarding type of nightscape photography and there is a host of software out there that will enable you to produce them.Ī star trails image captures the apparent movement of the stars as Earth rotates on its axis.

Astrophotography stacking software sequator