Astro Photography

[rpcrowe]

I know nothing about astro-photography and have never had any interest in learning about it.

My neighbor has purchased a telescope (I have no idea of what kind) and he is purchasing one of the newer Canon Rebel bodies along with the connection mount(s) between camera and telescope.

He is talking about merging series of images. What would be the best (and least expensive) software for what needs to be done in astro-photography?

I use Photoshop along with NIK Software and On-1 for my editing. I am wondering if the new upcoming On-1 RAW would be sufficient for astro editing...

[JohnRostron]

It might be worth trying out Serif Affinity Photo. This is currently available for Mac and as a (free) Beta for Windows. It offers several merging options and may well suit your needs. The release price is likely to be £29.50 in the UK.

See https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/windows/

John

[Gasman]

Hi Richard
My other life is as an amateur astronomer although my field is spectroscopy many amateurs swear by Deep Sky stacker here http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/index.html which is free and used to stack multiple images to increase contrast etc. I`ve used it for my ccd camera which takes images in fits format but its also fine with raw files from dslr`s. Many other free apps about also, Registax etc etc.
regards
Steve

[JBW]

I know nothing about astro-photography and have never had any interest in learning about it.

My neighbor has purchased a telescope (I have no idea of what kind) and he is purchasing one of the newer Canon Rebel bodies along with the connection mount(s) between camera and telescope.

He is talking about merging series of images. What would be the best (and least expensive) software for what needs to be done in astro-photography?

I use Photoshop along with NIK Software and On-1 for my editing. I am wondering if the new upcoming On-1 RAW would be sufficient for astro editing...

ImageJ and it's big brother Fiji are both free and do excellent work. http://imagej.net/Introduction

[Shadowman]

http://www.astronomie.be/registax/


.http://photoephemeris.com/

Also, most telescopes come with some sort of software that at least gives you a 30 day trial and usually a cheapie program.