It's been a good three years now since I swapped my HP laptop for a Macbook Pro. In the mean time, I've started doing a bit more astrophotography and of course the change of operating system has affected the tools I use to obtain and process photos.
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Amateur astronomers have traditionally mostly used Windows, so there are a lot of Windows tools, both freeware and payware, to help. I used to run the freeware ones in Wine on Ubuntu with varying levels of success.
RegiStax is a free image processing software for amateur astrophotographers, released as freeware, which runs under Windows. A compatible version for Mac OS is also available as a emu file (see Download below) Its purpose is to produce enhanced images of astronomic observations through combining. APP couldn’t have been possible without extensive help and feedback from the astrophotography community worldwide and it’s future development path will be largely dependent on input and support from the community. September 2019: Astro Pixel Processor.
When I first got the Mac, I had a lot of trouble getting Wine to run reliably and eventually ended up doing my alignment and processing manually in The Gimp. However, that's time consuming and rather fiddly and limited to stacking static exposures.
However, I've recently started finding quite a bit of Mac OS based astrophotography software. I don't know if that means it's all fairly new or whether my Google skills failed me over the past years :-) https://weightlossyellow120.weebly.com/blog/google-note-taking-app-mac.
Software
I thought I'd document what I use, in the hope that I can save others who want to use their Macs some searching.
Some are Windows software, but run OK on Mac OS X. You can turn them into normal double click applications using a utility called WineSkin Winery. Equivalent of run app on mac.
Obtaining data from video camera:
- oaCapture (MacOS X, free)
- AstroImager (Mac OS X, payware, free trial)
Format-converting video data:
- Handbrake (Mac OS X, free, open source)
Processing video data:
- AutoStakkert! (Windows + Wine, free for non-commercial use, donationware)
Obtaining data from DSLR: Mac battery app free app.
- AstroDSLR (Mac OS X, payware, free trial)
Processing and stacking DSLR files and post-processing video stacks:
- RegiStax (Windows + Wine, free)
- Nebulosity (Mac OS X, payware, free trial)
- The Gimp (Max OS X, free, open source)
Telescope guiding:
- AstroGuider (Mac OS X, payware, free trial)
- PHD2 (Mac OS X, free, open source)
![Astrophotography app for mac pro Astrophotography app for mac pro](/uploads/1/3/4/1/134144020/622457600.jpg)
Hardware
A few weeks ago I bought a ZWO ASI120MC-S astro camera, as that was on sale and listed by Nebulosity as supported by OSX. Until then I'd messed around with a hacked up Logitech webcam, which seemed to only be supported by the Photo Booth app.
I've not done any guiding yet (I need a way to mount the guide scope on the main scope - d'oh) but the camera works well with Nebulosity 4 and oaCapture. I'm looking forward to being able to grab Jupiter with it in a month or so and Saturn and Mars later this year.
The image to the right is a stack of 24x5 second unguided exposures of the trapezium in M42. Not too bad for a quick test on a half-moon night.
Settings
I've been fiddling with Nebulosity abit, to try and get it to stack the RAW images from my Nikon D750 as colour. I found a conversion matrix that was supposed to be decent, but as it turns out that made all images far too blue.
The current matrix I use is listed below. If you find a better one, please let me know.
R | G | B | |
---|---|---|---|
R | 0.50 | 0.00 | 1.00 |
G | 0.00 | 1.00 | 0.00 |
B | 1.00 | 0.00 | 0.50 |
Astrophotography application that can connect to different models of Canon cameras and help you capture images or use online resources to solve the image
What's new in AstroDSLR 3.14:
- INDIGO framework updated to 2.0.124.
Best Astrophotography App
AstroDSLR is an astrophotography application that can connect to Canon EOS cameras and help you initiate the image capture from your computer. The complete list of supported Canon hardware is available on the product’s website.
Control the camera from your Mac and capture images with ease
Within the AstroDSLR main window, you get to select the camera you want to work with and the focuser controller you want to employ. Worth mentioning is that AstroDSLR is also able to connect to a local or remote INDI server.
AstroDSLR enables you to control the camera’s ISO, aperture, exposure time, shutter speed, metering, focusing, white balance, and image quality. In addition, you get to adjust the BULB duration and preview the photo in the AstroDSLR’s main window.
Grab images and store them locally by using the FITS file format
The AstroDSLR utility prompts you for the output folder after capturing the images, but you can also choose to include the time lapse and count data together with a prefix of your choice in the file’s name.
The app is using the FITS format for the output, and you can also choose to encode data in the file name. Moreover, via the AstroDSLR Preferences window, you can set the keywords you want embedded in the files, together with their value.
Solve the captured images using local resources or connect to online public services
The AstroDSLR application offers you the possibility to measure the drift of a certain star and the FWHM in order to help with the telescope alignment. At the same time, you get to employ the built-in image solver to connect to public resources and plate-solve the captures.
All in all, AstroDSLR is a straightforward app that enables you to use your Cannon EOS camera for astrophotography projects. You get to produce high-quality FITS images that also include user configured keywords.
If you need a helping hand, its development team provides an AstroDSLR Getting Started Guide on YouTube which should get you up and going in no time.
![Astrophotography stacking software for mac Astrophotography stacking software for mac](/uploads/1/3/4/1/134144020/395241721.jpg)
Filed under
AstroDSLR was reviewed by Iulia Ivan
4.0/5
LIMITATIONS IN THE UNREGISTERED VERSION
- 14 days trial period
- 64-bit processor
Astrophotography App For Mac Desktop
AstroDSLR 3.14
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7 screenshots:
Astrophotography App For Mac Windows 10
- runs on:
- OS X 10.11 or later (Intel only)
- file size:
- 28.7 MB
- filename:
- AstroDSLR_3.14.dmg
- main category:
- Math/Scientific
- developer:
- visit homepage
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