Additionally, StarStaX is widely used for light painting. Have a look at the StarStaX Flickr Group. StarStaX is available for Mac OS X and Windows. It is free to download and free to use for any purpose, including commercial projects. Before downloading StarStaX, please review the license agreement. Mac OS X 10.7 (OS X Lion) - 10.11 (OS X El Capitan) StarStaX version 0.71 is available as a.dmg file from here: StarStaX-0.71Mac.dmg or StarStaX-0.71Mac.dmg Download and mount the disk image and drag StarStaX to your Applications folder. In case of problems opening StarStaX, please see this FAQ entry! Windows 64-bit.
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One of the most spectacular composite photography methodologies is called Star Trail Photography, because it shows the star movement in the sky, and it basically consists in taking a series of photos of the sky from a fixed position during an interval of time so that the pics can be combined later to create a movement effect in the sky. And to combine these photos one of the applications that you can use is StarStaX.
Rkaufmann87 wrote:Finding stacking applications for Windows is pretty easy however for we Mac users I haven't found anything that will do basic astrophotography stacking. While I have found StarStax which is excellent for doing star trails I am still looking for something that does stacking of planets, nebulae and stars.Are there any Mac users out there that have a solution? My current Mac is a 2011 iMac with 24GB RAM and 1TB SSD running El Capitan 10.11.x.Good evening, for apple computers there are not many options for astro PP. I chose Pixinsight because it worked for OSX and is extremely powerful for astro. I would imagine photoshop for OSX can stack but have never tried it.
Eventually just gave up for general astro with an apple and got an inexpensive Windows 10 machine. The ccd camera just would not easily work with OSX.
Some people use emulators or boot camp to run inexpensive stacking software and that could be another option.CheersChris. Mac01 wrote:rkaufmann87 wrote:Finding stacking applications for Windows is pretty easy however for we Mac users I haven't found anything that will do basic astrophotography stacking. While I have found StarStax which is excellent for doing star trails I am still looking for something that does stacking of planets, nebulae and stars.Are there any Mac users out there that have a solution?
My current Mac is a 2011 iMac with 24GB RAM and 1TB SSD running El Capitan 10.11.x.Good evening, for apple computers there are not many options for astro PP. I chose Pixinsight because it worked for OSX and is extremely powerful for astro. I would imagine photoshop for OSX can stack but have never tried it. Eventually just gave up for general astro with an apple and got an inexpensive Windows 10 machine.
The ccd camera just would not easily work with OSX. Some people use emulators or boot camp to run inexpensive stacking software and that could be another option.CheersChrisI too use PixInsight on my Mac for all AP processing, no other software (including ) can cope with its features. Sure, it's not free, but it's by far cheaper than a good eyepiece. And take into account that you will spend much.MUCH. more time doing postprocessing than standing behind your scope.With the video tutorials from and the written step-by-step instructions on (all free) you will soon get your first decent pictures. I never regret buying PixInsight after the 30 day's trial.Operating your mount and your (ccd) camera is a different story.
But it's not at all necessary to directly connect them to a mac and use unreliable (emulators, VMs) or inconvenient (boot camp) solutions. Meanwhile, ultra slim factor Windows-PCs are small and powerful enough to attach them to your mount. All you need is a remote desktop software for your iMac and a WLAN connection.If all this is not to your liking, then probably you will find something on 'Macintosh Computers in Amateur Astronomy', although the software listed is a bit outdated. W5JCK wrote:Nebulosity does a terrific job of aligning and stacking, but it is NOT free, but a lot less expensive than PixInsight. However, it is not automatic like Deep Sky Stacker.
There is a learning curve. Perhaps the best alternative is to use Boot Camp on a Mac to install Windows and use the Windows apps.If you opt to use windows apps then I agree that Boot Camp is a valuable solution regarding HW and SW compatibility.
However, there are drawbacks and hidden costs as well:. Your 2011 iMac will NOT run windows 10, see. Eventually 8.1, but check carefully! Take special care to disable the automatic update. You’ll need to re-partition your drive, which is going to take up quite a bit of your available drive space.
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Since storage on a Mac is fairly expensive, it’s something you should really think about. Read more about this at the. Boot Camp can be annoying. Both Windows and Mac OS X can see each other’s files, but they can’t write to the other operating system’s partition. You will need third-party tools like or ($20 - $70). Read more.
Another possibility is adding some USB storage ($100), formatted with FAT32. But this is slow.
Stacking probably hundreds of files will take time. Of course you will need a windows license IF you still can find a v 8.1 (see above).
$80Just some points to consider. Waecky wrote:If you opt to use windows apps then I agree that Boot Camp is a valuable solution regarding HW and SW compatibility. However, there are drawbacks and hidden costs as well:. Your 2011 iMac will NOT run windows 10, see. Eventually 8.1, but check carefully! Take special care to disable the automatic update.
You’ll need to re-partition your drive, which is going to take up quite a bit of your available drive space. Since storage on a Mac is fairly expensive, it’s something you should really think about. Read more about this at the. Boot Camp can be annoying.
Both Windows and Mac OS X can see each other’s files, but they can’t write to the other operating system’s partition. You will need third-party tools like or ($20 - $70). Read more.
Another possibility is adding some USB storage ($100), formatted with FAT32. But this is slow. Stacking probably hundreds of files will take time.
Of course you will need a windows license IF you still can find a v 8.1 (see above). $80Just some points to consider.I agree it is a PITA to set up a Mac to run Windows via Boot Camp, but once set up it is worth all the effort it took, assuming your Mac is compatible with the version of Windows you want/need to run.
If the OP cannot install Win 10 then I suggest using Win 7 rather than the crapfest they called Win 8.x. Another drawback is you have to buy a full install version of Windows. Also the instructions were not very accurate when I did this, so I had to spend a lot of time on the internet looking for better instruction. And one more thing, not to channel Jobs, but I think you have to be running at least Mavericks if not El Capitan. So update the Mac first.If you install Boot Camp and Windows, you can do the processing/stacking in whichever partition is being used, then copy the files to a USB drive or a third partition you set up. After stacking you will only have one file, so no big deal to copy it. A bit inconvenient, but less inconvenient than using two completely separate computers.
BTW, I use portable, external HDD all the time to transfer files between computers, and most work really well for moving files to and from Mac to Windows. Just make sure the HDD is formatted in a way to allow both Mac and Windows to read it. With USB, especially older USB 1.x drives, this can take a while though as they are slow.
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