Astronomy Image Processing Software For Mac

Oct 23, 2015 PixInsight is an advanced astrophotography image processing piece of software. I now have some experience using PixInsight for processing CCD images from an SBIG ST8-XME camera and RAW CR2 files from a Canon 6D DSLR and can certainly see the potential of the software.

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.

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.

See my image processing video tutorial using this software. RegiStax: image calibration, aligning and stacking specific for planetary astrophotography. It can also be used for deep space astrophotography (freeware). IMerge: makes astrophotography mosaics (freeware). Focus magic: improves images focusing and contrast. PixInsight LE: image post. Jul 04, 2020 Every astronomy image will benefit from image stacking. List Of Photo Stacking Software For Astrophotography Here is a list of software used in astrophotography for image stacking.

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 :-)

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.

Obtaining data from video camera:

1. MicroObservatory Image 2.0 - astronomical image display program works with FITS and GIF images on PCs and Macs. Can also perform mathematical image processing operations on multiple images. PhAst - A flexible IDL tool to display and analyze FITS images.
2. Celestron's FREE planetarium app is an astronomy suite that redefines how you experience the night sky. Image Processing Software for Mac OS X. February 2, 2016.

• 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)

Astronomy Image Processing Software For Mac Os

Obtaining data from DSLR:

• 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)

Post-processing:

• The Gimp (Max OS X, free, open source)

Telescope guiding:

• AstroGuider (Mac OS X, payware, free trial)
• PHD2 (Mac OS X, free, open source)

Hardware

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 :-)

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.

Obtaining data from video camera:

1. MicroObservatory Image 2.0 - astronomical image display program works with FITS and GIF images on PCs and Macs. Can also perform mathematical image processing operations on multiple images. PhAst - A flexible IDL tool to display and analyze FITS images.
2. Celestron's FREE planetarium app is an astronomy suite that redefines how you experience the night sky. Image Processing Software for Mac OS X. February 2, 2016.

• 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)

Astronomy Image Processing Software For Mac Os

Obtaining data from DSLR:

• 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)

Post-processing:

• The Gimp (Max OS X, free, open source)

Telescope guiding:

• AstroGuider (Mac OS X, payware, free trial)
• PHD2 (Mac OS X, free, open source)

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. Recall an email in office 365.

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.

Astronomy Image Processing Software For Mac Air

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.