EAA with regular AP gear?

[SkyHiker]

I want to do video astronomy with my regular AP gear and am wondering what live stacker to use. It should work from a folder in order to combine it with any sub-generating program (Nina, Ekos, ....). I also need it to retain its stretching parameters when a new sub comes in. It would be nice if it could work both on Linux and Windows though most likely I will use it from a Windows laptop while the subs are produced by a Pi. In fact, stacking on the Pi may affect the real-time performance that I need there, so stacking on a host computer is preferable. Stacking should ideally be within 10 seconds, maybe 20 at the most, because unguided subs need short exposure times. Does anyone have tool recommendations?

From what I have tried/seen (with ASI2600 subs on an old laptop),

- SharpCap (Windows, Linux): Stacks a sub in 6 seconds, retains the stretching parameters, easy to use. Requires a pro subscription (to not see the watermark), and the stretching is easy to use.
- ASTAP (Windows, Linux): Stacks fine live but lacks sufficient stretching features.
- Siril (Windows, Linux): Stacks a new sub in 16 seconds but does not retain the stretching parameters. Has decent editing features but the stretching has a learning curve.
- DSS Live (Windows, Linux coming soon): Stacks a sub in 20 seconds but lacks sufficient stretching features. (Standard DSS has very good stretching).
- AstroToaster (Windows): Based on the DSS code. Stacks a sub in almost 1 minute (binning may be needed to speed it up), retains the stretching parameters.
- (Edit) ASIStudio (Windows): Requires a camera to be connected. I have not tried this myself yet, but I heard it works well otherwise. I cannot disconnect my camera from the Pi after plate solving for alignment then connect it to my laptop for technical reasons.
- StellarMate (Linux): From its home page, seems to have nice live stacking. The code is a 1-time $50 expense.

None of them are really great. SharpCap is probably best, but I am allergic to subscriptions (I may have to get over it). Siril and AstroToaster come in 2nd.

I would like to hear if my assessment is correct, what else is out there, and how well it works.

[Graeme1858]

The ASI Studio does live stacking. I've not used it, others here have.

https://www.zwoastro.com/downloads

Graeme

[SkyHiker]

The ASI Studio does live stacking. I've not used it, others here have.

https://www.zwoastro.com/downloads

When I wrote ASIAir I meant to write ASIStudio (just fixed the type in the post). Sorry about that. It's the one that requires the camera to be connected. Since I need the camera on my Pi for goto alignment I would have to switch it to the laptop afterwards.

The problem with that is that I often see the Pi crash when disconnecting and reconnecting the camera, and also because of the hefty power requirements (for the cooler, mainly) that the Pegasus unit handles that is connected to the Pi. The camera does not work without connecting the cooler. Switching the connection is something that I would like to avoid. I could avoid it if I used my guide camera on the Pi for the goto alignment, making sure that the guide camera and ASI2600 are aligned. But it would drain the laptop battery pretty quick unless I take it out and hook it up to the 12V battery. It might work that way, but it's a bnit of a hassle.

That problem could of course be avoided by using one computer for all. For instance, a StellarMate or Ekos with Siril on a Pi, or laptop with Nina and SharpCap on Windows. With the StellarMate or Pi I could use an Android tablet for a VNC host, which is nicer than a heavy laptop.

The DSS project manager suggested that I volunteer to enhance DSS Live for this (Windows and Linux). The DSS editor has a good graphics editor that is better than that of AstroToaster, SharpCap or Siril, it could be implemented in DSS Live. I might take him up on that but haven't decided yet.

[Gordon]

I typically use Sharpcap for EAA, it has many more options and control features than ASI studio. I haven't tried DSS mainly because of the control features of Sharpcap.

However I only run windows for my astronomy stuff.

[SkyHiker]

I recently tried StellarMate and ALS (Astro Live Stacker) as well.

StellarMate has nice advertising on indilib.org about live stacking but that feature is not ready for prime time. I was hoping that it was a feature of a special-built Ekos on the target, but it turns out to be a StellarMate client feature. There are clients for IOS and Android. I found the Android one not to be ready. It needs to be much faster, and there must be better feedback from the GUI. The client for Windows is basically Ekos with stripped down functionality but with a feature that can connect to an Ekos target version like a Pi. It works well but has no live stacking.

Other than that, StellarMate is a nice way to get binary upgrades of Ekos. Kind of like Astroberry that is no longer updated unfortunately, AFAIK (I stopped following it). Thus far I have used Astroberry mostly but as the updates were no longer coming, I switched to building Ekos from source code. That works but it is not for the general user. Buying StellarMate OS is a nice way to fund Jasem a little for his tireless efforts on Ekos that are so much appreciated. BTW I am speaking about StellarMate OS on the Pi, not about the StellarMate OS for the mini PC or the StellarMate-X controller that is 4x faster than a Pi, supposedly.

Astro Live Stacker turns out to be too slow to be practical, and also the graphics are not quite adequate. I just can't get the saturation up, at least not in an understandable way.

Bottom line, the best live stacker I know is SharpCap, hands down. Still, the graphics could be better. For all other products the graphics are just poor. I think if DSS were equipped with the regular DSS editor, it would be the best, and free as well unlike SharpCap (you need the Pro version to have no watermark). So, I will see if I can do something about that.

[Xio1996]

Hi guys.

I'm a SharpCap user and find it powerful and
straightforward to use.

There is another EAA oriented application called Jocular. I just have a single shot colour camera but I believe Jocular supports mono cameras with filter wheels. Here is the link. It might be an option to consider.

https://transpy.eu.pythonanywhere.com/jocular/#

Have fun.

Pete