AstroShader: iOS beta testers needed for astrophotography app 📱🔭

[bold sleet]

I guess you use the background removal tool?
Basically this isn’t perfect in the way it works around borders

[bold sleet]

I’m planning to improve this at some point so those halos don’t appear.
The challenge is performance, e.g. a technique that allows you to do it in realtime with a slider.

[remote widget]

@bold sleet I don’t know what This options doing can you explain it?

[bold sleet]

The pixel binning option groups 4 pixels into 1 adding them. For example if the target is too dim.

The alignment option: The default is light. If the images are not aligning for you try medium or strong. These options are better at aligning but slower, especially on older devices

[graceful river]

What would you say are the best settings for capturing the m13?

(With a celestron astromaster 130eq)

[indigo haven]

If u got guiding then i would say 10 or 12 seconds if u dont then 1 or 2 seconds and iso should be between 800-1300 for that object

[storm crest]

The app crashes every time i try to use the ultrawide camera on my ipad pro
i don't have an iphone to test it but that's what it is right now

[indigo haven]

For me it crashes on my iphone if i take obe exposure

[graceful river]

Ok thanks

[bold sleet]

Hey, sorry about this I will take a look. Fairly sure I know what the problem is.
Thanks for reporting 🤝

[bold sleet]

What device and iOS version are you on?

There was a release the other week to resolve some issues on iPhone<=8. And another coming in the next 24hrs.
Otherwise may be something new…

[remote widget]

I capture the m31 Galaxy and the Milky Way galaxy with my IPhone 13. 2,8min total exposure in B6 sky’s. Thanks @bold sleet for the great app!

[indigo haven]

Iphone xr and newest version i have 2 xr and they both have same issue

[hollow drum]

how to remove circular color bands? btw i love ur app ive been using it for several months and i really like it

bortle9

[bold sleet]

I’m working on fixing this.

However it will not completely resolve it. Is it due to gradients across the image (e.g. sky or in this case effects of the lens). Then when you push the image in processing there are quantisation steps that appear.

Sometimes shooting the original image a little brighter can help. But it can be tricky especially in light polluted areas

[hollow drum]

how do i shoot the image brighter? is it something to do with iso or whitebalance? bc i dont know what those two settings do

[sterile nexus]

iso

white balance is different

[bold sleet]

ISO.
Higher = brighter

It gets more complicated. But for iPhones this is the rule

Also exposure time.
If you are not already adjusting this

[abstract storm]

Can i take multiple 1 second exposure Pics with my telescope, but it not automatically stacking it? Like i want to stack it on pc and want to have it as raw pictures

[graceful river]

Maybe turn allignment function to low idk if that would fully fix it though

[topaz rover]

I wish there was something like this for Samsung, sadly there isn't

[sterile nexus]

deep sky camera

[grizzled umbra]

have a look at openlivestacker

[topaz rover]

Thanks

[wet sandal]

There is also DeepSkyCamera, but it doesn't have stacking

[queen socket]

Maybe if you can make the app shoot RAW RAW images NO prcoessing no noise reduction no nothing only stacking then you process I noticed when you shoot raw with apple its processed a bit.

[bold sleet]

Until around 3 weeks ago this is how the app worked. e.g. RAW then using a processing pipeline separate from Apple’s one.

The change I made was to combine this data with apples AI processed image to improve the colour contrast.
This however has failed so I’m going for back to the AstroShader only pipeline, with some improvements.

[worn lantern]

New orion pic I didn’t know u could stack with this app. I tried it yesterday and WOAHH

Incredible app

[bold sleet]

v1.0.19 just released.

This release resolves the weird colour issues (undoing the previous release which tried to add Apple processed image data into the mix). In addition there are some further optimisations to the processing pipeline to enhance colour and contrast.

For anyone interested the next release will be a little different. It will be a private beta to help test a couple of new autofocus systems with the aim of making it work with a telescope.
More details to follow...

[worn lantern]

that sounds amazing

[remote widget]

@bold sleet I just capture the Milky Way galaxy from B6 with you App and there is a Rainbow. I did 10x43 total 7,16 minutes iPhone 13

[bold sleet]

…Is this edited?

I think it might be some lensing effect from a light source nearby, then made worse in the processing/editing

[remote widget]

Yes it edited in siril. I give you the Raw image maybe you can test something.

[bold sleet]

So this is the original??

This was my best effort, just on my phone 😅

[remote widget]

Yes that what I get after save the image

[remote widget]

How you do this?

[remote widget]

Looks much better and clear

[bold sleet]

I think the image is a little over exposed and the light pollution makes it more difficult.

The issue is that you have to heavily stretch a very narrow part of the image which will bring out lots of artefacts. Even when using a higher bit depth.

I would consider shooting with 50% lower exposure time and ISO, or even lower, and testing a single frame

[remote widget]

Should I do lower ISO?

[bold sleet]

I would test it out, maybe ISO 800 and exposure time 5s (based on your previous image).
I think it will be tricky with the light pollution though.

Ideally shooting when the Milky Way is higher in the sky or in a different position vs the town. Although maybe this isn’t possible

[remote widget]

Can you send this in Tif please?

[bold sleet]

It was tricky…
Lowering brightness 😅, stretching the mid tones, background extraction, stacked unsharp masks with very large radius (this approximates part of an enhancement technique that boosts image detail)

[bold sleet]

Oh no haha I didn’t save it, sorry. 🤦‍♂️
Let me try again…

[remote widget]

I only hava a Mac to process. I will get a Pc in 2-3 months and my edit skills will be better.

[remote widget]

Ok Thank you. Tiff is always better you know.

[remote widget]

Thank you!

[remote widget]

I just captured the andromeda galaxy. I did 30x1sec 13 times and I stacked the 13 images on my Mac. iPhone 6, B6, 114/1000 telescope.

[lunar sandal]

Thats acc good for those specs

I have 114/1000 b5-6 never tried andromeda

[remote widget]

Yeah bro andromedas spirals are very dark I would need 30min for a decent details image

[remote widget]

You also have the Astromaster 114eq?

[lyric river]

I’m gonna go to b2 tomorrow

Can’t wait to do wide-field with the app

[lunar sandal]

Yeah but no

Its the same tube but different exterior lol

And go to

[remote widget]

M31 with 12 Pro Max. B6 5x85 iso 800.

[lyric river]

Can u pls add auto dithering?

Stacking with the app causes a lot of walking noise

[rough lichen]

dithering is something you physially do

[bold sleet]

I’m working on some other denoising tools that may help this. (As swordofthesevensages mentions dithering is done using the mount normally)

Out of interest what was your exposure time per image?

[remote widget]

With the telescope 1 sec. Photograph the stars 5-10sec

[worn lantern]

It was 15 30 sec exposures

[bold sleet]

Thanks!

[bold sleet]

After playing with the color a bit I think there’s some detail that can be pulled out. With the original image even more so

[lyric river]

Yh but walking noise ruins it

[lyric river]

I played around with it too

[lyric river]

That image is compressed

Stupid discord compresses everything

Before and after a lil editing

[sterile nexus]

it’s almost monochrome

I’m guessing to hide the walking noise?

[lyric river]

[lyric river]

U shouldn’t notice that

[lyric river]

I extracted most of the detail

[remote widget]

Hey @bold sleet what you think about the IPhone 16? You think you app should work good and the telephoto Zooms?

[left cipher]

Already shared this in the phone astrophotography thread, but I figured I'd share it here too if the AstroShader dev hasn't already seen it. I love this app so much, the only reason I've ever been able to astrophotography with what little setup I have.

Taken with my iPhone 12, assisted of course with AstroShader and my Orion Starblast 114mm dob.

currently my best image of Andromeda.

[bold sleet]

Haha good question…
There may be some changes required but eventually it will work

[worn lantern]

hey @bold sleet do u think ii should use atroshaders auto stack, get a 3 min stack of 500ms exposures, then nudge to the left take another 3mmin stack and then a lil more for like dithering?

and then stack all the 3min stacks?

[bold sleet]

Like a kind of manual dithering?

…Interesting idea. You could also pause the capture and nudge it too.
This sounds like it might work in theory. If you nudge frequently and without favouring one direction.

I’d be interested to hear how it goes!

[worn lantern]

i cant afford to experiment tho ill only have 2 nights in b4

[worn lantern]

i meant like after the 3min sttack is commplete i nudge it and then get annother one and so on but pausing it doesnt sound like a bad idea

[worn lantern]

wouldnt pausing wobble the scope?

and ruin the pic?

[bold sleet]

Maybe …It would need to be a small nudge. Enough to break apart the walking noise but not so much the alignment fails

[worn lantern]

hmmm ill try while the moon is still out to experiment bc i wont have much to lose bc im gonna start shooting after the moon has set

ill let u know

[bold sleet]

Clear skies!

[worn lantern]

thx ill shoot the deerlick group

and orion too

cant wait to try out the technique

[worn lantern]

hey @bold sleet how cann i fix this outrageous field rotation ?

[worn lantern]

how did uu get 0 field rotation?

[left cipher]

I think it's because I only had about 12 minutes of integration time, which probably isn't enough to induce significantly noticeable field rotation

How much integration time was your Orion Nebula image above?

[bold sleet]

What was your setup and settings here?

To completely eliminate it you need a well aligned equatorial mount.

I think in this image it might be a combo of coma (or other optical distortion) plus effect some field rotation, e.g. coma at a different angle

[worn lantern]

105x500ms exposures taken with my unttracked 6" dob and phone

[worn lantern]

any way to reduce it with my dob?

how do people get pics with little to none field rotation with their dobs?

[left cipher]

Oh wow. That's less than a minute, and a lot less than I thought it would be. I think your problem is mostly coma related, that's my guess atleast, I can't imagine less than a minute of time is enough for the field rotation to look that extreme

[bold sleet]

I think this is too short for field rotation here. Probably all just coma

[left cipher]

Wow also, that you got that much detail out of only a minute of exposure, very cool

[worn lantern]

then y aree my stars goin in circle if onlly coma?

[worn lantern]

thx

[worn lantern]

???

[bold sleet]

I think it’s sensor spacing, as well as coma.
Have you seen diagrams like this…

I think it might be a combo of optical issues; coma plus barrel/pincushion

The iPhone lens on their own show a lot of distortion. If you shoot a picture of something perfectly square that almost fills the FOV you can see this.

I’ve found different combos of scopes and eyepieces make this worse, or better.

But for sure at 500ms subs x105 field rotation will not cause a problem

[worn lantern]

that explains it

[bold sleet]

For a comparison this is 10s x200 (over half an hour) untracked, but with no supplementary optics. You can see the amount of rotation where the stacking artefacts are visible in the bottom right. (Also the star shape)

[worn lantern]

yh i cropped out the artiffacts

[bold sleet]

Sorry I know it’s really annoying as it ruins otherwise nice shots. Had more than a few myself

[worn lantern]

ok thx for the help, wish i knew that earlier, now im in b9

2 b4 nights with good seeingg wasted

this one is not thaaaaat bad but its like half the integration

more detaiil tho

[bold sleet]

Nice shot, especially for a a minute or so integration?? 😎

[worn lantern]

this is 65x500ms stack instead of 105x500ms

[bold sleet]

Wow, I wonder what you could get if you crank that up to 30mins plus next time

[worn lantern]

i sure will

actually i got 30 mins of data on orion but i had the problem

u think i should stackk it despite the supid cam being too close?

[bold sleet]

With the app field rotation isn’t really a problem, except one scenario…
If you have bad coma (or other asymmetrical distortion) and a very long total integration time (hours 🤷‍♂️) …this will smear the star shapes

[bold sleet]

Worth a try

[worn lantern]

ok i will try that

[worn lantern]

dont have a lot of coma bc oof f/8

only slight

[lyric river]

How much integration and what Bortle?

[left cipher]

About 12 minutes of integration time, felt like somewhere in between a Bortle 5 ~ 6. It's usually Bortle 8 where I live though, so something had to have happened nearby for the night sky to suddenly be as dark and clear as it was, I had never seen anything like it before.

[worn lantern]

tracked?

[left cipher]

Yes and no. Yes, because I hand tracked it manually as it moved. No, because my setup doesn't have a tracking mount; 114mm tabletop dobsonian.

[worn lantern]

hand tracked?

ohhhh

[left cipher]

yes.

[worn lantern]

wont that tuurn out blurry?

[left cipher]

Not necessarily, I only need to move it every so often, to prevent my target from going out of frame. The way AstroShader works is that you can set realignment intervals to your integration time, so that every (amount set) individual exposures, it stops taking images and lets you manually realign your scope, allowing you to put the object you're shooting back in the center of the frame.

From there, you can start exposing again, now that you've recentered the target.

[worn lantern]

when i tried that the object turned out smeared

[left cipher]

Do you have an example of this?

[worn lantern]

yes

wait

[worn lantern]

@left cipher

[left cipher]

Oh, I see

[left cipher]

Was this taken with AstroShader?

sometimes if your alignment is a little too off, it can do this.

but that can be mitigated by just keeping your alignment tighter and less all over the place

[worn lantern]

yes

[worn lantern]

ohhhhh ok

[worn lantern]

mmine was ALL over the place

that explains it

[left cipher]

Ok, then yeah. I recommend setting the alignment function to medium, it's a good mix of having some leeway in alignment, without being so strict that the slightest deviation unaligns an entire exposure session

[worn lantern]

ok thx

[left cipher]

Always try to make sure your stars line up with each other between the first exposure and every one afterwards, there's a highlight feature that highlights your previous exposure red, and the current one blue, making it easier to tell the two apart and line them up between exposure sessions.

[worn lantern]

ok

[left cipher]

Ideally you want them to be as close as possible, but a little deviation between sessions shouldn't smear it.

[worn lantern]

ok thanks for the help

[left cipher]

of course!

[worn lantern]

hey @bold sleet can u give the option to give thee sinngle subs when yo finish a stack on there?

[bold sleet]

Hey, yes this is on the todo list.
Basically an intervalometer option to save the subs as RAW, tiff, etc

[worn lantern]

ok nice

[sharp pawn]

I tried to capture the andromeda galaxy
As long as it’s centered it doesn’t trail
But when the part comes and I need to realign it leaves trails from then on

First realign

Second realign

I have an eq mount and an iPhone 14 Pro Max

[bold sleet]

This looks a little off, sometimes it needs to be precisely realigned.

The second image looks like it has failed previously and the current mount position is way off

[sharp pawn]

Mount position?

[bold sleet]

I’m thinking of adding a crosshairs or something similar to help show when you have correctly aligned the target and can continue

[bold sleet]

The red and the green images need to be aligned manually using the mount (or ball head, tripod, etc) before you can continue

[sharp pawn]

I did

[bold sleet]

Ah ok sorry, I was thinking you meant they were aligned in the above images

[sharp pawn]

The second realign was just to visualize (didn’t start to realign yet)

[bold sleet]

Ah ok

This is a crop of some stars in the first image - the green and red need to be aligned.

I’m planning to make this less sensitive, so the alignment doesn’t have to be so precise. (And adding a crosshairs or message to say when it’s correct)

[sharp pawn]

Quick question: is Polaris alignment important?
Mine is a bit off

[copper crystal]

I got a question

Will there be a chance for astroshader to come to android?

[bold sleet]

For long integration times it might be an issue. For shorter, 5mins, 10mins, it will be fine.
The app aligns automatically between exposures so can correct for field rotation.

[bold sleet]

At some point yes.
Apologies I can’t say when just now

[copper crystal]

No worries man app looks amazing and i hope you take ur time with it

[lyric river]

Is this out of focus?

[livid spire]

Doesn’t look like it

[queen socket]

Bortle 9 3-4 minutes 1 sec subs untracked iphone 14 pro and celestron 70mm 400mm refrac

[left cipher]

I don't think so, as long as your stars were as small as you could've possibly made them, then you were fully in focus. Lots of really bright stars in the Orion Nebula, so they could've been blown out a tiny bit.

[sharp pawn]

A small feature request:
When you rotate the camera 180 and then take the image and want to realign then the "image" to realigned isn’t rotated 180 too but the object you rotated originally is still rotated

[wary yew]

@bold sleet if I can help u with anything

Let me know

[bold sleet]

Aha yes - thanks for reporting. This is definitely a bug

[bold sleet]

OK cool - maybe DM me and we can see if there’s anything to collaborate on

[wary yew]

alright

[austere kite]

Can I use the app to take photos of Andromeda galaxy with no tracking mount?

[remote widget]

Yes you can use a any mount. I also don’t have a tracker. Andromeda galaxy pic in B6 in 7min by me

[cursive garnet]

This app is really good and finally works on my iPad! I got a newer one though.

I think I’m gonna let it run longer, is the limited run 1000 frames?

[graceful river]

Milky Way slightly visible from bortle 6

[bold sleet]

Yes it’s limited to 1000 exposures at the minute

[cursive garnet]

What focus do you recommend? Or does it autofocus

[remote widget]

0.8 or 0.79

[bold sleet]

This varies slightly by iPhone model but is usually between 0.75 - 0.9.

…I’m working on autofocus but may be a couple of months. (Annoyingly the built in autofocus doesn’t work on stars very well).

[left cipher]

It's best to test your focus before imaging, all you gotta do is find a star that's sufficiently bright enough, and adjust the focus until your star of choice is as sharp and small of a pinpoint as you can make it.

I wouldn't rely on what number the focus adjuster displays, better to just trust your eyes

[cursive garnet]

I use .67 or someonething around there and it looked pretty focus

[livid spire]

11 mins on Milky Way, cooked data, iPhone 11

[bold sleet]

v1.0.20 Just released.

• The main changes were further improvements to the colour processing.
• There were various bug fixes including the +/- exposure buttons issue mentioned.
• The sharpen slider range has also been reduced to a max of 5.

[cursive garnet]

Does the app save your settings?

[bold sleet]

It saves them between shots (and uses).
But there aren’t presets you can save

[remote widget]

I capture the Plejade IPhone 13 Pro Max 3x40sec 3x Telephoto Zoom in B4

[hollow drum]

andromeda b9

[remote widget]

Nice wich camera settings you use?

[hollow drum]

20s x 28 iso 1160

[remote widget]

@hollow drum Grat for 9min exposure but you could try ISO 800 to get a darker background. Do you use a Telephoto Zoom?

[sterile nexus]

this app has been freezing after like 3 preview exposures and not working ever again for me until I reinstall

I was hoping to use it for the aurora but this bug won’t let me 😢

on the latest version, iPhone 15 pro

seems to happen whenever I set the exposure length too high and then exit the app

it saves those settings and then freezes when trying to restore them after relaunch

[bold sleet]

Oh sorry…
What is the exact way to reproduce this?
1 - Set exposure length high, 45seconds?
2 - Take and image
3 - Close the app
4 - Reopen the app
5 - Try shooting another image -> the crash occurs here?

[sterile nexus]

set to 20s, 32k iso
take at least 1 image(might not be required)
exit app
reopen app

then it’ll take about 3 exposure for the preview and then freeze

don’t worry about me though I found out I could just reopen the app a few times and it would work

[bold sleet]

So the app preview is freezing?
Is the UI still responsive? e.g. pressing settings, sliders etc, or the whole thing is frozen

I’ll try and get to the bottom of is as this sounds annoying

[astral prawn]

Would people recommend it over deepsky camera?

[sterile nexus]

yes it’s just the preview

and when I try to take an exposure it’ll just cancel itself after a bit

[bold sleet]

Ah ok weird.
Are you on iOS18 by any chance?

[sterile nexus]

I am

[bold sleet]

So I know 18.0.0 had a lot of issues with cameras (on any app)
Then 18.0.1 resolved some of them, so could be worth updating if you haven’t.

I’ll also dig into this a bit more and see what’s going on…

[rough lichen]

@bold sleet i asked this a while ago but cant find the message. When are we expecting astroshader on andriod?

[bold sleet]

I’m not sure just yet. May be a little while until things are stabilised on iOS

[worn lantern]

comet taken with my phone using astrshader

[left cipher]

Ooh nice, how much integration?

[worn lantern]

@bold sleet hey, how could i remove these rainbow wavs??

[worn lantern]

46x11seconds iso 800

bortle 9

[left cipher]

Ah ok, nice

[worn lantern]

i saw it with my eyes its so beautiful

eveen in b9 lol

[left cipher]

I saw it a couple days ago really low on the horizon, haven't seen it again since though. :/

[worn lantern]

clouds?

[left cipher]

Nah, it was above the horizon for like a day or two and then it dipped back below to the southern hemisphere

[worn lantern]

it didnt, i live at 38n

and it well above

[left cipher]

I'm in an area where the comet is rising and falling at the same time as the sun, so it's either in the sky for me when it's day time and right next to the sun, or it's below the horizon with the sun.

My luck couldn't be worse

[bold sleet]

Mmm that is a bit weird.
Doesn’t look like color banding I’ve seen before, due to gradients and an old version of the app.

Are there any light sources nearby?

[left cipher]

Oh I've been meaning to share this with you sir AstroShader, there's this strange visual artifact that occurred when I was taking photos of the aurorae from recent ago.

Zooming into the center of the image, you can see strange concentric circle patterns, and I have no idea what could've caused them. It only happened when I used AstroShader to image the aurorae, and never happened when I used the normal camera app.

[worn lantern]

i live in b9 and theres a lot of lp under the comet

[remote widget]

The Rainbow comes from the light Pulution. I am also sometimes in B9 and I capture the M31. 7min total

[bold sleet]

Oh that it weird.
Is it happening in all photos?

Looks like some kind of lens artefact or even weird type of moire.
(The app skips all the Apple processing which has steps to remove the certain artefacts)

I’ll do some research and see if I can get to the bottom of it

[left cipher]

Luckily I have not noticed this in all photos, this is the first time it's ever happened for me.

Perhaps it's been happening this whole time, but the center of the image hasn't ever been bright enough for the artifacting to be visible, and the aurora glow happened to be bright enough for it to be seen.

Not sure if my phone camera's lens was clean or not, but I feel like if it wasn't clean I would've seen this in normal non-AstroShader images too.

[bold sleet]

Yes exactly - would have been visible in the other images if there was something on the lens.

I’ll try to recreate the issue. My suspicion is a some weird combo of lighting and me not doing any anti-moire processing

[bold sleet]

This is probably due to colour banding. The light pollution makes a subtle gradient which is causes the issue.

Colour banding is basically due to discontinuities in the pixel values, e.g. due to the bit depth not being high enough to capture the gradient smoothly.

I tried using some of the Apple image pipeline in an older version of the app. However it only supports 8bit images so made this issue much worse. I suspect your image here @remote widget was taken a couple of months ago using this version
(…If not I have some work to do 😅)

[remote widget]

Yes I take the image back on Juli

[wary yew]

that rainbow happens because of light POLLn? tysm for the info man i was so frustrated about tha

[worn lantern]

also heres the aurora from b9 athens at 38n

[graceful river]

What would be the best settings for viewing comet tsuchinshan atlas

[remote widget]

Exposure 10sec and 30 pics. ISO 800. you will get a 5 minute total exposure time. Should be enough for capturing all the details

[graceful river]

Ok ty

[worn lantern]

i did 11 seconds 46pics 800 iso

and, i got the antitail

[worn lantern]

btw this is my accounnt too

[remote widget]

Also good but it’s a bit risky because you did along long exposure the app maybe not align well after.

[worn lantern]

it alligned fine

[remote widget]

Yes

[worn lantern]

i just HATE the waalking noise omg

[remote widget]

But something I try this and had problems

[remote widget]

Yes

[remote widget]

Is this the Process version

[worn lantern]

yh

[worn lantern]

the original had SO MUCH BANDING

[remote widget]

In wich Bortle lvl are you?

[worn lantern]

BORTLE 9

[remote widget]

That normal for this bands

[worn lantern]

ik

i also just used my phone, no scope

[remote widget]

I live in B6 the banding are still there but they low

This was 10x43

[lyric river]

Here’s from b2

[remote widget]

Why you don’t have colors

Or wich settings

[lyric river]

That’s y

So much walking noise

[remote widget]

I think the noise comes from the many pic that are stacked

[lyric river]

It’s bc of no dithering

[remote widget]

Maybe you should try 10x30 and ISO 900

[remote widget]

If you can send me the Raw data I can process for u

[lyric river]

That was 30sec 15pics 16000iso

[bold sleet]

I know 😭😭

I’m working on two ways to resolve this.
The first is to add dark frames into the process, the second is a way to not even need dark frames 🙃

[lyric river]

Nice pls fix it, if u do it’s gonna be great

I’ve got some darks

[bold sleet]

It’s the top priority right now. Darks are a bit trickier when live-stacking. So I’ll probably add some “pro” features to save all the data for stacking later (in DSS, Siri, etc) then eventually add stacking from photos library to the app. This is less quick and easy to use, however will get better results.

However, I do want to push “easy to use” features. e.g. no-darks-needed, auto-focus, auto settings etc for beginners or people just wanting a quick and simple way to capture images

[lyric river]

How are u gonna fix walking noise without darks

[bold sleet]

I’m not 100% sure if I can, but currently working through some magic processing that might do the trick

[inner lance]

Darks don't fix walking noise anyway

Dithering is the only solution

Unless you develop some kind of weird deconvolution algorithm to reverse the effects in post processing

It hasn't been done before

It might be possible

[bold sleet]

It depends on the imaging system I guess.
Somewhere there is some fixed pattern noise being introduced that degrades the signal when aligned and stacked.
Dithering helps spread the effects over a large enough area to be less noticeable.

A challenge here is that any solution needs to work for someone shooting untracked, for example with just a tripod and an iPhone.

[inner lance]

I wonder if it's possible to make some kind of NN to reverse walking noise

[bold sleet]

That is well outside my skill set but an interesting idea…

[queen socket]

I think weird banding is from flats

I think you should add flats feature

Maybe make it a experimental feature

[wild dome]

Also add a histogram graph

[bold sleet]

I’d like to add the ability to use all types of calibration frames, for advanced users, eventually

[bold sleet]

Yes, I’m really keen on this too.
Just need to find a way to fit it into the editing screen

[remote widget]

@bold sleet The App has some issues by realigning. I don’t know how this trails comes from. It was a 1x300 and a 30pic realign function.

I always was very close to the same spot to realign

[bold sleet]

I need to look into this. The realignment is very sensitive to small errors 😩
I’m going to improve this and also add some sort of indicator to show when it’s safe to restart, e.g. the realignment is good enough

[remote widget]

Yes is need some updates, but it still stack all the images, with noises

After I edit in siril not look that bad

[lyric river]

@bold sleet wtf is wrong with your app, I perfectly repositioned this 10min stack and this is what I get

Wtf

Seriously

20 repotitions

What did I do wrong

[lyric river]

@bold sleet I need your help desperately

@bold sleet pls

[left cipher]

I experience this occasionally too, not sure how to mitigate it. I use an iPhone, 12 if that helps

that's a shame, that andromeda data was looking really good

[livid spire]

daddy chill

[lyric river]

[bold sleet]

Ah sorry about that. Very annoying to waste the time and data 😞
I’ll look into the reposition urgently.
I’m not sure why but sometimes the alignment gets thrown off during a reposition alignment (vs regular alignment)

[bold sleet]

If you have the settings used as well that would be really handy 🙏

Also one thing to try is zooming in a bit.
You have included the eyepiece in the FOV (e.g. not zoomed in to exclude the circle at the edge).
This may cause some issues with alignment as the algorithm may be confused by this vs the target.
I’m not sure why this would be worse for repositioning vs regular alignment but is worth trying until I can get a fix out. (In general it will definitely improve alignment chances of success)

[left cipher]

Yeah I always try to zoom in on AstroShader so that the walls of the eyepiece can't be seen (or are atleast seen much less) before imaging, but it does still happen every so often oddly enough

[hazy dirge]

@lyric river

@lyric river

[lyric river]

When I zoom to get rid of the eye piece walls I lose half my fov

[left cipher]

Yeah well, that'll happen. That's another reason why I prefer the scopes with larger fields of view, so that this can be mitigated, and theoretically with a nice quality eyepiece, high power can still be achieved for viewing purposes.

[lyric river]

Omg this repositioning tool is dogsh*t

I will try zoomed in and no fov now

[left cipher]

It works when it does, I figure that the reason why it sometimes doesn't work is because the eyepiece wall confuses it. That's my best guess, I can't think of anything else it could be.

[worn lantern]

Omg this repositioning tool is a joke

I tried zoomed in and it didn’t work

It is a JOKE

I had 2 nights in b4

This is the last one

This can’t be happening

[remote widget]

I don’t use the Realign function any more. I do 1s and 30pic and it will do the 30s exposure with out noises. I do Realign by my self I just Markt the screen with a Crosair to realign by my self. Than just stack the images in a program.

Take a image, Save do it’s again and stack

[bold sleet]

Sorry - I’ll look into it. It’s hard to know why in this case it fails without specific details.

For now as @remote widget suggests just shoot the stacks separately and then at least you have the data to combine separately later

[graceful river]

Damn. Yall really aren’t kind to this guy who spend time to create a free astrophotography app for you to use and you treat him with disrespect. If there’s issues, at least try be polite…

[left cipher]

I agree, the results this app can deliver are fantastic, as long as it works. But again, this is a single person creating this, there's really no valid reason to not expect some goofs and bugs here and there, especially considering billion dollar companies run by thousands of people still make the same dumb mistakes here and there.

So I'd say just give it time, I have full faith that eventually AstroShader will be close to perfection, both in stacking software and processing.

[lyric river]

@bold sleet sorry for my rude behavior, i just have VERY few nights in b4 and I want to produce a good picture now bc I will be stuck in b9 for another month

[lyric river]

Thx for trying to help, I got it working, it wasnt working bc I wasn’t precise enough with the repositioning

This is by far the best astrophotographers app for a phone and I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near the quality of images I have took using your app

Thx

I had a temper tantrum over like a toddler over nothing

[remote widget]

Yes the best thing is it for FREE and don’t have ads and also very good working and helping much.

I don’t know what I would do without the App AstroShader

[bold sleet]

It’s all good

Sounds weird but I learn a lot more about what to improve from these types of discussions.

Plus I think we’ve all been there - in terms of frustrating situation when you’re finally in a dark site and the kit isn’t working as expected. No one outside AP knows this pain 😅

[lyric river]

I got it working

It’s so good

[lyric river]

It sometimes get confused with stacking even when perfectly repositioned but it’s no biggie

5minute m81 and m82

I did a 10minite one too but the app got a lil confused

With stacking

[bold sleet]

Would you mind letting me know what settings you used here, and what iPhone you have?

…Feel like I might be able to do something to improve the noise a bit more

[lyric river]

300x1sec stack 15000iso

The iso is the problem

I’ll denoise it later

It’s fine

[bold sleet]

Thanks - this is very useful

[bold sleet]

Despite the bugginess of the app, shots like this; e.g. Bodes and Cigar untracked with a phone are exactly why I wanted to make AstroShader

[worn lantern]

orion 1 hour

ill fix the stars in a bit

[remote widget]

I think you use much magnification.

[worn lantern]

wut?

[worn lantern]

this is the lowest i ggot

[remote widget]

What is it

This is my Orion with 40mm eyepiece 25x

[worn lantern]

20mm

[remote widget]

And what is you Focal length?

[worn lantern]

1200mm

[remote widget]

Is this a 8 inch dob?

[worn lantern]

6"

[remote widget]

You using a 20mm eyepiece and you have 60x

To much

If you would also buy a 40mm eyepiece you would have 30x wich is better

[left cipher]

the only potential issue with that though is good quality eyepieces can be expensive

Especially the larger ones

[remote widget]

I buy this

And I have low magnification

[worn lantern]

quick sh*tty proccess of my orion data

looks noot bad

[remote widget]

You have the Raw data?

[left cipher]

certainly not terrible

[remote widget]

I can also try

[left cipher]

stars and nebulosity details are a bit wonky around the edges but it's pretty ok otherwise

[worn lantern]

play with it as much as u want

[worn lantern]

well its bc of coma

[left cipher]

That'll happen

[worn lantern]

better than this

[left cipher]

Exposure and brightness seem a little more controlled in this one though, the core is completely blown out in your recent one

well, maybe not completely

but the colors are more washed out by the core brightness

[left cipher]

whereas this one looks more vibrant

[hazy dirge]

@worn lantern

[left cipher]

the coma is noticeably worse in the older one though, so your newest capture does have that going for it

[worn lantern]

i didnt even strech it that hard

iidk y that happened

[worn lantern]

thx

[hazy dirge]

np

tried stretching with a more difficult technique

colors fixed

[left cipher]

might have overstretched it, but the colors look nice and pretty

I must ask, how did you get an hour of data when AstroShader only provides a thousand exposures maximum?

[worn lantern]

woah give file

[left cipher]

file?

[worn lantern]

yh

[left cipher]

I just edited it in the default iPhone photo edit interface💀

[worn lantern]

oh lol

[left cipher]

So how did you get an hours worth of data with AstroShader?

It only maxes out at a thousand exposures and any exposure time longer than a second starts to trail so how did that work

[lyric river]

A lot of 2.5min stacks

[left cipher]

Ohh wow ok

I figured there'd be star trailing with subs that big, do you have star tracking?

[lyric river]

There are trails, I forgot to do 0.5sec subs and not 1secons subs

I’m an idiot

[sterile nexus]

@bold sleet Ty for fixing the bug!

[bold sleet]

The iOS18 one isn’t fully resolved yet. It’s causing a lot of headaches… Even the iOS camera app has been having issues

[worn lantern]

newer process

[left cipher]

'Ery Noice

[remote widget]

Today AstroSahder Stack the images with out problem by its self. 1x300

[left cipher]

My latest and greatest image of the Andromeda Galaxy, made possible with AstroShader, my iPhone 12, and my Starblast dob.

[long raven]

looks amazing!!

[bold sleet]

Do you have the original (tif or png)?
I’m working on some experimental image enhancement algorithms - I can run it through them if you like!

[left cipher]

Oh, sure

(it looks so bad without hours and hours of post processing lmfao)

@bold sleet

don't mind the trailing from a jet that happened to pass through the frame at the very end of the integration

[bold sleet]

Thanks

Ah wait I think discord converts it into a jpeg

[left cipher]

Damnit

did I save it as a jpeg?

Ah damn I saved it as a JPG

so no it's just like that

is that a problem perchance?

[bold sleet]

It might not be a problem if you edited it before saving, and plan to use only the jpeg as is to share.

However if you want to do any editing always save as tiff (or png).
JPEG uses compression that degrades the image and also is only 8 bit vs 16 bit. So if you want to stretch the image to pull detail out (as with most astro images) a lot will be lost when saving as JPEG

8 bit has 256 levels for pixel intensity, 16 bit has 65,536

[left cipher]

Ah ok, makes sense

I just figured I wouldn't be able to get very much out of it in the first place, considering it's a phone image. And seeing that the png file would've been several dozen megabytes, I didn't see it as worth that much storage space at the time.

[bold sleet]

Worth a play next time to compare.
If you hadn’t stretched the histogram before saving, I think you’ll be happy with what a higher bit depth can do.

[left cipher]

Ah well, can't change it now I guess.

I'm happy with what I got anyway, it's my best andromeda image yet and it'll likely stay that way for a while

[bold sleet]

Definitely. M32 and M110 coming through clearly too!

[left cipher]

Indeed! Someday, sometime. I'll get a good shot of this galaxy. Idk when, but someday.

[bold sleet]

It’s a really tough target at higher magnifications for phone AP

Unless you have a massive scope 😅

[remote widget]

Today Capture the Andromeda Galaxy. Celestron Astromaster 114/1000 telescope. With a IPhone 13 camera, 1sx900p total 15min exp in B6 skys.

Real good only the Eyepiece noises at background

[wary yew]

Wow

[versed quest]

Last night I captured Orion Nebula with Iphone 15pro and Celestron Travelscope 80 using AstroShader App. Don’t know about setting; it was shared by @remote widget, thanks for guidance. I just messed around with color and curves settings in the app and got this final picture.

[remote widget]

No problem, you can get help from everyone here

[left cipher]

My most recent image of the Orion Nebula, not sure if I consider this one to be my best or not. It's a little sharper than my previous image of Orion and has better colors IMO, but also has less nebulosity visible.

About 13.5 minutes of integration time, 800 x 1 second exposures. Taken on my iPhone 12 using AstroShader. Star diffraction spikes are manually edited in because they look nice I think.

[worn lantern]

holy diffraction spike

[left cipher]

yeah lol, usually I don't like when the Trapezium looks blown out, but the diffraction spikes coming from it here looked neat I thought.

[solar stag]

I was able to capture a lot of detail in the milky way core and edited through lightroom mobile

along with many more amazing milky way core photos

[fluid valve]

the detail looks crazy for a phone

I have gotten nowhere near that good lmao

[worn lantern]

old vs new process

[wild dome]

3x75sec

Why is it so hard to get good focus with phone cams

[bold sleet]

They usually have very short focal ratios so the point of critical focus is very small vs the total focal range of the lens setup

[remote widget]

Yes focusing with a Telephoto camera is very hard

I would say use 1.0 it’s work for me

[wild dome]

I do 0.7 or 0.8

1 is out of focus for me

[bold sleet]

There is no set value for infinity focus. It varies between devices.

Usually it is between 0.75-0.85.

I have not seen a device where it is 1.0 …yet

[remote widget]

I take this image with my 12 Pro max 2,5x telephoto lens I use 1.0 Fokus Point

Idk but I think the stars looks Fokus

[bold sleet]

Ah sorry - telephoto lens is different. It may be 1.0 for this

(The wide-angle lens has the best sensor, so usually test with that)

[worn lantern]

astroshadr im afraid ill get an astrocam

pleasure using your app

[remote widget]

With out tracker it will not easy to do long exposure

[worn lantern]

ik ill do 0.7 sec exposures

[bold sleet]

Thank you and thanks for testing it out!

[worn lantern]

im gonnna keep using it actually but not through myy scope but for wiidefield

cant resist

[bold sleet]

Long-term my aim is to make it so easy (and work well enough) that it’s still an option for a quick shot, even if you have a pro setup

[worn lantern]

yh your app is amazing as it is now i cant wait to see how it will evolve

[bold sleet]

Version 1.0.25 is now out.

This has an improved background removal tool.

[left cipher]

Epic

[remote widget]

@bold sleet When I use you app my Phone keep closing, bec I don’t touch the phone screen for pointing my phone to find the deepsky objects. Can you pls fix that? Is very annoying that my phone keep closing. Thank you

[bold sleet]

Do you mean the Lock Screen?
So you have to type the pin in your re-open?

[remote widget]

Phone is locking in this screen menu after a few seconds if you don’t touch.

[bold sleet]

It should be the normal lock screen time.
e.g. If you go to the iOS Settings App then “Display and Brightness” scroll down and edit “Auto-Lock”.

(The app can disable this during an image capture - but it would not be a good idea to do this forever during the preview screen)

[remote widget]

Ok thanks I did to 5min now

But if I do capture some thing the screen will not locked right?

[bold sleet]

Yes it can be disabled during a capture. But to disable it in the preview would not be a good idea without some restrictions (also I don’t think the appStore would accept this - there are rules about the use)

[bold sleet]

v1.0.26 is now out

• This adds a new "stretch slider" to the edit tools.
• The "stretch slider" enhances structures within the image whilst diminishing background elements. Like an adaptive version of a traditional contrast slider.
• The motivation here was that for flat images I found myself using the same 5-10 editing operations and curves stretch to achieve the desired effect. ...Easier as a single slider.

The easiest way to show the effect of the new tool is some images. Top row is originals and bottom row is after applying 50-75% of the "stretch image" slider.

v1.0.27 will be out in a few weeks and, by popular demand, will add an intervalometer to save all the subs data.

[worn lantern]

YYESSSSSS

[left cipher]

Ooooh 'Ery Noice, we're eatin' good today

[worn lantern]

i cant find it

[worn lantern]

i re processed my old mw data from b2

this was before lol

[opal terrace]

yeah way better

especially the color

[remote widget]

@bold sleet Is this normal if the image get dark after background Extracition?

[left cipher]

I think that's normal afaik, the contrast is just increasing and subtle details are being enhanced, so naturally the darks and the lights in the image will get more extreme

[worn lantern]

yeah just dont do that lol

[worn lantern]

yh

it looks like i used a dslr

really nice

[vast moon]

Just downloaded this on my new phone, looks great

[worn lantern]

how can i transfer 20smth gigabytes of 1 second subs from my phone to my pc? they dont fit in google drive

[remote widget]

I think a USB Stick would work

[devout merlin]

what tsrget did you shoot?

[lunar sandal]

Long but tranafer some then delete them and do it again

[lunar sandal]

Yeah but its some weird ash file format

[plush axle]

anyone know if you can turn on 48mp mode on iphone 16 pro in the astroshader app

[remote widget]

I think this should be automatically On. Just save the image with TIFF data

[unkempt urchin]

@bold sleet when will it come for Android

Bring it for Android

Please

[worn lantern]

sam blurxed my old orion data when the seeinng was good

here is the dataa if someone waants to play with it

[ebon lynx]

oh wow

i gotta try this app w my phone attached to the img intensifier (night vision) that i have

[remote widget]

My first try on Orion constellation 5x180 iPhone 13

The raw image

[remote widget]

You need a 40mm eyepiece and a 6mm svybony gold 66* eyepiece and get the lens out of the bottom. I capture the image with my IPhone 13 and AstroShader it was a 1sx1000=16min. B6 undtracked.

The raw image

[devout merlin]

would you guys recommend iphone 15 pro for astro capabilities and daily use in general?

really close to buying one and i want to know if it wil be worth the money

[remote widget]

If you have a old phone the IPhone 15 pro is a very good upgrade. For Astro it’s have also a good sensor size.

[devout merlin]

i have a samsung a52

so i th8nk it would be a big improvement

and from family experience ios is extraordinary

didnt test the phone

and idk about the camers

[remote widget]

iPhone 15 pro is very good

You should like it

You also can play some games at 120fps

[devout merlin]

wow

not rly interested in games

more into camera, storage, resistence and software

[remote widget]

Cameras all good you also have a 3x telephoto camera

But the pro max have a 5x

You think you could get the 16 Pro?

[devout merlin]

idk thats over my budget

altho i can save up more and keep this phonw for longer

if the difference between performances is this big

[remote widget]

Yeah look what better for you still the 15 pro is a good phone to

[devout merlin]

wdym

[remote widget]

No I mean it’s all good if you get the 15 pro

I have the IPhone 13 may I do a upgrade to 16 pro

[devout merlin]

when?

maybe ill wait for you to get an honest opinion

bc if its really worth getting the 16 pro and all of that

i can wait

[remote widget]

I am looking maybe in the months

https://youtu.be/0utn09KOFO4?si=fTENgB8tdDBwUDTZ

[bold sleet]

If anyone here is on iOS 18.2 and iPhone 15 or 16 would you mind messaging/DMing if you are getting any random crashes when shooting images?

[devout merlin]

wait are you the astroshader king?

[bold sleet]

Yeah I make the app

[devout merlin]

very nice

ill definetly try it when ill buy the 15 pro

its free right?

[devout merlin]

@worn lantern is your dobsonian tracked?

[worn lantern]

i wish

its untracked

[devout merlin]

lol ok

[devout merlin]

im just shocked how good that orion is

no noise at all

[worn lantern]

thats what 1hour of integration does lol

[devout merlin]

oh wow no chance i would have so much patience

[worn lantern]

i dont wanna be mean but the astroshader repotitioning tool is lets say a liiitle sensitive so i had to repotition with surgical accuracy or bad things would happen, ii was tramatised after that shooting session

[devout merlin]

wow

but astroshader is nly live stacking?

cant it js take raw images to process them on laptop?

also with a big 8" its easier and smoother to track then with a mighty 6" flextube

[worn lantern]

after i told him what happened this happened:

this way we can sstack the pics by ourselves

[devout merlin]

HE LISTENED TO OUR VOICES (your voices)

[devout merlin]

really nice

[worn lantern]

yeah he is based

[devout merlin]

also we lucky to have the owner in this server😅

[worn lantern]

yo astroshadr

[bold sleet]

Yes, right now.
Although I’m planning to charge $1 or $2, but that will still get you the app forever

[devout merlin]

can you do this after i get my 15 pro?

[worn lantern]

😭

[worn lantern]

wait if the app is already downloaded i willl still have it??

[bold sleet]

If you already have the app it will be free forever

[devout merlin]

its understandable tho

[worn lantern]

phew

[bold sleet]

If you’re on iOS already download it now then you won’t have to pay

[worn lantern]

yeah this app is insanly good

[devout merlin]

no im not...

still on my crappy a52

prob will get it in 1 month

[worn lantern]

i dont have a flextube

[bold sleet]

Literally this afternoon got the first version of this working, saving RAW, TIFF or HEIC

[devout merlin]

ik

[worn lantern]

NICEEEEE

[worn lantern]

great job with this app, you litteraly saved ios phone astro

[bold sleet]

Also the $1or2 charge is a one-off charge. No subscription, I’m not a fan of subscriptions (in this scenario)

[devout merlin]

maybe you could do a free version and a 2$ full version

idk js saying

[worn lantern]

niceeee dude you are a real one

[bold sleet]

It’s a fair point, I’ve spoken about this with a lot of people.
And of landed on the low one-off charge as a balance of making it accessible but also sustainable

[devout merlin]

fair

it is understandable

i mean from what i heard and saw the app is worth even 10$

i will convince parents

now depends when you plan on doing this change

[bold sleet]

I can always add people to have it for free

So if you can pay I’ll just stick you on the beta list and you’ll have it free 🤝

[devout merlin]

such a nice person who made a nice app

w mans

[worn lantern]

eventhough i got that new astrocam, when i go to b4 in a couple weeks i will shoot the orion constelation and prob get around 2 hours of int

[devout merlin]

loyal

[worn lantern]

my goal is to capture the witch's head nebula

[devout merlin]

oh wow pretty dim target

i want to get the flame

really tried since last year

[worn lantern]

2hours in b4 so idk, i might get it

[devout merlin]

yeah youll def get it

anyways

now i am waiting for those good deals to come

[worn lantern]

i did a quick 5min stack but it looks terrible

[devout merlin]

looks great

for horsehead you would need 30 min i suppose

minimum

[worn lantern]

nnvm that flame is 30 seconds of int

explains y its so bad

[devout merlin]

yaeh

[worn lantern]

i did a 10minute andromeda but i didnt repotition correctly

[devout merlin]

yeah i saw this above😅

[worn lantern]

i was so mean when that happened

[devout merlin]

lol ik

you was protostar too i think

haha

[worn lantern]

no its just my other acc

[devout merlin]

oooh

mb

[worn lantern]

i also did a 5min m81-m82

[devout merlin]

i love those arms

from m81

[worn lantern]

i just realised smth

i have 2.5 min of data more

i can make it 7.5min

lemme find the data

[devout merlin]

oh ok cool

[worn lantern]

i also hace some tasty andromeda, this might be sick

[devout merlin]

never

[devout merlin]

whats kotlin

[bold sleet]

Latest programming language for Android

[opal terrace]

if this comes to android I'd absolutely pay for it

deepskycamera is nice but I'd prefer this

[bold sleet]

I might do a “lite” version a some point.
But to be honest I’ll have to outsource parts of it, managing all the hardware issues for iOS is tough and Android is more complicated

[devout merlin]

tell me more ab this picture

ik its 1h

but how many frames

[worn lantern]

3600x1second

[devout merlin]

ok thanks

iso?

[worn lantern]

12000 or 10000

i dont remember

i think 10000

[devout merlin]

oh wow

[bold sleet]

The much requested release to save subs data is here.
I'm releasing a test version first as this required some wider changes.

To access the test version follow this link: https://testflight.apple.com/join/bZm6rqT1

To activate saving subs data scroll down in the menu and choose the file type:

Some notes for testing:

• RAW files are saved "as is". e.g. Every RAW output generate by the camera is saved. So if you set the exposure time to 3.0s in an iPhone14 this will result in 3 RAW files.

• TIFF and HEIF files are saved at 1 per "AstroShader exposure". e.g. if you set the exposure time to 3s in an iPhone14 this will result in 1 TIFF/HEIF file.

• Saving does slow down the capture process. This is worse when choosing TIFF on older devices.

• AstroShader cannot open RAW files, for now. This, and stacking will come in later releases.

• The RAW files may look a little different in the iOS Photos app, please open them in RAW photo editing software to see the results (which iOS Photos is not, is simple does a rough debayer and adds a big tone curve).

(N.B. The settings menu is a bit of a mess and will be sorted out in a future release, along with various other design fails)

[remote widget]

Orion nebula 114/500 2sx500

[solar stag]

Will this be good for photographing meteor showers? I tried photogrpahing the geminids and perseids but none of the meteors would show up.

[bold sleet]

Good question!
There isn’t really a dedicated meteor mode - which I think would be necessary.
It would be a case of shooting say 10-25x 1s exposures and hoping to get lucky.
But others might have some suggestions too…

I suppose if you save the subs at least you’ll have a better chance to catch one if you crank up the numbers of exposures, then search through them all

[solar stag]

That could work. I have cought a few meteors but the only reason why they showed up because how bright they were and I had like 5s and 10 photos stacked so the automatic stacking process didn't wash them out.

[bold sleet]

Yes exactly, that’s the trouble with the averaging and no automated meteor tracking. …Another idea for the todo list

[solar stag]

I assume that's gonna be pretty hard to do, right?

[solar stag]

I tried the seperate exposures setting on the app and one thing that I noticed is that for every two seconds,l it'll save the two second exposure and put it in my camera roll. Was that intentional or no?

[bold sleet]

Will be a little tricky, yes haha

[bold sleet]

Is this for RAW or processed (TIFF/HEIC)?

For RAW it should save each 1s exposure (so x2 if the app is set to 2s).
For TIFF/HEIC it should just save x1 image for a 2s exposure.

[jade viper]

I recently got AstroShader but haven’t actually tried it out on dark skies, going to darker skies on Saturday for the planetary alignment so I’ll try to get some Milky Way pics

[jade viper]

just now seeing this but I have, but it’s not super annoying. One thing that bothers me is when I up something like the ISO or exposure time and then try to adjust my phone for something, the preview screen thing is super slow and laggy, it’s like looking at something that’s 1 fps. I don’t know if it’s because I have wrong settings or it’s just hard for AstroShader to handle

[solar stag]

It was for RAW. I only had like about 10 mintutes of clear sky before snow came through so I had to kinda rush through it haha.

[solar stag]

It's basically doing two second exposures on the preview screen. I like it a lot because since I live in light polluted skies, it'll show the dimmer objects like the Pleiades and thr orion nebula. To my knowledge, you're not doing anything wrong. It's just how it's programmed

[jade viper]

Alr, I’m sure it’s fine if you just keep it still on a tripod or something but it gets a lil annoying if you want to capture something specific like Orion for example which causes you to adjust your camera and position it correctly

[bold sleet]

Yeah this is very annoying, but hard to avoid.
Basically if you set the exposure time to 1s the preview will be 1fps.
…But you make a solid argument about usability. Potentially there could be a simulated exposure type thing like on a DSLR, so the preview rate is say 10fps and artificially brightened but then when you hit capture it will use the selected settings

[bold sleet]

Ah yes ok cool. There is a warning about this but maybe isn’t worded very well

[solar stag]

Oh ok I saw that but I assumed it was nothing and didn't read it all the way through.

[solar stag]

I have clear skies all night tonight which is a very rare thing for this time of year so I'm gonna do a few more test shots and let you know how it goes.

[solar stag]

@bold sleet Just got done taking a long exposure with the individual setting on with HEIF and Put it through a star stacking app and I just gotta say, it's absolutely INCREDIBLE! I'm very impressed with the new feature and how I'm able to make a nightlapse AND star trails! I was looking at Shayne Moston's video about having to pay 50 US dollars to buy an intervalometer, but with the setting being completely free, so many amateur astronomers and astrophotographers can benefit from this app and the new setting. Once again, I'm very impressed with your work and I'm very exited to see what the future holds for phone astrophotography. I'm gonna send in a few photos I got with my recent session!

I'm also gonna test it a few more times and I'm very exited to go back out and try it again. You've got some amazing talent my friend!

[solar stag]

Here's the star trail photo that I captured tonight

[remote widget]

You could also do a timeless

[bold sleet]

v1.0.27 just released - will be available on the appStore over the next hour or so.

Major change here is that you can now save all the subs data.

[worn lantern]

youre the best

ive been cooking with my astro cam

[devout merlin]

yoo nick that looks sick

[left cipher]

@bold sleet

How do you get planetary imaging to work on AstroShader

also iPhone camera sound jumpscare

[bold sleet]

It can be a bit fiddly. But the main thing I would change is to zoom in more. So Jupiter fills more of the screen.

The alignment needs more of the image to be filled with detail to work correctly

Longer-term will be a dedicated planetary mode

[left cipher]

Ohhhh ok, I'll try that next time i think of it

[remote widget]

iPhone 12 Pro Max 2,5x Tele.

[left cipher]

@bold sleet

Your stretch tool works absolute wonders, managed this with my StarBlast and iPhone 12. More details in the phone astrophotography channel.

[devout merlin]

yeah surely astroshader is going to be my first app on my new iphone

[devout merlin]

did anyone shoot a planet with iphone? I want to see if there are any differences from samsung and iphone for planetary, ik for dso it is

@worn lantern maybe you can help me?

[worn lantern]

neevver shot planetary with phone

[devout merlin]

oh ok

[worn lantern]

my money after astrocam

[devout merlin]

real

thats going to be me for the rest of the year if ill buy the phobe

[bold sleet]

Great image!

[left cipher]

thanks, I couldn't've done it without your wonderful program!

[devout merlin]

I will finally have astroshader🥳

please dont make me buy ut now

wait 2 days

[bold sleet]

Haha all good

[devout merlin]

As i promised, first app on my new phone was astroshader

Such a good app ngl

Havent tested it but checked it out and looked coean simple snd profesional

[livid spire]

wait will it cost mone

[devout merlin]

Well he planned to make you pay, but it would cost like 2€ one time purchase

Also those who have it already wont need to pay

But idk yet

[opal terrace]

2€ for allowing ios to do good ap is absolutely worth it

[devout merlin]

I agree

At the end of the day, people need to make money too

[devout merlin]

@bold sleet can i do planetary with astroshader?

[bold sleet]

At the minute it is possible but not the best.
This was Jupiter through a SkyMax 127

In the future I will add a planetary / lucky imaging flow so you can capture a video then process it

[devout merlin]

not bad results tbh

[devout merlin]

big w, cant wait for it

[bold sleet]

Yes. But like the others say will be $1.50 for lifetime access. Also if you already have it - then you it’s free

[devout merlin]

so no in app purchase?

[bold sleet]

No just a flat fee. It’s simpler - plus everyone hates subscriptions

[devout merlin]

W

[worn lantern]

100% worth forr an app this good

[devout merlin]

I agree

Astroshader is the best astro app I’ve used

its like magic, put some settings there and you get insane pics

Even with almost full moon

Ill send results in a min

It would make no sense not making any profit on it

[devout merlin]

How can i improve?

[bold sleet]

This is a quick stretch and black point adjustment. (With the original there will be probably be more detail to pull out)

I guess this is untracked?
You could try playing with the framing. As the target gets towards the edges of the FOV it will be more distorted (telescope or iPhone lens).

The realignment option allows you to re-centre the target so it doesn’t drift so far. Although please test this first with a shorter imaging run as it is quite sensitive to small errors and needs an update

[devout merlin]

Yes it is untracked

Also tried the realignment

Lemme show you how it turned out

[bold sleet]

Also the purple streak is from your LiDAR scanner, if you cover the dark circle near the camera it will remove it

[devout merlin]

Oh ok thanks

I wanted to ask that too

[devout merlin]

With realignment

I guess i wasnt accurate with putting the stars perfectly in place

[bold sleet]

Yes I think so. However, I should at the system is too sensitive at the minute, you need to be very accurate. I’m going to fix this soon

[devout merlin]

Ok thanks

[sterile nexus]

cover it with black electric tape if you can

[devout merlin]

Ok

[snow edge]

i take it back dont do this unless you want to go mentally insane

not because of the code n stuff, but because of android studio

[bold sleet]

Haha, yes I’ve done a little Android before. Some things really nice, others not so much.

A bigger issue is hardware variability, it’s 100x that of iOS

[snow edge]

yea thats an issue

camera2api

[bold sleet]

GPU as well as camera 🫠

[snow edge]

i have no idea how cameras work

[bold sleet]

On the other hand some of the Android cameras do have amazing specs. So lots of potential

[remote widget]

Last night 2s/500x ISO 12000 untracked. Idk why but I couldn’t get much out of the galaxy

This was a month ago and it was full moon just 3 minutes exposure, and better than my new one

[snow edge]

is my s24 one of them

[devout merlin]

What iphone?

Also what telescope

[bold sleet]

Oh weird.
The only change in that time was to save the subs data. The capture and processing is the same so should be similar.

Could be lens alignment or stray light/light leak. But I’m not sure to be honest

[remote widget]

Iphoen 13 and 114/500 telescope

[remote widget]

40mm eyepiece

[left cipher]

@bold sleet

I've found a huge flaw in your app, I don't know how much of a problem it is for other people here, but it nearly ruined an entire imaging session tonight.

Basically, if a satellite flies through the field of view while taking sub exposures, it messes with the stacking software that aligns stars, causing the current set of sub exposures and any other sets afterwards to have star trailing, lacking alignment entirely.

in a set of would-be perfectly aligned images, a single satellite flew through and did this to the final 40% of the image.

as you can see, a large portion of the sub exposures were stacked without any alignment, causing erratic trailing.

[devout merlin]

I had the same issue

A couple of days ago

Was limited to only 100 frames

[devout merlin]

This was 250

[left cipher]

Oh, great.

glad I guess, to know it's not just me

but also unfortunate, to know it's happening to everyone

hopefully the dev sees this

[devout merlin]

Yes

[devout merlin]

How many frames was that?

[left cipher]

uhhh one moment

721 sub exposures, 1 second each

[devout merlin]

Also how did you manage to get foame nebula I’ve been trying for a long time and even with astroshader it doesn’t work

[devout merlin]

Oh makes sense

You are tracking?

[left cipher]

I am not

I am shooting through my Orion StarBlast dob

[devout merlin]

And how you kept 700 frames

[left cipher]

I am using the realign feature of AstroShader, which works fantastically until it doesn't

[devout merlin]

At 300 my target is out of the view

[left cipher]

You gotta use the realign function

lets you stop the imaging so you can recenter your target

[devout merlin]

I tried it once but if you dont align perfectly it wont work

[left cipher]

Yeah

Genuinely you just have to be really patient with it

[devout merlin]

Fair

I’ll try using it again

Because im stuck at like 250 frames😭

[left cipher]

Spending a minute getting a perfect realignment is worth the potential wasted 30 minutes of imaging if the realignment doesn't work

I did end up getting a useable stack after my third attempt, this is the raw image so of course it looks a little weird

no processing whatsoever

[devout merlin]

Beautiful

[left cipher]

Don't mind the artefacting near some of the stars 🫠

[devout merlin]

Also i get weird stars around the edges of the eye piece

[left cipher]

That's coma and/or chromatic aberration

[devout merlin]

Down there

[left cipher]

Oh lord lmao

that's some really crazy coma

basically at the edge of basic/cheap eyepieces, you get coma that makes your stars look less circular

[devout merlin]

I mean the eyepiece was 60$

[left cipher]

Depending on the intensity of the coma, they can look only marginally less circular, they could look like little Hubble's Variable Nebulas, or in your case, they do that

Honestly it could also be field rotation

[devout merlin]

I dont think so

[left cipher]

AstroShader does autocorrect for field rotation pretty well, up until a point

[devout merlin]

So

Since the nebula is going down and the bottom stars are near the edge they curve

At least thats my theory

[devout merlin]

What eyepiece do you use?

[left cipher]

I used an AstroMania 27mm 55° Flatfield eyepiece

it's honestly really good for how cheap it is (compared to other good eyepieces).

Super wide view, can fit the entire andromeda galaxy in frame

stars stay relatively circular to the edge, there is a dark spot in the middle of the eyepiece when you do imaging with it, but this can by bypassed by untwisting the eye relief cup

gets the camera closer to the glass, and the dark spot is gone

[devout merlin]

Oh nice

[left cipher]

this be it

ignore my desk of ✨things✨

[lyric river]

WOW that looks EXACTLY how my 3 sec stacks looked like

I had same problem with stars

[lyric river]

No

[devout merlin]

Only 3s

Show

[lyric river]

Oops I was wrong, my 30 sec looked like that ( ignore that it’s clipped)

[devout merlin]

Wow this is so sharp

[lyric river]

I blurxed it

[devout merlin]

And you said you have a 6” dob?

[lyric river]

Ye, here non clipped and no bx

Look I had Same problem with the stars near edges

[devout merlin]

Yeah

And the full image?

[devout merlin]

Wait but how you dont get this type

I mean wehy do i get it

[lyric river]

Is your phone camera tilted?

[devout merlin]

This

Why does it soide

Slide*

[lyric river]

Not aligned properly

Alignment has to be perfect

[devout merlin]

No

I mean why is it cornered and the rest is just background

[lyric river]

Alignment destroyed my precious andromeda data

[lyric river]

Oh it just is like that

[devout merlin]

You got it too?

[lyric river]

Ye

[lyric river]

It’s bc the object moves across the fov

[devout merlin]

Oh ok

I need a tracking mount

Badly

But no money😭

[lyric river]

I tried Orion from b9 with my new Astro cam bug it didn’t save

Looks hella sharp tho

[devout merlin]

The core looks sick

[lyric river]

Looks 3d

[devout merlin]

Yeah

What a shame it didn’t save

Well i guess astroshader was a big improvement from my old samsung

[lyric river]

I havs insane seeing

[devout merlin]

How is it so still

My seeing is so crappy

[lyric river]

Nice

[devout merlin]

Prob from all the houses that use wood to heat their homes

[lyric river]

Insane seeing sub arc sec

[lyric river]

I live in a giant city so I have same problem

[devout merlin]

Thats why i hate winter, when its summer no one heats their house so seeing is good

But spring is still the best

[lyric river]

Summer the heat from the ground floats up at night so seeing is terrible for me

[left cipher]

Man I send one bug report to the AstroShader dev and suddenly the entire chat is revived

[bold sleet]

Is this where you’re using realignment?

In general satellites specifically won’t affect the alignment process. I think most likely it’s the alignment algorithm not working well during realignment plus - you may have a good point about satellites making this worse.

Improving the realignment is very much on my todo list!

On other quick point to mention is that you can save all your subs data. So if there’s a live stacking fail, like above, at least you can reprocess the data separately and all is not lost

[left cipher]

That's helpful, whenever I realign though I always make sure to have a point in the image that gets realigned perfectly

So in the case of my Flame & Horsehead image, i used Alnitak as my point of reference

And made sure Alnitak lined up smack dang perfectly with itself every time

Does AstroShader work worse if you're using an Alt-Az setup that suffers from field rotation?

[bold sleet]

I think you are doing a great job actually. The system just needs improving.
…I have some users on older phones (more noise) who have basically never got this to work

[bold sleet]

Yes for longer integration times , ~1hr.
The other reason is alt-az tracking mounts tend to have more wobble as they track. You can really see this at higher magnifications for planetary - it’s almost impossible

[left cipher]

Huh, well my failed image was less than 10 minutes long and it still did that

might've been some other reason, I couldn't possibly know

[bold sleet]

What this the original image from your first post?

[left cipher]

this lol

Worked about 3/4 of the way through the imaging, then something must've happened to mess it up because after that all the alignment software stopped working entirely

Those trails aren't from only one realignment either, it's like three or four realignments stacked on top of each other, all trailing. Goes to show how accurate I get it each time, not sure how it wasn't enough

[bold sleet]

As I say it’s not your realignment. My guess is you are actually it doing it very accurately to get it to work even to begin with.
The system that registers the images is just too sensitive too errors - and I need to make some changes

[left cipher]

Does it help to set the alignment function to strong?

like is there any real difference between weak medium and strong

[bold sleet]

It might do

As you go up they require more processing and are slightly slower but will be more accurate

If you’ve been on weak then you’ll notice a difference with strong

[left cipher]

I use strong when i remember to change it before the imaging session

otherwise I probably accidentally use weak alignment if I forget to change it

[bold sleet]

I’m 99% sure this is an issue with the realignment function. E.g. less bad if not using realignment steps. But will see what can be done to improve it either way

[left cipher]

Aight, sounds good!

[bold sleet]

It’s also very dependent on target and settings.
e.g. dim targets with high ISO and lower exposures times are tricky to align as it can be hard to tell signal vs noise

[left cipher]

Ah ok

I always just max out the ISO because i can denoise it later

But I never go above 1 second long exposures

0.5 if I'm testing something, 1 second if the test puts me in the "go big or go home" mood

[left cipher]

My latest and greatest capture of the Flame & HorseHead nebulae, far exceeding the quality of my previous best image of this region.

Equipment is per the usual, my iPhone 12, Orion StarBlast dob, and a 27mm 55° Flatfield eyepiece.

Total integration is roughly 16 minutes, imaged and stacked in AstroShader.

AstroShader dev, couldn't've done it without you.

[sterile nexus]

10x30s bortle 4 this morning

how could I fix the walking noise? this is just my iphone 15 pro on a tripod

[devout merlin]

Tried siril?

[bold sleet]

I’m working on this…
It’s a pain to fix. Basically need to do image calibration without calibration frames, but from some tests I believe it is possible

[bold sleet]

Oh wow 🤩 Nice!

[sterile nexus]

oh im not asking for a fix within the app, i was wondering if mimicking dithering would fix it

but if you can find a way to do that that’d be sick👍

[graceful river]

Does anyone know any good settings for imaging the night sky straight from AstroShader?

[devout merlin]

Like 5-10 seconds and around 1000 iso

Depends on bortle

[graceful river]

I’m bortle 6

How many exposures?

[devout merlin]

As many as possible😅

[graceful river]

All my images are turning out really bad

Idk if it’s just my settings wrong or something else

I’m not sure

[devout merlin]

Wym by bad

What is the issue

[graceful river]

Well I keep getting a lot of stair trails

Even if I set the alllignment function to strong

And the overall image doesn’t look nice

@devout merlin

[devout merlin]

Then get less exp time

And idk

Do you have the image?

[graceful river]

I didn’t bother saving them :/

My images used to look pretty good

I can show you one of those

This is quite over edited but they used to look like this

[devout merlin]

Looks like a cartoon scene

Very unique

But yeah

Higher iso, focus better and lower exp time

Try this next time

[graceful river]

What focus is best because I can’t seem to find the perfect focus?

[long raven]

Zoom inside the brightest star/object and try the focus until it’s the smallest

works for me always

[left cipher]

So with AstroShader, the best focus can vary depending on your setup. There isn't a set number that's inherently the best.

Basically what setvorki said