The tasks

Pre-processing and post-processing a deep sky image is very different than processing a daylight image or even night shoots. In particular, pre-processing is a very rigorous process with no room for creativity. At this point, you don’t have an image, you have data.

Here are the steps to produce a Deep-sky image from a stack of “subs”:

  1. Calibrate your subs: dark subtraction and flat field correction

  2. Register (align) your subs

  3. Stack (integrate) your subs. The image generated is called the “master light”.

  4. Crop

  5. Remove gradients

  6. Color balance

  7. Deconvolute your data (sometimes, we won’t cover it)

  8. Delinearize your image

  9. Time to have fun: histogram, curves, contrast, saturation adjustments, etc.

Kinds of files needed for stacking

  1. Light frames: The image of the object got from camera
  2. Flat frames:
  3. Dark frames:
  4. Bias frames
  5. Dark bias (optional)

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More info on Stacking and Calibration frames