ASIStudio v1.14 has been released!

Tech@ZWO

The new version has been released.

New Features

Added support for CAA(Camera Angle Adjuster) in ASICap, ASIImg, and ASILive

Bug fix

Other bugs fixed

This is the download link: https://www.zwoastro.com/software/

qLa963cF

Tech@ZWO please, can you help me? I have a camera Asi662 mc ,mounted on a celestron 8 inches , f10, scmidt cassegrain. I' d like Toys AsiCap to take capture.of Jupiter. I'd like to connect the camera to the telescope mount ,in order to use its guide capability.in order to follow the planet. The mount in alt azimut. Can I do that? Is it possibile ti use the camera as guide to celestron c8 ? I don't have another telescope linked to the main scope for guiding.
Thank you

ross58

Per le riprese solari quando inserirete la possibilità di effettuare i flat?

100AKu34

Im having issues downloading the ASISTUDIO on your web page V1.14x64 it will start runs for a few minutes and i get an error that says file wasnt available on site ???

Tech@ZWO

100AKu34 Could you try agian? i tested just now, it works. thank you.

azhoneybee

Stacking always crashes. Any chance this will ever be fixed?

Tech@ZWO

azhoneybee Does this problem appear if you stack only a few frames?

RzEj6w49

I downloaded the ASIstudio package and is works fine. However, with the older version, I could tell my Mac to use ASIFitsView to be used as standard program for opening fits files. Now I can only open the complete package and it will not show the image. How to proceed? Just find another fits viewer for a Mac?

Tech@ZWO

qLa963cF
Yes, you can use the ASI662MC for imaging and guiding, but using an alt-azimuth mount for guiding might not be perfect for long exposures.
For planetary imaging like Jupiter, you can rely on the mount’s tracking and software (like SharpCap), but autoguiding via the camera alone may not be as efficient or stable.
If you find guiding to be too unstable on an alt-azimuth mount, consider using shorter exposure times for planetary imaging.

rf2r4xCE

Where can I find some some beginners guide, introduction to ASIStudio? What does it do, how how does this work with Seestar. Would it allow me to do similar processing (de-noise) that I can do in the seestar after collecting a stack of pictures? Can it take for example Stacked_18_M 42_10.0s_LP_20250312-205207.fit file and get it into jpg?
Trying to understand all the things folks talk about when processing the images and various other SW, Siril, Gimp, whatever and want to see what ASIStudio provides.

johnpd

ZWO has very little useful documentation on their products. It is usually a trial and error process to use them. Apparently they just released v15 because when I opened ASIStudio, it said v15 was available. So I installed it. Here are some very general instructions.

To stack images, use ASIDeepStack.
It has tabs for Bias, Flat Dark, and Light images. Click on a tab and tell it where each of these files exist. It will include in the stack whichever group you chose.
In the "Stack" section, there is a little folder icon on the left. That is the folder where it is supposed to save the output. I could not get that to work. It always saves the output in the folder Documents\ASIStudio.
Once all files have been loaded, you can start the stack by pressing the Stack button.
It will go through the process and end up displaying the stacked image in the window on the left.
If you move your mouse just to the right of that window, icons for some options will appear. The bottom one (the little floppy icon) is the option to save the output.
It will create three files:
a. A .FIT file which has not been stretched.
b. A .JPG file which is stretched.
c. A .TIF file which has not been stretched.
You can use other software to do additional processing of either the .FIT or .TIF file.
You can open the .FIT file in ASIFITSView. It will do an auto stretch on it. You can save that as a .PNG file. I believe that is uncompressed. If you try saving it as a .TIF file, it only saves the unstretched version. Basically useless.

So ASIStudio provides a basic stretch function. If you want to to some higher level processing, you need another piece of software that will do that.

JohnD

rf2r4xCE

Can someone point me to a good beginners guide description to ASIStudio What does it do, how do I use it? Why should I use it?

johnpd

This is the best I could find.

https://www.zwoastro.com/guides-and-manuals/

This is the best I could find. It is a little out of date, but it is better than nothing.

JohnD

rf2r4xCE

thanks,

Funny, the manual for the studio itself was the last item listed. Open the first manual and took a minute or two to realize it was for the controller and nothing to with seestar S50, UNLESS, can that be used to control the seestar instead of the phone app. Would really like to control / operate seestar from my PC.

Seems like the ASIStudio is ZWO suite of SW to process images, but only works with their format.

Guess this is the same generic question I am trying to answer, where the heck to you start to figure out the entire process. How does one go from a series of pictures to a final image.

How can I take the final stacked fits file produced by seestar and then manipulate just that to produce my version of the jpg file that gets created/saved?

johnpd

The ASIFitsView program in ASIStudio can open and stretch a .FIT file. It has very rudimentary adjustment options. If you click on the Histogram option (the icon in about the middle of the icons at the bottom), there are some preset options (Auto White Balance, and Auto stretch). These take effect when you open any .FIT file. You can mess around with the histogram, but the auto options did a pretty good job of giving me a nice image when I tried it. If you want to do more sophisticated image processing especially if ASIFitsView does not give you a good result, you would need to get one of the software programs you mentioned in your original post. You can add Affinity Photo to your list. It does cost some money ($70 and is not subscription based) which is pretty cheap compared to PixInsight, Photoshop, or LIghtroom. There are also a series of astronomy related macros you can add for free.

JohnD

johnpd

Here is a result of using ASIDeepStack to stack a series of individual .FIT images, and then opened in ASIFitsView and I saved the result that the AutoWB and Auto Stretch came up with as a .JPG. I would have loaded the .FIT file, but apparently there is a file size limit to uploading images on this forum.

JohnD

johnpd

Here is what it would look like unstretched. I had to convert it to a .PNG format to load it here.

JohnD

rf2r4xCE

Thanks for the intro tutorial! Certainly helps and starting to understand the process. If you know of anything that goes into the basics in more detail that would be great.

So pretty much a lot of this is occurring under the covers in the S50 and that is the final picture it will save at the end. So now how do we wind up improving on that by doing it all manually? Can we get better control of frames that were rejected. Then i start hearing of the # of flats and such.

Now a peevee I have about the seestar, is it doesn't allow you to save your own finalized product. It creates a finalize file. Later you can go in denoise, adjust brightness/contrast/color but you can only export that image, it doesn't get saved on the seestar. So I wind up sending that to me via email badcuf at gmail, then save it with everything I downloaded from seestar. I am then taking the "final" products and brining into my LR catalog so I can find them easier.

Really appreciate the help!

johnpd

I am not familiar with how the Seestar operates and what it gives you as a final result. If it creates a .FIT file, have you tried opening in ASIFitsView to see what it gives you when it stretches it?

JohnD