A powerful tool for integrating ( Stacking ) your images

I will show you how to use this tool for normal use

Below is displayed the process with the first 2 drop down panels open

Again I will show you the usual settings for everyday use

A) File selection buttons---- Try and select a very good image for your reference image which will then be shown at the top of the list

B) Combination ---------------The average setting will give best results , suggest leave as default

C) Normalization--------------Additive works best for most instances , suggest leave as default

D) Weights--------------------Noise evaluation is best here as it will give different weights to images with different exposure lengths or different SNR

E) Evaluate noise-----------Leave this checked so D works correctly

F) Various option here , for stacks of less than 10 images try averaged sigma clipping with more than 10 use winsorised sigma clipping which give excellent results is detecting and excluding outliers ( Hot pixels , planes , ETC )

G) Normalization---------- Is required to perform correct pixel rejection , suggest leave as default

H) Generate pixel rejection maps--- Leave checked ( see later for use of )

I) Pixel clip ---------------- Leave checked unless you do not want to reject outliers

Below is pixel rejection panel 2

J) MIN/Max high and low ------will become active if you select min / max in the rejection algorithm ,set number of pixels if req , rarely used

k) Percentile low and high---will become active if you select percentile clipping in the rejection algorithm , set % as required again rarely used

l) sigma high and low-------This is the setting used the most low sigma reject more pixels and higher sigma reject less , experimentation is req to get correct setting.With more images a lower sigma can be used as its easier of the process to work out which pixels to reject

1) Select files and reference image using button A

2) Select noise evaluation in D

3) Select winsorized sigma clipping in F

4) Select a sigma setting in L try a setting of 4 to start with

5)Leave everything else as default and apply using the global apply button

After the application has finished check the process consol for results

Also you will now see that 2 new images have been generated these are your pixel rejection maps and will appear dark as they are linear and will need the STF applied to so we can see the rejected pixels .

Below is a pixel rejection map with STF applied to it and below that the same but zoomed in

What we are looking for is outliers only no background pixels inc in the maps if there are to many pixels rejected increase the sigma setting and try again

See in the zoom pick there is a black background i.e. no rejected background pixels so just right

Lastly sigma reject works best with dithered images and I advise this highly