Using AstroEdit on iOS to process Seestar images

AstroEdit is an application that runs on iOS but unfortunately not on Android. It is a low cost application obtainable from the iOS App Store for £2.99.

We shall discuss the using of AstroEdit on iOS to process Seestar images downloaded to your iPad (or iPhone) when live-stacking is terminated. It is also possible to apply AI de-noising (which also seems to reduce or eliminate gradients) before live-stacking is terminated the de-noised image can be downloaded to the iPad. If you have access to an iPad but have used an Android tablet to control the Seestar, it is possible to get the downloaded images over to the iPad by sharing them to Google photos in the cloud.

It is conventional wisdom that all processing should be done while the image is at a high bit depth (32 bits or sometimes 16 bits). However, as long as no compression has been used, it is still possible to do quite a lot with an 8 bit image. In the case of the downloaded images from the live-stacking, quite a lot has already been done. The live-stacking software has constrained the image to the dimensions and composition of the first downloaded image. It has also increased the brightness and reduced the noise. If it has also been AI de-noised it is ready for further gentle processing. This is where AstroEdit comes in. Although AstroEdit can download 16 bit images, they are turned immediately into 8 bit with which the software can do very little. AstroEdit requires exactly the sort of images that are downloaded to the iPhone or iPad after live-stacking in the Seestar is terminated.

The big difference between further processing the downloaded Seestar images in any software such as Google Photos or Photos on the iPad. Is that these programs can brighten up and increase the saturation of the images etc. but doing this to the whole image, which makes the stars even brighter as well as the nebulosity. AstroEdit can remove gradients if still present, but then it can remove and keep the stars. This leaves the starless image to be further enhanced without touching the stars. Then the stars can be added back in their original state to produce a much improved image.

Here is a work-flow on a Seestar S30 36 minutes live-stacked image if IC1805 the Heart nebula that had been IA de-noised.

The original downloaded image of IC1805

In this case the Seestar has been set to watermark the image. However, this does spoil the bottom of the image. It may be nice to see the information there, but from an imaging point of view, it is best to set the Seestar not to watermark the image so that the whole of the image is available for further processing. In this case, the image will require cropping.

The image loaded into AstroEdit

Setting up for cropping in AstroEdit

The image cropped in AstroEdit

The cropped image ready for further processing in AstroEdit

The stars removed in AstroEdit

The Stars image

The starless image enhance by some of the controls visible

The original stars added back

The saved, processed final image

A final observation on another AstroEdit AI function called 'Oval'.

The purpose of this function is to correct deformed stars. I previously published a blog article on the use of the online StarFix program to correct the deformed stars that were produced by a faulty Seestar S30 that I had to return because of it's misaligned optical train.

The faulty image that I used in that article was this image of M17

Clicking on the image will reveal the badly distorted stars

When this image was loaded into AstroEdit and the AI function 'Oval' was set to maximum, this was the result:

The star shapes were considerable improved and so this software could be useful to someone who might have a Seestar with badly aligned optics causing star deformations

In conclusion, AstroEdit is a program that should be in the arsenal of any Seestar user who has access to an iOS device.