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Planetary Imaging

Planetary imaging is a lucky-imaging workflow: capture many short exposures, keep the best frames, stack them to beat seeing noise, then sharpen the integrated result. The AfterNight toolset currently covers sequence loading, extraction/conversion, image-list analysis, stacking-oriented processing, sharpening, and finishing. It is not a dedicated planetary capture suite, so use this page as a practical processing path rather than a camera-control guide.

Use this workflow for:

  • SER, AVI, MP4, MOV, MKV, MPG, MPEG, WEBM, or AfterNight sequence inputs.
  • Lunar and solar regions.
  • Planetary discs where only the best frames should contribute.
  • Short-exposure image sets exported from external capture tools.

Pipeline

The release guide does not include a diagram of this workflow. AfterNight does not yet expose a verified end-to-end planetary/lucky-imaging pipeline, so a complete sequence-to-export visual would overstate the current native workflow. The sections below are retained as planning notes; they do not describe a verified workflow.

1. Open Or Convert The Sequence

Open a sequence through the normal file workflow. The file filters support SER, AVI, MP4, MOV, MKV, MPG, MPEG, WEBM, and .anseq sequence files. Use Extract Sequence when you need still frames or a subset of a video-backed sequence.

Useful sequence actions:

Action Where it helps
Extract Frame Pull one representative frame into the workspace
Extract Sequence Save a chosen span or frame set for downstream work
Convert to SER Normalize a sequence into a planetary-friendly container
Convert to FITS Produce still astronomy frames for inspection or integration
Image List Analyzer Preview and metadata-sort a still-frame list; it does not compute lucky-imaging quality ranks

See Non-Interactive Processes, Extract Sequence, and Image List Analyzer.

2. Evaluate Frame Quality

Planetary results depend on quality sorting. If you have a still-frame set, Image List Analyzer can preview frames and sort acquisition metadata, but it has no star-quality score or acceptance threshold; remove only manually identified outliers. For sequence files, extract a representative subset first if the full video is too large.

Reject frames with:

  • Severe blur from seeing.
  • Tracking jumps.
  • Clouds or transparency changes.
  • Saturated highlights on the planet or lunar surface.
  • Major focus drift.

For planetary work, a smaller stack of sharp frames is usually better than a larger stack that includes poor frames.

3. Stack The Best Frames

Use Image Stacking when your selected frames are already aligned well enough or have been converted into an image list. If the frames need star-based registration, Image Registration may not be ideal for feature-poor planetary discs; in that case, use external planetary alignment software first, then bring the aligned frames back to AfterNight for stacking and finishing.

Stacking guidance:

Setting area Planetary tendency
Selection Use the sharpest fraction, not every frame
Rejection Avoid over-rejection on bright planet edges
Drizzle Test only if the capture is undersampled and the data supports it
Output Keep a high-bit-depth master before sharpening

4. Sharpen Detail

After stacking, sharpen with scale-aware tools:

Sharpen in small increments and compare at 100 percent zoom. Planetary images can look impressive while developing hard ringing around the limb, crater rims, or cloud bands.

5. Balance Color And Finish

Use finishing processes conservatively:

Practical Tips

  • Keep a pre-sharpened stacked master; sharpening is easy to overdo.
  • Judge edge artifacts against the dark sky/background, not just the planet surface.
  • Save intermediate TIFF or FITS files before display-size exports.
  • If AfterNight registration struggles on a planet disc, align externally and return to AfterNight for stacking/detail/color.

Troubleshooting

Symptom Likely cause Fix
Stacked planet is smeared Poor alignment, too many weak frames, or rotation during capture Select fewer frames or align externally before stacking
Limb has bright/dark halos Sharpening radius or strength is too high Reduce sharpening, use multiscale edits, and inspect at 100 percent
Color channels are offset Atmospheric dispersion or channel alignment mismatch Use external channel alignment or process channels separately before recombination
Sequence opens but processing is slow Video decode and frame extraction are IO-heavy Extract a smaller span or convert to SER/image list first