FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Steven S. Tuma
Tel. (608) 752-8366
Email: stuma@deepskysoftware.net
Website: http://www.deepskysoftware.net/dsi.html

DEEPSKY ASTRONOMY SOFTWARE LAUNCHES DEEPSKY IMAGING SOFTWARE
Low Cost alternative to higher priced Imaging software

Deepsky Imaging is an easy to use image enhancement and video CCD capture software for the Windows platform. Using the software you can capture images from any video ccd camera outputting composite video or S-Video, such as the Stellacam, Mallincam, and other WebCams.  In addition, the software contains many tools to enhance existing astronomical images and utilizes the excellent pre-processing engine from the popular freeware application Deepsky Stacker.  By using this stacking engine, Deepsky Imaging simplifies the capture and pre-processing necessary to get great images.  One nice feature available in Deepsky Imaging is the ability to capture raw video and convert it to a tif image on the fly without having the user manually perform this step.  Deepsky Imaging also allows a series of images to be taken automatically at a desired time interval.

Software features include :

Video CCD capture - supports Stellacam, Mallincam, and Other web cams
    Captures composite and svideo
    Live Video preview window
    Video processing lets you adjust brightness, contrast, and more
    Easy focus using full screen preview
    Manual "test" captures
    Automatic capture via sequencing
    Converts raw AVI video to TIF image on the fly
    Unique nameing of captured images
    Set interval between captures
    End a sequence after taking "X" number of captures
    Session history lets you capture additional images later
    Works with any Microsoft Direct Show capture devices
    Supports NTSC and PAL decvices

Automatic integration using Deepsky Stacker
    Align and Stack automatically - Super Easy!
    Seamless Integration
    Uses Deepsky Stacker''s Settings

Support over 30 image formats including:
    GIF
    JPG
    FITS 8,16,32 bits with header (read only)
    TIF
    BMP

Over 100 image processing and effects available including:
    Unsharp mask
    Video deinterlacing
    Removal of hot pixels
    Median
    Binary Filters
    High Pass Filter
    Background subtraction
    Brightness, Contrast, Intensity adjustments
    Spatial Filters
    Artistic enhancement features

Unique & Powerful Annotation Support
Thumbnail Image Browser
Undo capability with History bar tracks changes
Convert images from 1 format to another
Adjust color depth of images
Create simple animations
Color separation and Merge tools
Process portions of an image (Region)
TWAIN scanning support
Full drag & drop
Advanced Screen capturing modes
Sophisticated Previewing & Printing
Easy to use PAN and Magnify tools

Deepsky Imaging is available via download from the Deepsky Imaging website and also includes a 30 day trial version which contains 100% of the software features (ie. no crippleware).  The software is priced at $39.99 for the download and an optional CD ROM containing the software and other bonus programs can be purchased for $49.99.

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If you would like more information about Deepsky Imaging, please contact the author at the above phone #.

DSLR Timer is a DSLR interval timer using the parallel port or serial port of your notepad or PC.
It can control series of long exposures of digital cameras as it is needed for astrophotography. You need a special cable to connect the camera''s jack for the cable remote control to the computer. A description of such a cable can be found on my homepage.

DSLR-Timer offers the following functions:

• Single shot (Start - Stop). Mainly for testing the correct setup before starting an intervall series. 
• Intervall timer. This is the main feature of this program 
• Exposure time from 1 second to 1 hour per image
• DSLR Timer can consider the time for mirror lock-up, noise reduction and the time which is needed to save the images.
• Pause-Function to interrupt and continue a series of shots.
• Display of the total remaining time for the complete series, including the time for exposure, mirror lock-up, noise reduction and save.
• Display of the time of day, when the series will be finished. So you can easily go for a coffee and come back in time.
• Camera control via parallel port. You can use LPT1 to LPT3 or any port address. This is very important for the usage of PCMCIA cardbus cards..
• You can specify, which PIN of the parallel port is used to control the camera. Only the one bit which corresponds to this PIN will be changed. The other PINs can be used by other programs. So you can control a webcam with long exposure via the same parallel port at the same time
• Languages: English, German, French

DeepSkyStacker is a freeware for astrophotographers that simplifies all the pre-processing steps of deep sky pictures and is specialized in RAW files from DSLRs.

• Registering
• Stacking
• Simple post-stacking processes to quickly view the final result.
• Saving the resulting picture to a TIFF or FITS file (16 or 32 bit)

Features:

• Automatic registration of a set of pictures

• Automatic detection of stars using all the picture area

• Preview of registered stars

• Sub pixel registration

• Automatic derotation

• Automatic creation and use of offsets, flats and darks frames

• Sub pixel alignment and stacking

• Supported bitmaps formats : 8, 16 et 32 bit colour and monochrome TIFF files, 16, 32 and 64 colour and monochrome FITS files, JPEG, BMP, PNG

• Native use of RAW files from most DSLRs (CR2, NEF, CRW, ...) without using an intermediate file format (TIFF or other).

• Darks, Flats and Offsets computed from and applied directly to the RAW picture before any interpolation.

• Stacking methods: average, median, kappa-sigma clipping, auto adaptive weighted average, entropy weighted average, maximum...

• Preview of all pictures (including RAW)

• Simple post-processing with RGB levels, luminance curve and saturation adjustments.

• Save the resulting picture to 16 and 32 bit TIFF or FITS files with or without adjustments applied.

• Simple and intuitive user interface

• Optimal memory usage: the same amount of memory is required to register and stack 10 or 500 pictures.

• Optimal CPU usage: fully multithreaded with optimal use of duo/quad/multi processors.

• And much more...

In short: after a shooting night you give all your pictures (light frames, darks frames, offset/bias frames, flat frames) to DeepSkyStacker and you go to bed. The next morning you can see the result and start post-processing.

Some variants and flavours aren't translated, due to some undocumented things. No more problems viewing/working, with its favourite astronomical image processor, satellite images in Titus format, PDS (except the images by Clementine and a few by Mars Global Surveyor), VICAR, TIFF, SBIG's and StarLight's ones, etc. FITS files can be Rice or IHW compressed.

The software automatically inserts the observation date and the instrumental characteristics present in some format; for the other ones, feel free to contact me.

On the fly, BifsConv corrects some errors made by some FITS generating software (like Meade, AstroArt, Pisco, Avi2Bmp).

PlanetWarp is designed to get round that problem and re-project or warp your lunar images so that you see the edge features as though you were observing them from above. The program will work equally well for sunspots near the solar limb or planetary features but its primary purpose is for images of the moon.