I took several shots like this and now want to use Deep Sky Stacker

I took several 20-30 second exposures RAW (cant recall exact, but all were the same) of this image and now want to pass them through DSS.

I dont know what dark, flat, bias, dark flat means. I just have all of these.
Can I still pass this through DSS for a better "stacked" image?

Hi Kezug,

I'm wasn't sure what they are either, so I wrote a little text file to sort of explain it to myself. I have used this workflow and DSS accepts all the files. Whether they have the desired effect or not is debateable, since the weather has been appalling and I have only had one chance to use it. Results were inconclusive. Anyway, for what it's worth, it's HERE. If it's wrong I hope someone more knowledgable can correct me.

Run 'em through DSS and see what you get, it won't hurt, and it'll probably give you a slightly better overall image.

Dark files simply help cancel out noise and hot pixels. By its definition a dark file should be 100% black, but it won't be...there'll be noisy pixels, and it's these that are removed from the final image. Or something like that.

Flat files help with vignetting, where the corners of an image can appear a bit darker. (I myself notice it more on shots with a telephoto lens set to maximum focal length.)

Don't really know myself what Bias frames are!

martyn_bannister wrote in post #10790543
Hi Kezug,

I'm wasn't sure what they are either, so I wrote a little text file to sort of explain it to myself. I have used this workflow and DSS accepts all the files. Whether they have the desired effect or not is debateable, since the weather has been appalling and I have only had one chance to use it. Results were inconclusive. Anyway, for what it's worth, it's HERE. If it's wrong I hope someone more knowledgable can correct me.

Thanks...that seems like a lot of information and work too.

kezug wrote in post #10796664
Thanks...that seems like a lot of information and work too.

Sounds like a lot but when I actually did it, it wasn't too bad after all. Keeping count of what you are doing if you intersperse the dark frames would be a bit of a pain, but you don't have to do that, you can shoot them after the session if you like.

My Tutorial may help.

Baz.

A.S.I.G.N. Observatory wrote in post #10799007
My Tutorial may help.

Baz.

+1, Baz's tutorial helped get me up to speed, spend 15 min with it, then open up DSS and also read it's FAQ help file.

Note: Keep this in mind for your event planning:
Some of the added shots need to be taken with camera/sensor immediately following your shooting session to capture the temp affects to hot/cold pixels, plus some also need same focus/aperture/speed (ex: dark frames are same as light frames except use the cap). If you forget taking them then you can't afterward, too late, still process them but won't get full benefit of DSS abilities.

welcome to DSS.