At the rate it's playing, you'd only need to put a little box in the lower right that pops up once per "stellar hour/exposure hour" stating the ending time of each stack.   That could be done with exposure time + down tim for images per hour   So 13 labels in Sony Vegas (What I use, easier than Adobe AfterEffects for just making simple videos, and a couple things only found if you get Adobe Premier for only 50x the cost of After Effects, on you're renting it on top.

13 Labels, Start at 7 pm, then next hour would say 8pm, next would be 9, and on and on to the final hour.  Each only displays for about 3 seconds and fades out, gives people a sense of scale with "wow, this is beautiful, and difficult flying through their minds.  Could just use raw Utube annotations so it could be saved without them, and the user can choose to disable annotations.   Could also just put that in the description, "1 video second is equivalent to 12 minutes minutes of reality, Video covers 12 hours."  Easy enough to add, leave location out for dox prevention.

There's one similar to yours on Wiki Astrophotography which puts their own credits at the end and has annoying music with it.  Maybe music at half the volume they used, but it overpowers the video, IMO (and I'm deaf, so it's gotta be pretty loud) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/2/27/Milky_way_-route_292_shiga_kusatsu_road-_1920x1080.webm/Milky_way_-route_292_shiga_kusatsu_road-_1920x1080.webm.480p.vp9.webm

Trying to keep up with the minutes would have everybody's concentration on the counter instead of the content.

Extra info

Right now, buy all the standalone license copies of Adobe stuff that aren't rental plans.   Then you have what you need for a long time without paying the subscription.  I just re-bought LightRoom and Photoshop and  AfterEffects as standalones, ot the "Suite Rental plan".   Find them at places like oldversions.com or even apple or other seller will let you get the last few versions.   Something I'd suggest if you didn't know about it.   Not the latest wiz bang easy buttons, but anything can be done, just a bit more comoplex.   Tons of tutorials out there.   If you don't have Sony Vegas, That's an excellent return on investment for pretty much everything, easy to annotate, etc.

Video editing is a simple "time linear'  version of photo editing.  You can't edit images/frames it stacks and sets their timing, then does the compression.  They can also add text/credits with plug ins.   If you want to change a photo quite a bit, it's easier to imprt clips into photoshop, wherr each frame is a layer, then edit them.  Save alll old versions!

You stick each frame/image (can be clip, or static photo) on to the "Time Line"   Once in correct order, hit play for preview,  Than you can stretch/shrink that timeline to fit to a different size.

Just like photo editing, you have laysers in video editing, which be effects, color correction and more so the original frames are destroyed if tryin a filter out, and the option of saving the filters separate from file is there.    Many layers are allowed.  One would be the "Time" layer, where it would be inserted every x frames, and be displayed for x seconds (x you choose).   Set "blending Mode" to one that allows your text to be seen clearly (Preview button is a LOT of help for learning)..   Addin end credits can just be a static photo or animationnnnn.

Making a video from your images is not much different than "stop motion animation" setup.  Cheap and real decent editing program is Sony Vegas , for image editing,  use Photoshop for getting all images equally sized/aligned.  They've likely improved that so I don't know the latest bennies to latest rental Photoshop.

I was daunted by it several years ago but after a day or two of struggle it all fell into place.  Now the programs have gotten slicker with "howto videos" made for every video editing package out there, Just dive in t o whichever you happen to have, The Canon movie maker isn't so bad, and it's free with you camera's serial #.  The more you fret it and avoid it, the more you set yourself up to fail, just dive in.

Look at some of the bonehead videos out there, and you'll have to conclude that current software can let anybody, literally anybody, make videoes.  

--ETA:  Thing to fix keyboard should be here tomorrow.  It's dropping or doubling keys, putting in symbols, etc.  Frustrating.

From what I read in this thread so far, the whole process involves "learning photoshop the hard way", once a hurdle is passed, it brings up 5 more equally intense mental walls to climb.  Reading the thread I feels like a liberal arts major who somehow wound up in advanced physics class.

You and several others in this thread are close to masters.  You've kicked down enough barriers to beat most stock photos in quality and color,  even from APOD in some cases.  It's down to "artistic" aspects which I suck at so can't appreciate (or even notice).

Do you have a link to the Dithering howto?  Is it only for astro, or can it be used to help many darker scenes?    Is the image dithered, or the bias/flat frames?

Second, obvious, but probably stupid questions:  Do you seal your gear with air/moisture-proof bags (plastic, large ziplocks)?  Leave in the large bags after use with Dry and Dry, allow to cool down to operating temp for at least an hour, and warm back up to room temp for over an hour before opening bag?   Or, heat to prevent it from getting moisture due to partial pressure changes of water at various temps and fast change.   Here, it's 55% humidity, but inside house, it's 10% from the 60° Temp shift.  The Dry and Dry is the best I've ever used, fast humidity removal and lasts a long time before needing to be recharged (rarely).    Get the dry and dry, or some Cobalt Blue test strips to drop in bag and house first, if there's any air dropping out water (condensation), the strip will turn pink, it's the indicator used in blue -> pink dessicants to say "used up".  Get the Dry and Dry anyway, I use it everywhere on electronics, inside electronics, inside camera bag, in cases of my nicer calipers/micrometers, and everywhere I don't want rust.  It works far better than the tiny little 2 g packets that are meant to only last until you open the item.    The slow cool and warm will do wonders if you don't already, in a sealed bag, seal it when packing up (camera, scope, etc), go home, unseal it next day when it's reached room temp.  Pull stuff out, reseal it to have dry air for gear to go back to next time.   Even if you are using a warming blanket on camera and scope, this is still good practice.   Think of it like your gear "licking" a cold metal object when you don't let things equalize.

Third, re-grease focusing moving parts with µLubol HELIMAX-XP to see if that fixes issues.   I used it as it's 0°F and below for several months out of the year here.  It's pretty good, doesn't turn into glue at freezing temps.

#4 - put several 25 watt wrap heaters on camera, and on scope by lenses and lens supports.   Might take 2 or 3 Battery packs, but headaches saved will be worth it.

I'm not sure what you call "cold", though.   If it's above zero, it's a nice day out, like today, it's all the way up to 8°F without the '-'.

The sealed dry bags will prevent any internal dew in camera or scope to be created, as they Dry and Dry removes all moisture from air, even from inside camera, etc.   Those packets also work for when you drop electronics in water.  Pull battery if possible, if not, dump 32 floz of 91% isopopyl alcohol into wall the ports you can see, let the alcohol evaporate, then stick item in ziplock with about 30g of Dry and Dry packets for 24 hours or so.  That trick has saved me money, especially on computer keyboards.

See, now that was rambling.   Here's the Miracle Stuff that makes you really understand why it's so awesome.  Just keep what it's protecting in an area where little or no fresh air moves around.

I get the 100 10g Packs of Blue-Pink indicating personally, or the 25 pack  of 10g if unsure.  It's way better than the cheaper Silica Gel around that are either more or less expensive.

Ok.  No I can see a big difference there.  Though I can't sy if one is closer to accurate or not.  Looks like a slightly differnt Hue of blue, and it's volume cranked down in some areas and high in others (gamma change).

The darkened version looks 'prettier', but not sure, as detail shown in the blue wash ave less definition, while others ain a lot more definition.

Which one matches what you see with a a say, HST or other telecope in space?    The darker one look a bit like artistic was the end, while the blue "washed out" frame tried to show other detail, like the effect of having to peer through the OIII 'mist' to see the rest.

DIY Cheap Artificial Star

If you have a super fine needle, the better it is.

I figured out the official thing I dislike about the super contrasty one.   Dithering went too far.

Here's a small section from both styles. same area (roughly same area, the lower right star, and edge of cloud)

Original:


New:


Is there a middle ground on that?   Maybe 30% of what was applied?  The faint blue across the lower right portion is basically gone in new version, and he dots/dithering levels are what what was bothering me when I couldn't define what it was that seemed a bit 'too much of something'.  Colors are wiped out and seem more pointillism painting-ish.  Stars lost color, all going white, vs Red/blue/etc

If the New one is the gentle clouds vs teal-black choices, and where stars have color, than take that as a Testament on how good whatever you did differently is.   Swap "Old" and "New".  

That is awesome.   I wish the IR block was a filter that was easily removed in a lens filter holder arrangement, located in camera body.   The Canons usually need to be sent out to have it excised, and once it's excised, can't have warranty or put it successfully back as a home hobbyist.   Problem is all the processing assumes daylight, so would mess up other images in full color daytime mode one way or the other, I thought the auto-focus one one of them went bad as well (Or am I thinking about the UV block being removed?).

I'm looking at this entry for the Orion Nebula and this photo was posted:



It's nowhere near your zoom, but are both "pieces" (running man and orion nebula) together in that image due to lack of zoom?   Se, I don't know enough about this to do it incorrectly, other people actually got something in their viewfinder.

Then Hubble goes and blows everything out of the water, for just a few dollars more:

Question (and bumping thread).

@Ciraxis

Can you try doing the before/after night photos in .apng / .png format?  In Firefox, a .APNG file can be named .PNG and still be animated, no dice in other browsers w/o plugin, they're properly named .MNG -Multiple Image Network Graphics.  APNG has some documentation, but no absolute formal definition by Those Who Decide which has then been sort of written as standard, but not Absolute Standard, MNG support isn't that far, yet Far Superior.  .MNG is the only format Image Magick (NO .APNG support, only the more general concept spec), the very advanced FREE "command line Photoshop" editor/composer, correct/enhance/Many more, especially with Fred's IM Scripts.  If you haven't Get it (or just read the feature list)  Photo noise removal could be batched using an automatic FFT/iFFT function.

Wiki overview for idea of scope with PNG them from technical side.  It's a VERY robust image format!

Free Site that will make slideshow .APNG for you from 2 images  EZgif.com will convert an entire movie to .APNG

True color animation in .APNG, as a .PNG filename.

If you see the ball above, your browser supports it.

What's really cool is no dithering.  2^24 colors in each frame.   Lossless compression, so they're a bit bigger, but willl look Amazingly better as a demonstration image for true color comparison.


That one above also has just a .png filename.   If you can see these, you probably see the difference in displaying a before/after, or a sequence of images.  Also, frame rates can be timed by frame and faster than 50 frames/sec if desired.  No limits and highly granular frame rate.

Basically, all of the above is a message to Ciraxis and other AstroPhoto experts (compared to me, lowest of the low absolute novice retarded infant in the womb), with many links and informative sites that are generally educational for the bigger audience that dabbles with image modifications, making it 4x as long.

Weren't many of Ansel Adams (or some other famous coffee-table photographer) take photos IR film?  Same view with a different view?  The others in B&W were "Boring", while the IR came alive.

Dithering in Astro

Cool gif showing dithering removing the bright pink or red "hot pixels" DSLRs can get where they're stuck "on" (first frame of .gif, left edge, 3/4 down, then stacking removing the airplane trails and sharpening up the image by combining captures: