Stacking presets
All the tasks you want Nebulb to perform during stacking can be easily configured in the "Stack" module.
Thus, before executing the stacking it is necessary to mark all those actions that you want Nebulb to perform during the stacking (depending on the type, or types, of images that you want to obtain).
This process of selecting options can be done manually or assisted by selecting one of the available presets:
Presets are an assistance by means of which Nebulb automatically selects the most appropriate stacking options for each type of image. In this way, depending on the type of image you want to obtain, you can select the corresponding preset and the stacking options needed to process that type of image are automatically selected.
The presets available are:
- Full Processing: By selecting this preset Nebulb executes all possible types of processing during stacking. Thus, in a single stack all possible results are obtained (star aligned image, star trails image, noise reduction, light pollution reduction, meteor detection, plane/satellite/hole removal...). In principle it might seem that this preset is always the most suitable (in fact Nebulb selects it by default), but it is also true that it is the most time consuming. Therefore, there may be situations in which it is not worth using this preset, since the excess of processing time may not be justified (for example, if you are going to stack a set of images captured during 15 minutes to reduce noise and light pollution, it is probably not worth doing also the stacking of star trails, since the trails of the stars will be extremely short).
- Milky Way: This is the right preset to process images of both the Milky Way and any other astronomical object moving in the sky in the same way as the stars (as long as no star tracker is used). With this preset Nebulb performs a stacking to align the stars and thus significantly reduces noise and light pollution.
- Meteor Shower: This preset is similar to the previous one (it allows to obtain an image of aligned stars without noise, on which light pollution can be greatly reduced) except for the big difference that in this case Nebulb also performs the automatic detection of flying objects (meteors, satellites and planes). Therefore, it is an ideal preset in case you want to obtain an image of stars together with meteors. That said, for the processing of a meteor shower session of several hours it is usually more usual to select the "Full processing" preset, since, in this way, a star trails image is also obtained.
- Star trails: Unlike the two previous presets, in this case Nebulb performs a specific stacking to obtain an image of star trails. In addition to this, Nebulb also automatically performs the main tasks associated with star trails processing, such as: removing planes and satellites, smoothing the star trails to eliminate gaps, as well as applying a fade in and fade out to make the star trails much more continuous.
- Deep Space: Nebulb also allows you to process images that have been captured with a star tracker. By selecting this preset Nebulb performs a stacking of aligned stars taking into account the specific peculiarities that occur when capturing with a star tracker mount.
- Simple Stacking: In this case Nebulb performs image stacking without any alignment or processing specific to the sky. This preset is useful if you want to stack images to simply reduce noise. It can also be used for both daytime and nighttime images (although in this case the stars will disappear as they move over time).
- Custom: This preset is automatically selected when the user manually selects any of the stacking configuration options.
IMPORTANT: Presets are an assistance, not a limitation, so you can easily modify the automatic selection made by Nebulb in case you are interested in doing so. Note that the presets reflect a general and standard configuration for each type of image, but there may always be particular situations that require you to modify some of the options set by the selected preset. In fact, this is quite normal: first you select the preset and then, secondly, you check the selected options to see if you are interested in modifying anything.
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