Imaging & Acquisition

A free program that automates the registration and stacking of deep-sky exposures together with their calibration frames, producing a single high-signal image ready for final processing. Its simplicity has made it a popular first step in many deep-sky imaging workflows.

A professional-grade image-processing platform built specifically for astrophotography, with a full pipeline from calibration and registration to advanced noise reduction, deconvolution, and colour work. Its scriptable, high-precision tools make it the standard choice for serious deep-sky imagers.

A free, open-source image-processing program for astrophotography that calibrates, registers, and stacks sequences of exposures and then processes the result, with plate solving and scripting built in. It is a capable free alternative for the full path from raw frames to a finished image.

A widely adopted standard and driver platform on Windows that lets astronomy software talk to mounts, cameras, focusers, and other devices through a common interface, so any compliant application can control any compliant device. ASCOM is the interoperability glue of the Windows astrophotography ecosystem.

A complete astrophotography suite built into KStars and driven by INDI, handling alignment and plate solving, focusing, guiding, and fully scheduled imaging sequences. Ekos brings professional-style automated acquisition to a free, cross-platform stack.

A free, open-source, cross-platform protocol and driver framework — the Instrument-Neutral Distributed Interface — that controls astronomical instruments over a network, independent of any single application. INDI is the device layer beneath Ekos and much of the Linux and cross-platform imaging ecosystem.

A free, open-source imaging-suite application that sequences and automates a night of astrophotography — slewing, plate solving, focusing, guiding, and capturing calibrated exposures — through connected mounts, cameras, and accessories. It orchestrates the whole acquisition side of the imaging chain.

A free, open-source autoguiding application — the name stands for 'Push Here Dummy' — that images a guide star and issues corrections to the mount to hold a target steady through long exposures. PHD2 is the de-facto standard guider, used on its own or driven by imaging suites like N.I.N.A. and Ekos.