Siril vs Deep Sky Stacking - Forums

Topic starter

Oct 16, 2023 · Edited: Oct 16, 2023

New to the hobby and my first post on Astrobin, so excuse my naivety. If necessary, direct to a more appropriate source for my question.

Beginning to take photos and wanting to process them.

For stacking images, is there a logical reason to choose Siril over Deep Sky Stacking, or vice versa, or is there another tool more adept for a novice such as myself? I would like to learn how to use one.

Thank you.

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Pavel Karas

Oct 16, 2023

Hi Dennis,

just to make sure, I suppose you mean Siril and Deep Sky Stacker.

I would say that DSS is a bit easier to use, especially for total beginners. However, during your progress, sooner or later, you will hit the limits of DSS. For example, in the process of image registration (i.e. alignment), it supports only basic transformations. This means that if you don't use star tracker and the star field not only moves but also rotates between the exposures, you won't be able to register the images 100% properly (due to lens distortions).

Siril has more advanced features (such as background extraction, automatic color calibration etc.) and if you learn how to use it – there are many tutorials all over the internet – you will find it useful even at more advanced level. And once you are a pro, you simply move from Siril to PixInsight which has similar features and algorithms. Last but not least, Siril gets works on all main platforms (Windows, Linux and MacOS) unlike DSS which is for Windows only.

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Dennis Spender

Topic starter

Oct 16, 2023

Very useful, Pavel. TY

JBNZ

Oct 16, 2023

Hi Dennis,

I've used both and I admit I am a Siril fan. Pavel is spot on with his breakdown of the two pieces of software.

One thing I'll add is that they are both free, so try each one on a stack and compare.

There's a great video from Nico Carver (Nebula Photos on YT) comparing the various software available for astro processing including Siril and DSS.

https://youtu.be/fbzE1YcICGU?si=UQt2zNoI8nKuLt8y

Best of luck and clear skies!
John

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Dennis Spender

Topic starter

Oct 16, 2023

I’ll go to YouTube John and look for those videos. Thank you.

Joe Linington

Oct 17, 2023

Siril is a lot more than stacking. It includes things like background extraction, green noise removal, astrometric colour correction, 3 different ways to stretch an image and many, many more Astro photography specific tools. It is also a very good stacker and by far the fastest out there. But DSS is easier to use so no issues starting there. Many of us did.

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Dennis Spender

Topic starter

Oct 17, 2023

That settles it. I will work on learning Siril.

Don Heffernan

Nov 7, 2023

I’m new also and like Siril for all the reasons others mentioned. I briefly used DSS to stack and Siril for everything else because DSS seemed easier. Then I discovered Sirilic, which is a script building tool that greatly simplifies stacking in Siril. You simply load all the lights and calibration files for multiple filters and Sirilic builds directories, organizes everything, invokes Siril and directs it through the stacking process. Sirilic is available on the Siril website.

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Klaus Henning

Nov 8, 2023

I use DSS for stacking because it is easier to use. And I use Siril for image processing. The color calibration and background extraction in particular are very valuable functions.

Jens

Nov 8, 2023

My workflow uses both, you don't have to stick with one. I stack my Data with DSS because it just works really well. I then went over to Siril to edit the photo
because it is a very beginner friendly tool to use for that. You'll get great results really quickly. I always used photoshop in addition to that, but it's not necessary.

once you've come to grips with editing i would highly suggest to take a peak at Pixinsight to improve image quality even more.

But first get comfortable with using the tools you have, you can get really far with that.

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Tom Gray

Nov 8, 2023

I moved to Siril too this year, and so impressed by the functionality and powerful processing tools. I tend to use Han Klein’s ASTAP for calibration and stacking, which is very fast and efficient. I used to use Nebulosity (now freeware), which is also very good, but more manual. I’ve tried APP (paid) but was not convinced of the overall value. So many choices… have fun.

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Guillermo (Guy) Yanez

Nov 8, 2023 · Edited: Nov 8, 2023

I agree in that DSS is easier to use but Siril is much more powerful for pre processing. Astap is also very good but sometimes I get some artifacts on the final image using pretty much the same parameters and algorithms as in Siril. Otherwise, another great free option too.
If you want to make your life much easier using Siril, I would highly recommend using the complementary Sirilic app that you can find here:
https://gitlab.com/free-astro/sirilic/-/releases

It basically does two things: 1. Copy all your subs and calibration files to the appropriate folders so that Siril can then smoothly stack everything together . 2. Run the calibration script for you, so you do not have to do more than just a push of a button.

Cheers

Guy

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Rick Veregin

Nov 12, 2023

If you are serious about your images, you need to consider registration, calibration and stacking to be totally separate from post-processing.

I use Deep Sky Stacker for registration, calibration and stacking, as it works flawlessly and is incredibly fast, the new version 5 can register, calibrate and stack hundreds of images in a few minutes. Also DSS is easy to use, so I recommend it for beginners as well. And it has a lot of advanced features, including comet stacking, rejection stacking, and more. The support for DSS is really great, as there is a very active forum to help if you are having any trouble.

DSS does not manipulate the image, so if you have distortion issues or poor stars it will not fix that. This is a good feature, other programs might stack distorted stars, but that is not a good thing, it is just encouraging you to accept poor data. If you want the best result, you want a program that only stacks data that is acceptable. Note, DSS will handle rotated images, again, as long as the stars are good.

I would not recommend using DSS for image processing. I have not used Siril very much, but to me it doesn't stack up to (pardon the pun) to dedicated processing tools either from what I can see. And it is difficult and inflexible to use in my experience.

For post-stacking, PixInsight, Startools, Photoshop (or Gimp), and others are good options. Processing really needs SW that is designed for processing. DSS and as far as I know Siril, are not at all that good for this.

Note, many processing programs like Startools and PI, don't want the data manipulated, so corrections in DSS or Siril are totally unwelcome for those tools. If you are going to use any post-stacking tool to process your images, don't manipulate them aside from those things that should be done in registering, calibration and stacking.

Whatever registration/calibration/stacking program you use, the best option is use it for what it is best at, and not use it to do any post-processing after stacking.
Rick

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