I tried to use Siril live stacking for EAA a couple of times. It can be a great tool but there are a number of issues that I experienced which I want to share here. I understand that Siril is not taking live stacking as a priority but I hope eventually you can turn out a great EAA tool.
The biggest problem, can be a show stopper, relates to the problem of the registration process. In EAA, we usually take rather short exposures. If we are looking at targets with very low star density or very dim stars, then I found that Siril will not stack. For example I tried to capture NGC253 Sculptor Galaxy. This is a 4s exposure. Siril cannot register this in live stacking. I use another EAA software (Astro Live Stacker, also from France) where it allows me to set the minimum number of star matches. ALS stacks this without problem. However in normal stacking process Siril allows us to tune the parameters in Dynamic PSF and I found that I can stack this Galaxy subs with the right parameters. Hence I would suggest Siril brings the option to set these also for live stacking. Otherwise it will limit the EAA users to stack rich star field only.
Then the stacked image is autostretched with no option to adjust the stretch level. Possibilities to adjust the stretch on-the-fly will be very helpful.
The ability to include master flat is very helpful. In the doc it was stated that I can select to apply a linear gradient but I found that the check box is dimmed and not available for use.
Finally the amount of intermediate files being generated is really large, and this put a lot of strain on the storage in the field where lean computing resources are mostly used.
I hope some of these findings can be of some value to the further development.
However, the parameters can only be set when an image is available. I have to stop the live stack, set the parameters, and restart the live stack. Is there other ways to “preset” this?
I tried to “pause” instead of “stop” the stacking, but once the stacking is paused, I can’t get it resumed by pressing the “pause” again. So eventually I have to stop the stack.
Thanks for the feedback, this is very helpful. Indeed the star parameters could be lowered a little by default for this task.
The level of stretch and removing intermediate files are also easy to do, we just need to do them…
Hi, still a question. How can I apply the linear gradient for live stacking. I can see the checkbox in the live stacking dialog box but that is dimmed and inaccessible. I try to stop the live stacking process and apply the background extraction tool, then restart the live stacking. But still the checkbox is dimmed.
This is not possible at present. The feature is disabled.
As we point out in the documentation, livestacking is highly experimental and not yet a priority. Sorry.