Nocturne

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What Nocturne works with

Updated

The telescopes, files and computers Nocturne is built for, in one place.

Telescopes

Nocturne is designed for ZWO Seestar telescopes and tuned on the S30 Pro. It recognises each model from its own files, so the image scale and the camera are right without any setting.

  • Seestar S30 Pro: the telescope Nocturne is built and tuned on.
  • Seestar S50 Pro: recognised and tested on real subs.
  • Seestar S50: recognised.
  • Seestar S30: not tested yet. Its files should still work, because the image scale is read from each file.

Nocturne is built and tested on the standard alt-az set-up, where it corrects the field rotation when stacking. An equatorial wedge has no field rotation, so its files should work too, but that is not tested yet. Nor is the Seestar’s wide-angle camera.

Nocturne can also process many stacked one-shot-colour and dual-band FITS files from other instruments. The features that need a known camera, such as the plate-solve hint, then fall back to the S30 Pro’s values.

Files

  • To stack: a folder of Seestar subs (.fit).
  • To process: a stacked master as FITS or TIFF. A colour profile in a TIFF is read and honoured.
  • To export: TIFF, PNG or FITS at full resolution, and a JPEG for posting from Share.

Your original file is never changed. Every step works on a copy.

Computers

  • macOS on Apple Silicon (M1 or newer).
  • Linux on 64-bit x86 with glibc 2.39 or newer, such as Ubuntu 24.04.
  • There is no Windows or Intel Mac build yet.
  • Any screen from 1280 × 800 up. The guide explains what changes on a small laptop screen.

Optional tools

Nocturne works on its own. Four tools can make some steps better, and three of them are free. Install & set up explains each one.

  • GraXpert (free): background extraction and noise reduction.
  • StarNet2 (free): separating the stars from the nebula.
  • ASTAP (free, with its D05 star database): plate solving, which names what is in the picture and makes colour calibration and mosaics possible.
  • RC-Astro (paid): sharpening, noise reduction and star removal.

Ready to try it? Download Nocturne or start with the sample data.