Introduction

By the end of this chapter, you will have:

• Configured the only required settings for a quick start with ALS’s default settings.
• Started your first stacking session and obtained your first results.

Minimal Configuration

Upon first launch, ALS welcomes you and prompts you to set two essential settings:

• Scan Folder: The folder where ALS monitors the arrival of new raw images.
• Work Folder: The folder where ALS saves the produced images.

🖱️ Click OK to access the preferences.

Configuring the Critical Folders

The critical folders are defined in the Paths section of the General tab.

Scan Folder

Set up ALS to monitor the astroshots folder:

🖱️ Click Change... next to Scan Folder. A folder selector appears…

1. 🖱️ Select the astroshots folder.
2. 🖱️ Click Choose.

Work Folder

Create a subfolder for ALS named als_output in your home directory:

🖱️ Click Change... next to Work Folder. A folder selector appears…

🖱️ Click Create New Folder.

A new folder appears, ready to be renamed.

• ⌨️ Name it als_output.
• 🖱️ Click Choose.

ℹ️ Don’t validate the preferences just yet, there’s one more important point to cover

Usage Statistics

It’s very useful for us to know which versions of ALS are being used and on which platform.

We would be very grateful if you allow ALS to send us usage statistics, but we also understand if you’re hesitant to enable this feature.

Please note that:

• ALS will send us only the following information at each startup:
  • ALS version.
  • Processor type.
  • Operating system type.
• We are not attempting to identify or geolocate the source of this information.

🖱️ Then click OK to validate the preferences.

Your First Session

ALS is now ready to serve you.

Starting the Session

🖱️ Click START in the session section at the top left.

ALS confirms the session has started correctly:

🎛️ Now start acquiring with your usual system. ALS detects and processes each new captured image.

As an example, we’ll illustrate the following sections with a session on Messier 27 : ZWO ASI224MC camera, 200 x 4 sec. subs

The first detected image serves as the alignment reference of subsequent images.

All new captured images are first aligned to this reference and then stacked by averaging with all previously processed images.

After each alignment and stacking of a new image, ALS automatically adjusts the brightness and color balance before displaying the result in the central area.

As you stack images, you will see the result gain in contrast and detail. The graininess of the sky background will gradually fade.

Explore the Image

Let ALS work on the images that keep coming in and lose yourself a bit in the central area:

• 🖱️ Zoom in & out using your mouse wheel.
• 🖱️ Navigate the image by dragging it, just like with any other visualization software.
• 🖱️ Reset the zoom by right-clicking.

The image in the central area will update instantly after ALS processes each new captured image, without interrupting your navigation.

This quick start guide doesn’t cover other ALS features and settings. However, ALS is designed to be very intuitive. Feel free to explore and experiment with the different controls located on the right side of the screen in the Processing section.

Stopping the Session

Our quick tour is coming to an end; stop the current session.

🖱️ Click STOP in the session section at the top left. A confirmation window appears…

🖱️ Click Yes

You will find the final result of this session in a file named stack_image.jpg saved in the Work Folder.

ℹ️ Linux Systems

This section is exclusively for ALS users on Linux, whether on PC or Raspberry Pi

Creating a system launcher for ALS

🖱️ Open the Utilities menu in ALS and select the Create launcher item. A file picker appears…

1. 🖱️ Navigate to the folder where ALS is located
   • PC: Navigate to /home/astrogeek/Applications/ALS
   • Raspberry PI: Navigate to /home/astrogeek/Applications/ALS/als-v0.7-beta8
2. 🖱️ Select the executable
   • PC: Select the als-v0.7-beta8.run file
   • Raspberry PI: Select the als-v0.7-beta8 file
3. 🖱️ Click Open

ALS confirms the launcher creation

You can now easily start ALS using your system menu

Conclusion

We hope this chapter has helped you quickly get started with ALS and understand the basic concepts of a livestacking session.

Next step: a deeper dive into ALS’s graphical user interface.