Question about software for Stacking

Hi all, I know that this maybe has been beaten about before, but what stacking software do you use? I have Registax 3 and ps7.

With all the images, mainly short enough exposures done many times over, I find i have two problems

1. Regisatx3 can't handle many images, i find that i can only load 4-5 images for stacking, and if there is a slight tracking problem , I can't manually align them - am i missing something?

2. PS7 - I can easily align multiple images, but I find the combined image always looks worse, I find it a serious struggle to get a clean image.

I'm getting an 80ED very soon and what with taking many short exposures, this needs to be sorted out. If i gotta pay out some money, then so be it
I've heard ImagePlus is quite good, but what we all really want is the best result from all those short exposures.

Thanks,
Keith..

Keith - take a look at registar - I think that's what its called. Ron Wodaski (CCD Author) recommends it. Apparently it will align images taken at different focal lengths too.

Beware though, that's all it does - align images - but it does it very well. As for its stacking capability, I'm not sure.

If you are using a DSLR, consider MaximDSLR. I use MaximDL - apart from a steep-ish learning curve, I can't fault it for aligning, stacking and processing. You can download a 30 day trial and give it a whirl.

Cheers
Dave

Keith,
Forget PS for stacking, its a big head ache and its much easier in registax.

In registax, I use bmps and AVIs, all my better planetary images are done with AVIs, I find that registax sometimes has problems reading files that are over 1500~ frames, stacking 4 planet frames is not going to yield you any results.
Registax handles toucam sized files no problem, but if you are stacking 3kx2k DSLR images then registax needs ALOT of memory, my 2.8GH machine takes along time to stack 20 or so of these and the used memory goes from 300megs to 900megs when doing this. This is very CPU and memory intensive.

In terms of tracking, registax prefers a smooth continuous movement of the planet across the field of view, any large jerky movements can make it loose the allign position, a motorised scope is best for this as there is no or little movements. Manual aligning can work but becomes tedious when dealing with more then 40 or so frames.

Thanks Guys

Keith..