Nightscaping with Sequator

Sequator

Price: free https://sites.google.com/view/sequator

What we like

Freeware

Automatic alignment and stacking

Accepts RAW camera files

What we don’t like

Occasionally fails to align images accurately

Auto brightness sometimes overly aggressive

PHOTOGRAPHING THE STARRY SKY

over a picturesque landscape can be challenging. The best results tend to come from photographers using the latest digital cameras and fast lenses. In addition, exposures lasting more than 10 seconds or so also require the camera to be mounted on a star tracker in order to record stars as pinpoints of light rather than elongated streaks. That’s a significant piece of extra equipment if you’re travelling to a scenic vista to capture the star-filled sky.

But what if the only gear needed to take deep nightscapes were your camera, lens and tripod? And what if none of the equipment needed to be top-of-the-line? As for many of today’s problems, there’s a software solution to make life easier. The free PC program Sequator makes imaging easy, requiring you only to change your technique slightly to get great results.

Written by Taiwanese software engineer and landscape photographer is a powerful stacking program that enables users to combine many short nightscape-type exposures into a single photo with round stars and the signal-to-noise quality of a long exposure. We tried it out to see how well it works.