How To Install planetary-system-stacker on Ubuntu

Posted on April 1, 2023 (Last modified on May 20, 2023 )

3 minutes • 627 words

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install planetary-system-stacker on Ubuntu.

What is `planetary-system-stacker`

planetary-system-stacker is:

This package contrains software to produce a sharp image of a planetary system object (moon, sun, planets) from many seeing-affected frames using the “lucky imaging” technique._

The program is mainly targeted at extended objects (moon, sun), but it works as well for planets. Results obtained in many tests show at least the same image quality as with the established software AutoStakkert!3.

Input to the program can be either video files or directories containing still images. The following algorithmic steps are performed:

First, all frames are ranked by their overall image quality.
On the best frame, a rectangular patch with the most pronounced structure in x and y is identified automatically. (Alternatively, the user can select the patch manually as well.)
Using this patch, all frames are aligned globally with each other.
A mean image is computed by averaging the best frames.
An alignment point mesh covering the object is constructed automatically. Points, where the image is too dim, or has too little contrast or structure, are discarded. The user can modify the alignment points, or set them all by hand as well.
For each alignment point, all frames are ranked by their local contrast in a surrounding image patch.
The best frames up to a given number are selected for stacking. Note that this list can be different for different points.
For all frames, local shifts are computed at all alignment points.
Using those shifts, the alignment point patches of all contributing frames are stacked into a single average image patch.
Finally, all stacked patches are blended into a global image, using the background image in places without alignment points.
After stacking is completed, the stacked image can be postprocessed (sharpened) either in a final step of the stacking workflow, or in a separate postprocessing job.

There are three methods to install planetary-system-stacker on Ubuntu. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install planetary-system-stacker Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install planetary-system-stacker using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install planetary-system-stacker

Install planetary-system-stacker Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install planetary-system-stacker using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install planetary-system-stacker

Install planetary-system-stacker Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install planetary-system-stacker using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install planetary-system-stacker

How To Uninstall planetary-system-stacker on Ubuntu

To uninstall only the planetary-system-stacker package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove planetary-system-stacker

Uninstall planetary-system-stacker And Its Dependencies

To uninstall planetary-system-stacker and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove planetary-system-stacker

Remove planetary-system-stacker Configurations and Data

To remove planetary-system-stacker configuration and data from Ubuntu we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge planetary-system-stacker

Remove planetary-system-stacker configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove planetary-system-stacker configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge planetary-system-stacker

Dependencies

planetary-system-stacker have the following dependencies:

References

planetary-system-stacker website

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install planetary-system-stacker package on Ubuntu using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.