Even out the background
Reduce uneven sky brightness so the glow of a nebula or the shape of a galaxy is easier to see.
Inside Skymla.
A simpler way
to finish.
For smart-telescope owners who enjoy taking the photos and want an easier next step. Open your images, bring out the detail and make them your own.
01 / Get started
Start where
you are.
Have a night’s worth of images?
Bring in the individual exposures you saved from your telescope or camera. Skymla helps you review them and combine them into one image, ready to adjust.
If you have calibration frames, you can use those too. They help correct uneven illumination and patterns from the camera sensor.
Already have a stack?
A stack is an image made by combining several exposures. If you already have an unprocessed TIFF stack, open it and go straight to adjusting the result.
There’s no need to repeat the stacking step. Start with the image you have and take it a little further.
02 / Combine, if you need to
A little light.
Added together.
One exposure only catches so much. Combining a set can give you a cleaner starting point and help faint details stand out.
- Line up the stars. Skymla aligns the exposures for you.
- Leave out the misses. Review flagged images and choose what to keep.
- Tidy the edges. Automatic cropping trims uneven borders after alignment.
03 / Adjust & save
See what’s
in your image.
An unprocessed stack can look surprisingly dark. There’s often more in it than you can see at first. Skymla helps you reveal that detail and find a balance you like.
Find the colour
Balance the colour in your image, then fine-tune it to taste. See the whole photo as you adjust.
Bring up the faint detail
Make the dim parts of your image more visible while keeping an eye on the bright stars. In astro photography, this step is called stretching.
Keep a look you like
Save your adjustments with the image and return to them later. Try a quieter background or a different colour balance as your eye develops.
A photo that’s yours.
Export a finished TIFF to keep, print or prepare for sharing in your usual photo app. Your original stack stays available for another edit.
A few practical details.
Is it for
your setup?
Smart-telescope owners are at the heart of Skymla. The focus is a straightforward route from the images you capture to a finished photo on your Mac.
- Platform
- Native macOS app. macOS 15 or later.
- Your telescope
- Bring saved images to your Mac for processing. Compatibility depends on the files your telescope exports; see the formats below.
- Camera & tracker
- The current stacking workflow also covers tracked, sky-only camera captures.
- The Milky Way?
- A possible next step for fixed-tripod captures. Those sequences still need validation, and keeping a stationary landscape sharp while stacking the sky isn’t supported yet.
- Extra software
- The core stacking and finishing tools are built in. Optional tools add star removal, noise reduction and sharpening when you want to explore further.
File formats and optional tools
Files you can work with
Stack camera RAW files supported by macOS, TIFFs, or two-dimensional FITS images in the primary HDU. RGB FITS cubes are not currently supported. To begin with an existing stack, open an unprocessed TIFF.
Keep a floating-point master and export a finished TIFF. Layered PSD export is available when using star separation.
Tools you can add
Skymla works with StarXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, BlurXTerminator, StarNet2 and DeepSNR. These require separate installation and their respective licences.
With a star-removal tool installed, you can adjust the stars and the rest of the image separately, then bring them back together.
Currently in closed beta.
See you after dark.
We’re refining Skymla with real imaging sessions. The public release is coming soon.
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