Live Colour Composites

The live stacker keeps one stack per filter for each target. A composite combines those stacks into one colour view while you shoot. It is a view only: no composite file is saved, and the per-filter stacks are unchanged.

Turn it on

1. Arm the live stacker on the Imaging screen. The Live Stack panel opens, named for the target and filter.

2. Switch the panel from Channels to Composite.

3. Pick a palette: Auto, LRGB, RGB, SHO or HOO. A palette that the target’s filters cannot make is dimmed.

The viewer then draws the composite when it shows the stack. The Stack · N subs chip still switches between the stack and the latest sub. The first composite of a target shows “Rendering composite…” until it arrives.

The palette and the view stay set for this session only. Switching rigs returns the panel to Channels.

Palettes

Palette	Channels
LRGB	Luminance from L, colour from R, G and B
RGB	R, G and B
SHO	Sii as red, Ha as green, Oiii as blue
HOO	Ha as red, Oiii as green and blue

Auto takes the first palette the target’s channels can make, in the order LRGB, RGB, SHO, HOO. With none of them, it shows the deepest single channel in grey. If you pick a palette the channels cannot make yet, ARIS renders the next one it can and says why, for example “Rendering HOO — SHO needs Sii.”

Channels

The panel lists each filter that feeds the composite. Tap a row to leave that channel out; the last channel cannot be left out. Lines under the list explain the picture:

• Waiting for names a channel the palette still needs, and which filter can supply it.
• is taken from names the filter used when two filters supply the same channel; the rig uses the one with more subs.
• UNALIGNED marks a channel that could not be aligned to the shared grid and was matched afterwards. It is still in the composite.

Subs stacked, Integration and Rejected count every channel in the composite.

ARIS reads each channel from the filter’s name:

• L, Lum, Luminance; R, Red; G, Green; B, Blue
• Ha, H-Alpha (and names such as “Ha 3nm”); Sii, S2, Sulfur; Oiii, O3, Oxygen

Names such as L-eXtreme, L-eNhance, L-Synergy, Pro or Clear give no channel by name. To give a filter a channel, set Passes in its edit dialog on the Filter Wheel screen: a single line set there takes priority over the name. The setting belongs to the slot’s name, so if you rename the slot, it is ignored until you set it again.

One-shot colour cameras and dual-band filters

A one-shot colour camera makes a composite from narrowband filters only. It uses each filter’s Passes (“Used for the colour composite.”): Ha, Hβ, Oiii or Sii, or Broadband. Use the name goes back to what ARIS reads from the filter’s name.

ARIS knows the lines of these filters when the slot’s name is exactly the product’s name:

Filter	Lines
L-eXtreme, L-Ultimate	Ha and Oiii
L-Synergy	Oiii and Sii
L-eNhance	Ha, Hβ and Oiii; used as Ha only, because Hβ and Oiii fall on the same pixels
L-Pro	Broadband

A target shot through L-eXtreme alone makes HOO. L-eXtreme with L-Synergy makes SHO. L-Synergy alone makes no composite. A broadband target on a colour camera shows no composite controls, and mono and colour stacks are never mixed.

A mono composite is at the sensor’s full resolution. A colour camera’s band composite is at half resolution. Every composite is cropped to the area that all its channels cover.

Changing filters

Each filter feeds its own channel of the same target. As a sequence changes filters, new channels join, and Auto moves up to a fuller palette when the channels allow it.

Interleave filters

By default a sequence finishes one filter before the next, so the composite fills in one channel at a time. To grow every channel together, turn on Interleave filters in the target’s add or edit sheet (“Rotate the wheel every sub instead of finishing one filter at a time”). Shooting order previews the order.

• Interleaving needs at least two filters and every filter’s focus offset measured. Without the offsets, the target runs one filter at a time.
• If your guide sensor is behind the filters, guiding pauses once per sub.
• You cannot change it while the sequence runs.

After a restart

A restart or a power cycle clears the live stacks from the rig’s memory. When the interrupted run resumes, whether you resume it or the rig resumes it when it starts up, the rig rebuilds the run’s stacks from the light subs already on disk, in the background. New subs wait and then join. A fresh Start begins with empty stacks.

Note

While the rebuild runs, Reset and replay are refused. Files that are missing, or that belong to another run, are skipped and noted in the night journal.