WISRD Research & Engineering Journal

In the image contrast controls on the top and bottom of the blue column are yellow triangles. These control how much light is being looked for in the image. Within the blue column is a dark blue triangle, this is all of the stars in the image. To start, choose a yellow triangle and begin dragging it. Drag the yellow triangle to the closest edge of the triangle i.e.; if dragging the top triangle pull it to the top of the dark blue triangle or if dragging bottom yellow triangle pull it to the bottom of the dark blue triangle. The yellow triangles should be touching the dark blue triangle. The contrast is important because it makes the stars more visible against the background of space. This software works best when the stars are clear and are a different color than the background.

Figure 6. The contrast is further edited by using the black triangle on the side of the screen. To further enhance the contrast between the stars and the sky the black column should be used. This is more based on intuition and what looks the best for that specific starfield. Usually, the best range of light is somewhere near the middle of the column. After this step the starfield is very visible and the bright stars are very contrasted against the sky. After this step make sure to click the image contrast control and uncheck the box. This saves the image contrast control settings. If the following steps aren’t followed it will undo the image contrast and revert it to a black screen.

Figure 7. The “finder” tab is circled in red.

17