Docs · Features & support
Features & support
Every stage is included. Rapid Stacker runs the complete pipeline — calibration, star registration, weighting, normalization, rejection, integration — with unlimited frames, no watermark, and no license file. The advanced stages ship in the same download:
| Advanced stage | What it does |
|---|---|
| GPU drizzle | Drizzle integration — including true CFA/Bayer drizzle for OSC and drizzle pixel rejection |
| Offline plate solving | Astrometric solve of the finished master (online Gaia or fully offline local database) |
| Distortion correction | Thin-plate-spline field-distortion correction during registration |
| Multi-session alignment | Cross-filter/cross-session alignment to a common reference, plus auto-crop |
| Mosaic assembly | Stitches a mosaic’s per-panel masters into one seamless image (WCS + star placement, sky matching, feathered seams) |
The same holds in the CLI: every flag works without a license.
Upgrading from an older build
Rapid Stacker 1.8.0 and later need no license file and make no license rechecks — a previously activated license is simply ignored. Older builds keep working as before. Download the current version to get every stage.
Support development
If Rapid Stacker saves you a night of WBPP, you can buy me a coffee — it keeps the updates coming. Nothing in the app changes either way.
Next steps
- Settings reference — every pipeline control in context
- Running a stack — what the pipeline does with those settings