I'm relatively new to image processing and just wanted to say how straight forward and powerful StarTools is. Thanks for all your hard work and a fantastic product that I can't recommend strongly enough!L. B., United States
As a relative newcomer to Astrophotography, I struggled with post processing using GIMP and other non-aware astro software; then stumbled upon Star Tools a year ago and haven't looked back.N. Gialiris, Canada
Although you can go deep with StarTools, I think for beginners in processing, it is more easy to start working with it than some other software, like GIMP I used to work with.F. M., Belgium
I'm now creating gorgeous images from even mediocre data with very little effort using StarTools.G. B., United States
I discovered StarTools and my photos are now amazing. Thank you StarTools for turning my average photos into amazing ones.R. Forest, Canada
The code and the theory behind it are truly innovative and much easier to use than the competition.E. O., United States
I'm impressed with StarTools, in the sense that it might possible have the best simplicity of use/results ratio of all. I managed to process my fist image in 20 minutes after my first contact with StarTools.P.A., Portugal
No nonsense, affordable astro software that just works.S. Sheriff, Spain
Since I've discovered Star Tools I feel that processing can be something faster, easier and much more intuitive compared with other software. It has really powerful tools not seen in other programs.A. Roig, Barcelona, Catalunya
Your truly innovative and powerful software continues to amaze and delight me!D. Zielke, Canada
Your software makes intuitive sense to me. It is easy and automatic enough to get good results almost immediately, but powerful enough to tweak even more from my data once some time is spent playing with it.P. Brand, Australia
Congratulations for your huge and wonderful masterpiece in image post processing!M. Cecconi, Fundación Galileo Galilei - INAF, Fundación Canaria, Spain
It seemed easy to navigate and concise, but still crammed with advanced functions. Even without reading the documentation in any detail I managed to produce something half decent from a single sub!T. Murray, United Kingdom
I tried your 'Startools' today and was blown away with its blinding speed and unique functionality.R. Higby, Australia
Such a wonderful piece of software.G. Stevens, Australia
StarTools offers a breath of fresh air in a field that at times can be complex and bewildering.BBC The Sky at Night Magazine, April 2013
Having acquired StarTools I'm now starting to feel confident with what I can do in this hobby. And that's a bloody good thing!!M. Vecchi, Australia
I love love love your StarTools! Please keep up the good work! Its an amazing piece of image processing software. I am so glad I found your StarTools.A. Svahins, United States
This ingenious software in my opinion out performs all previous packages I have used in the past.P. Scully, South Africa
Underneath its simple front interface is a powerhouse of tools.BBC The Sky at Night Magazine, April 2013
I am impressed with the ease of working with the package compared to MaxIm DL Pro 5, PI and PSCS2/3/4 with which I am very familiar.J. Giles, Australia
There are many clever things about StarTools, but the most impressive is the way it rejuvenates image processing by combining more primitive algorithms into new routines.BBC The Sky at Night Magazine, April 2013
My system only reports partial GPU usage, what gives?
As of version 1.7, StarTools offloads suitable, heavy arithmetic to your system's GPU.
Depending on your GPU monitoring application, it may appear your GPU is only used partially. This is not the case; rest assured your GPU solution is used and loaded up 100% where possible.
As opposed to video rendering or gaming, GPU usage in image processing tends to happens in short, intense bursts; during most routines the CPU is still being used for a lot of things that GPUs are really bad at.
Only tasks that;
- can be parallelised
- are rather "dumb" in terms of logic (with few if-then-else branches)
- perform a lot of complex calculations
- AND process large amounts of data
- complete in milliseconds (up to a couple of seconds or so)
...are suitable for momentary GPU acceleration. As a result, during processing, you should see processing switch back and forth between CPU and GPU.
Depending on how your monitoring application measures GPU usage, these bursts may be too short to register. Spikes are usually averaged out over time (usually 1000ms) by your monitoring application (with CPU intermittently doing its thing, leaving GPU momentarily unused). With the GPU loaded only for short times (e.g. less than 1000ms), the monitoring application makes it appear only partial usage is happening. That is, as you now hopefully understand, not the case! During any GPU usage the GPU is fully loaded up.
If your monitoring application can show maximum values (on Windows you can try GPU-Z or Afterburner, on Linux the Psensor application), you will almost immediately see the GPU being maxed out. For examples of heavy sustained GPU activity, try the Deconvolution module with a high number of iterations.
Download
One ZIP archive contains Windows, macOS and Linux versions of StarTools. Do not download StarTools from anywhere else but startools.org. We do not allow distribution of StarTools by any other party, on-line or off-line.
Please consult the FAQ section about configuring your system properly.
macOS notes
Users may have to "unquarantine" StarTools, before the OS allows it to run. Alternatively StarTools can be launched via control + clicking (right clicking) on the application, Show Package Contents, navigating to Contents/MacOS and clicking on the application.
The following two commands unquarantines StarTools on macOS 13 Ventura and later;
sudo xattr -d -rs com.apple.quarantine StarTools.app
and then;
sudo xattr -d -rs com.apple.provenance StarTools.app
The following single command unquarantines StarTools on macOS 12 and earlier;
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine StarTools.app
Please see the screenshots for more information, or download this detailed guide.
Download stable
StarTools 1.8.527 Maintenance Release 3 for Windows, macOS (Universal Binary with native M1 support), and Linux
Latest version released 2023-11-15 (YYYY/MM/DD), size 6.8MB
Download bleeding edge
StarTools 1.9.565 Beta 7 for Windows, macOS (Universal Binary with native M1/M2 support), and Linux
Multi-language support EN, DE, ES is available via config file
Latest version released 2024-03-24 (YYYY/MM/DD), size 7.1MB
Please note beta versions may still exhibit some flaws or instabilities. Documentation may be incomplete. Please use at your own risk.
Unofficial English manual
Unofficial English StarTools 1.8 Manual (164MB), last updated 2022-09-30, improved with extra tips, tricks and information from various sources.
Many thanks to J. Scharmann for putting together this excellent work, as well as its German translation.
Unofficial German manual / Inoffizielle Deutsche Anleitung
Inoffizielle StarTools 1.8 Anleitung in Deutsch (164MB), letztes Update 2022-09-30.
Vielen Dank an J. Scharmann für die ausgezeichnete Übersetzung.
Unoffical Spanish manual / Manual en Espanol
Manual de StarToolsBasado en la versión 1.8 al español (19MB). Ultima actualizacion 2022-03-09.
Muchas gracias a C. R. Guixé por la excelente traducción.
English manual
StarTools uses AIFE.AI for content management and digital footprint. This means that the website content doubles as a printable manual and vice-versa. This content is also available as a smartphone/tablet app, virtual flipbook, virtual reality (VR) experience and more. This content will always be up-to-date with the latest information.
The minimum specifications to run StarTools, increases with the resolution of the dataset you intend to process.
StarTools works on all modern versions of Windows, Linux and macOS.
StarTools is display-device agnostic, but can be configured to display its GUI at a 4x higher resolution to accommodate high-DPI devices and 4K displays.
If StarTools appears to be unstable on your older (up to 2014) macOS device, particularly when using bigger datasets, then this may be due to an underpowered iGPU solution. Particularly the second and third generation Intel-based macOS devices are equipped with minimal GPU acceleration.
If your older or lower-powered GPU or iGPU appears to be unstable on your Windows operating system in StarTools, and you think it may be struggling with any larger datasets you give it, then the issue may be caused an unsuitable Timeout Detection and Recovery (TDR) allowance.
If you find StarTools sometimes crashes under heavy load in demanding modules like SVDecon, this may be due to your Operating System being incorrectly configured to provide enough virtual memory.
Some less reputable virus scanners such as BitDefender, Norton and SpyBot may falsely report StarTools as a Trojan or Potentially Unwanted Program (due to malware that carries a similar name). Despite multiple users going through the lengths of getting StarTools white listed, the same problem pops up every 6 months or so.
StarTools uses all your CPU's cores to speed up processing in situations where it makes sense. As of 1.7, however, StarTools will offload suitable, heavy arithmetic to your GPU as well.
As of version 1.7, StarTools offloads suitable, heavy arithmetic to your system's GPU.
StarTools supports virtually all modern GPUs and iGPUs on all modern Operating Systems.
StarTools is a completely native, self-contained application that does not require any further installation of helper libraries or run-time frameworks.
StarTools is a unique piece of software that keeps track of signal evolution and noise propagation. The data it needs to store and access may grow to many gigabytes. As such StarTools uses your storage memory (hard drive or SSD drive) to store this data. If StarTools is unable to write this data, a message may appear alerting you to this.
If you had bothered to read the 'buy' page, you would have learned that you could spare yourself the effort of writing a keygen or crack - if you can't afford the license fee and you are a genuine enthusiast, we're happy to work something out!
I'm relatively new to image processing and just wanted to say how straight forward and powerful StarTools is. Thanks for all your hard work and a fantastic product that I can't recommend strongly enough!L. B., United States
As a relative newcomer to Astrophotography, I struggled with post processing using GIMP and other non-aware astro software; then stumbled upon Star Tools a year ago and haven't looked back.N. Gialiris, Canada
Although you can go deep with StarTools, I think for beginners in processing, it is more easy to start working with it than some other software, like GIMP I used to work with.F. M., Belgium
I'm now creating gorgeous images from even mediocre data with very little effort using StarTools.G. B., United States
I discovered StarTools and my photos are now amazing. Thank you StarTools for turning my average photos into amazing ones.R. Forest, Canada
The code and the theory behind it are truly innovative and much easier to use than the competition.E. O., United States
I'm impressed with StarTools, in the sense that it might possible have the best simplicity of use/results ratio of all. I managed to process my fist image in 20 minutes after my first contact with StarTools.P.A., Portugal
No nonsense, affordable astro software that just works.S. Sheriff, Spain
Since I've discovered Star Tools I feel that processing can be something faster, easier and much more intuitive compared with other software. It has really powerful tools not seen in other programs.A. Roig, Barcelona, Catalunya
Your truly innovative and powerful software continues to amaze and delight me!D. Zielke, Canada
Your software makes intuitive sense to me. It is easy and automatic enough to get good results almost immediately, but powerful enough to tweak even more from my data once some time is spent playing with it.P. Brand, Australia
Congratulations for your huge and wonderful masterpiece in image post processing!M. Cecconi, Fundación Galileo Galilei - INAF, Fundación Canaria, Spain
It seemed easy to navigate and concise, but still crammed with advanced functions. Even without reading the documentation in any detail I managed to produce something half decent from a single sub!T. Murray, United Kingdom
I tried your 'Startools' today and was blown away with its blinding speed and unique functionality.R. Higby, Australia
Such a wonderful piece of software.G. Stevens, Australia
StarTools offers a breath of fresh air in a field that at times can be complex and bewildering.BBC The Sky at Night Magazine, April 2013
Having acquired StarTools I'm now starting to feel confident with what I can do in this hobby. And that's a bloody good thing!!M. Vecchi, Australia
I love love love your StarTools! Please keep up the good work! Its an amazing piece of image processing software. I am so glad I found your StarTools.A. Svahins, United States
This ingenious software in my opinion out performs all previous packages I have used in the past. P. Scully, South Africa
Underneath its simple front interface is a powerhouse of tools.BBC The Sky at Night Magazine, April 2013
I am impressed with the ease of working with the package compared to MaxIm DL Pro 5, PI and PSCS2/3/4 with which I am very familiar.J. Giles, Australia
There are many clever things about StarTools, but the most impressive is the way it rejuvenates image processing by combining more primitive algorithms into new routines.BBC The Sky at Night Magazine, April 2013