Affinity is a "one-stop" shop for astrophotography stacking and processing all in one handy bit of software. The processing is similar to PhotoShop but with some additional and more powerful tools. Unlike PhotoShop, Affinity is a one-off payment of £67.99

I will only cover the very basics of processing which will get you a much better result than just using the stacked image straight out of the smart telescope. There are plenty of tutorials on how to further process in Affinity to make the most of your hard work in collecting the data.

This is a very simple set of processing tools that will get you used to using some of the basic tools in Affinity. There are plenty more tools and methods to further process like background extraction, noise removal, sharpening etc... but I will not cover those here.

1) Now that the stacked image is open in the Photo Persona you will see that a Levels and a Curves layer have been added above the stacked image layer. It is perfectly ok to use these if you wish by double clicking on each thumbnail, but I like to delete these and start from fresh. Just select both with "shift & click" then right click and delete.

2) If you delete the two pre-set layers then you will be left with the basic stack. We can now brighten our stack with some Level tweeking. Click the "Add new Layer" symbol ( 1 ) then click "Levels" ( 2 ).

3) This will add a Levels layer and open the settings for the levels to be tweeked. Just by moving the "White Level" slider to the left will significantly brighten our image. Make sure that you do not allow the thin line on the histogram to go past the peak on the left which is the representation of our captured data. Now click the X on the levels box to close it.

4) Add another "Levels" layer as before and you will now notice the histogram has moved more to the right. We need to now set the black point by moving the "Black Level" slider ( 1 ) to the right until the line is close to the histogram peak ( 2 ). Again, do not go all the way to the line, leave a small gap. Click the X to close the levels box.

5) Now click on the layer symbol and open a "Curves" layer. You will see a diagonal line running from the bottom left to the top right. Click on the line close to the bottom left and drag the line up and to the left. Then add another handle by clicking the line further up. Try to get a line in this general shape. You will notice how much this brightens the data. Be careful not to over expose / blow out the bright core of the Nebula or stars. Click the X to close the Curves box.

6) Now open another levels layer and you will once again see the histogram peaks have gotten fatter and moved more to the right. If the colour chanel peaks are level with eachother then you can just slide the "Black Levels" slider to the start of the histogram peak. If each chanel is not in line then we need to align them. See the next step.

7) You may now click each colour chanel and bring the Blcak Levels slider to the begining of each respective peak. Do this for the Red, Green and Blue chanels. Click the X to close the levels box.

8) You will notice that the core looks a bit "flat". Open another levels layer and slide the Gamma to the right. Click the X to close the box.

9) Now open a "Brightness & Contrast" layer and slide the contrast to the left. Click the X to close the box.

10) Now open a "Shadows & Highlights" layer and slide the shadows to the to the left. Click the X to close the box.

11) Now to get more colour. Open a "Vibrance" layer and slide the Vibrance and Saturation sliders to the to the right. Click the X to close the box.

12) Open a "Brightness & Contrast" layer and slide the Brightness slider to the to the right. Click the X to close the box.

13) Finally open a "Shadows & Highlights" layer and slide the Shadows slider to the to the left. Click the X to close the box.

14) If you are happy then you can now export the image from the "File" menu on the top bar or further edit the image.

This is by no means the full processing proceedure and everyone has their own ways to process or a particular order that you need to follow, but by following the above will get you a decent image and it will also give you an idea of what some of the basic things do in Affinity.