This is the github repository for all the DeepSkyStacker source code.
DeepSkyStacker is freeware created in 2006 by Luc Coiffier
It was open sourced in 2018 and is maintained by a small and dedicated team:
David C. Partidge, Tony Cook, Mat Draper, Simon C. Smith, Vitali Pelenjow,
Michal Schulz, Martin Toeltsch, Iustin Amihaesei
The code is open source under the terms of the BSD 3-Clause License (see LICENSE).
Copyright (c) 2006-2019, Luc Coiffier Copyright (c) 2018-2023, David C. Partridge, Tony Cook, Mat Draper, Simon C. Smith, Vitali Pelenjow, Michal Schulz, Martin Toeltsch, Iustin Amihaesei
To work on the current development codebase which uses a VS solution file called DeepSkyStacker.VS2022.sln, you will need to install Visual Studio 2022 (17.7.2). For earlier code versions either VS2019 or VS2022 will work.
If you open DeepSkyStacker.VS2019.sln (or an earlier level) using VS2022, please do not accept VS2022's offer to upgrade the build environment the first time you open the DeepSkyStacker.VS2019.sln file.
In addition to Visual Studio, you will need to install Boost 1.80.0 Qt 6.4.0, Qt 6.5.3 and Qt VS Tools 2.10.1 (rev 2), and Visual Leak Detector.
Install Boost 1.80.0. Once you have done that, you need to create an environment variable called Boost_1_80_0 with the location of the Boost installation directory e.g.: C:\Boost_1_80_0
Qt 6.4.0 is needed to build DeepSkyStacker 5.1.0 through 5.1.3. Qt 6.5.1 is needed for the current development build which includes support for WIndows Themes. In addition to you you will also need to install the Visual Studio Extension Qt VS Tools : (Extensions/Manage Extensions).
You will need to use Extensions/Qt VS Tools/Qt Versions to set up two named Qt Installations called:
6.4.0_msvc2019_64 and
6.5.1_msvc2019_64
pointing to the msvc2019_64 sub-directory of your Qt installations (for example C:\Qt\6.4.0\msvc2019_64).
You should install the version of VLD that is maintained by the Microsoft Azure development team as that appears to be the only one that is being kept up to date. You can download the 2.5.9 of this from Visual Leak Detector. You should install it to C:\Program Files (x86)\Visual Leak Detector as that is the location that the DeepSkyStacker projects expect to find it. In the Visual Leak Detector installation wizard, be sure to check "Add VLD directory to your environmental path".