Clear the backlog.
Shoot again tomorrow.
Light stacking, sky masking, light pollution correction — the decisions you repeat on every astrophoto session. Sidekick Star handles them so you don't have to.
¥9,800 (tax incl.) — only pay if it's worth it
Built for the field
Designed from 20 years of shooting under Japan's light-polluted skies, with thousands of frames per session as the baseline.
Milky Way Enhancement — Step by Step
From the straight-out-of-camera JPEG, through RAW processing, to Milky Way enhancement. Watch how Sidekick Star handles each step of the workflow.
What's hiding in your RAW
Same RAW file. Same single frame. The only difference is how it was developed.
Default Photoshop processing vs. Sidekick Star develop + Milky Way enhancement.
The data was always there. Sidekick Star makes the right call on how to bring it out.
Light Stacking — 3,800 frames
Stacking thousands of frames via lighten-blend compositing is a core astrophoto technique — and one of the most time-consuming. Watch how Sidekick Star handles it.
This is what Sidekick Star's processing actually produces.
Footage: actual astrophotography frames for lighten stacking / Software: Adobe Photoshop + Sidekick Star
Airplane Trail Removal — Automated
Airplane trails are one of the biggest headaches in lighten-blend stacking.
Sidekick Star detects and removes artificial light trails — planes, cars, satellites —
from the source frames. What used to take days of manual work, let the computer handle overnight.
Twenty years of trail-removal technique, distilled into an algorithm.
The red lines (planes, satellites) are gone. Only star trails remain.
A problem that was impossible to solve on film — solved algorithmically.
Sound familiar?
In astrophotography, the real time drain isn't shooting — it's repeating the same decisions on every single session.
Too many files
Lighten stacking and sequential frame capture means hundreds or thousands of files. Making decisions frame by frame drains focus fast.
Same decisions, every time
Sky/ground separation, Milky Way handling, light pollution correction — you've done it all before, but you're starting from scratch again.
Japan's light pollution reality
Workflows designed for dark skies don't translate well. Most astrophoto tools weren't built with Japan's shooting conditions in mind.
Not aesthetic presets. A practical workflow tool built on real shooting sessions.
What Sidekick Star does
It covers the repetitive processing and decisions that come up on every astrophoto shoot.
🌌 Astrophotography workflow
- Organize and automate the flow around lighten-blend compositing
- Assist with sky/ground separation processing
- Reduce processing load on high-volume shoots
- Cut down repetitive steps unique to astrophotography
🎯 Decision support
- Star mask generation assistance
- Sky mask generation assistance
- Light pollution correction and blending guidance
- Post-RAW-develop workflow organization
What you actually get
On the surface it's a tool. But what it actually delivers is something else.
Time
Fewer repetitive decisions on astrophoto processing means more time for shooting and making images.
Consistency
Stabilize the processing decisions that drift session to session. Your workflow becomes repeatable.
A photographer's judgment
Twenty years of Ichiro Murata's astrophotography decision-making, delivered in a usable form.
Sidekick Star is a module built to support exactly that.
Getting started
Download it and run it on your actual astrophotography footage. Seeing it work beats reading about it.
Download the trial
Full features, free for 3 months. No credit card needed.
Use it on real footage
Run it on your own star frames. See for yourself where it saves time.
Buy it if it's worth it
If you feel the difference — buy it. If not, no hard feelings.
No credit card required · Full features · Cancel anytime during trial
Manual: English PDF · Contact: murata@mbg.nifty.com