Yes. It is free, with no adverts or accounts; a tip jar and a Patreon are optional. It can also drive RC Astro's tools, which cost extra, if you own them, but my edit used only the free ones and cost £0.

Does AstroWizard stack my frames?

Not by itself. It starts from a stacked FITS, TIFF or XISF file. Its maker's free sister app, StackingWizard (public beta), calibrates and stacks your subs, from colour cameras, mono filter sets and smart telescopes like the Seestar and DWARF, then sends the stack to AstroWizard with one click.

Which computers does it run on?

Windows 10 or 11, macOS on Apple silicon or Intel, and Linux x86-64 as a test build. Windows 7 and 8 are not supported.

Do I need any other software?

Only a stacker, and its free sister app StackingWizard is one. GraXpert and StarNet2 run inside AstroWizard, so the whole edit on this page happened in the one program.

What is the Scrying Orb?

A button at the last step that replays your edit as an animated GIF, one frame per step, to post beside the finished picture.

What have I not tested on the AstroWizard?

I processed one colour camera stack through a dual-band filter. I have not tested its mono channel combine, the dual-band to SHO split or the RC Astro steps inside it. I have not tested StackingWizard yet.

AstroWizard review: raw stack to finished image for £0, in one app

Where does it rank on my leaderboard

Nine of the 17 software on my board, against price
Rank	Software	Stars for Your Buck	Recorded UK price
1	Stellarium	100 out of 100	Free
2	GraXpert	99 out of 100	Free
4	SharpCap	95 out of 100	£14
6	AstroWizard	88 out of 100	Free
8	AutoStakkert!	86 out of 100	Free
12	StarXTerminator	81 out of 100	£45
15	RegiStax	77 out of 100	Free
16	DeepSkyStacker	71 out of 100	Free
17	Adobe Photoshop	67 out of 100	£22

Contents

01 Where does it rank on my leaderboard
02 Specifications and features
03 A walk through AstroWizard
04 Raw against finished
05 Should you buy it?
06 Questions and more about this review

In 30 seconds

Stars for Your Buck 88/100

Reviewed 28 Oct 2026 Updated 28 Oct 2026

Rank: #6 of 17 software
Verdict: Damon's pick
Award: Highly Commended, Software The Telescope Man Awards 2027

Written by Damon Scotting 5 min read

Buy it if

You want a free route from raw subs to a finished picture: its sister app StackingWizard stacks, then sends the stack straight here.
You are new to processing and want each step explained as you go.
You would rather work in one program than hop between five.

Skip it if

You image planets or the Moon: AstroWizard and its stacker are built for deep-sky targets (AutoStakkert! is the free planetary route).
You already process in PixInsight and want manual control of every tool.

AstroWizard took my North America Nebula from the raw stack to a finished image for £0, and every step happened inside the one program: the crop, the gradient, the colour, sharpening, noise reduction, the stretch, star removal and the final polish. It walks you through nine steps, runs free tools like GraXpert and StarNet2 for you, and lets you choose your stretch by eye instead of by numbers. It does not stack on its own, but its free sister app, StackingWizard, does, and sends the stack straight across. Luke's work is a testament to his passion for astrophotography, and a very welcome addition to the post-processing market. Well done, Luke!

AstroWizard Free

Specifications and features

Against the processing software I have reviewed

Compare with

AstroWizard reviewed #6 of 17	GraXpert #2 of 17	Siril #11 of 17	PixInsight #14 of 17
Recorded UK price	Free	Free	Free	not recorded
Stars for Your Buck	88/100	99/100	83/100	78/100
Made by	Lukomatico (Luke Newbould)	The GraXpert Development Team	The Siril team (free-astro)	Pleiades Astrophoto (Spain)
Price	Free: my whole edit cost £0	Free	Free	£258 (€300 outside the EU)
What it is for	Finishing a stacked image in nine guided steps, from loading to export	Removing gradients and denoising; deconvolution in the 3.1 prerelease only	Astronomical image processing, made for stacking many frames to raise the signal-to-noise ratio	Processing astrophotographs
Operating systems	Windows 10 or 11, macOS (Apple silicon and Intel), Linux x86-64 (test build)	Windows, macOS (Intel and Apple silicon), Linux	Windows 64 bit, macOS (Intel and Apple silicon), Linux	Windows 11, macOS 26 and 15, Linux
Current version	Open beta; build of 25 Oct 2026	3.0.2 stable; 3.1.0 release candidate 2 prerelease	1.4.4 (17 June 2026)	1.9.4 Lockhart
Stacks your frames	Not by itself: its free sister app StackingWizard stacks and sends the stack across.	No	Yes: made for stacking	Yes: the WeightedBatchPreprocessing script
Gradient removal	Yes: GraXpert AI built in, or its own Flatten the sky	Yes: AI background extraction	Yes: background extraction	Yes: DynamicBackgroundExtraction and GradientCorrection
Star removal	Yes: StarNet2 (free) or StarXTerminator (costs extra)	No	Yes: through StarNet, installed separately	With StarXTerminator or StarNet2, installed separately
Files it opens	Stacked FITS, TIFF or XISF	FITS, TIFF, XISF, PNG	FITS, camera raw files, TIFF and more	XISF, FITS, TIFF, camera raw files and more

A walk through AstroWizard

Load and inspect Load the stack straight from your stacker as a TIFF or FITS. Mine is the North America Nebula from the Askar 50P and ASI2600MC Pro.

Crop and flatten the sky Crop to your own framing, then take out the gradient: GraXpert's AI, built in, or AstroWizard's own Flatten the sky, which is what I used.

Colour calibration One click neutralises the background. Star-true colours match your stars to Gaia, but only when the stack's header carries sky coordinates.

Sharpening BlurXTerminator if you own it, or the free built-in high-pass. I used the free one, on Heavy.

Noise reduction GraXpert's AI denoise runs inside AstroWizard while the data is still linear. NoiseXTerminator costs extra; GraXpert did it for nothing.

The stretch: pick the colours The Stretch Wizard shows two versions side by side and you click the colours you prefer, linked or unlinked.

The stretch: pick the depth Then six real stretches at different depths, zooming together. Click the one you like and it is applied.

The stretch applied My deep custom pick: the nebula lifted out of the background in one step.

The manual dial For finer control there is a Generalised Hyperbolic Stretch dial; I used it to set the black point.

Star removal StarNet2, free, takes the stars out so the nebula can be pushed without bloating them. Both star layers are kept to put back later.

Colour curves and spells Colour tools stack on top of each other: Blue to Teal, Cool Down and the rest, each one undoable.

Stars back, a final clean Stars back in, then a light last pass of GraXpert's denoise. Green-Be-Gone and magenta star fixes are one click each.

Final export Save the final image, a starless version or the stars alone, then clear the working files from your drive.

The Scrying Orb Replay your whole edit as an animated GIF: choose the width and the seconds per step.

Labels and a last crop Label the galaxies, nebulae and clusters in the frame, or crop at the last minute. Labels need a stack with sky coordinates.

My edit, replayed The Scrying Orb of this edit: all 43 steps from the raw stack to the final, sped up.

Raw against finished

Should you buy it?

The 1 target, the unprocessed side against my finished image, each with its integration, the camera and the palette:

NGC 7000 North America Nebula: 1 h of light, SVBONY SV220, the combined colour stack straight from the stacker

88/100 Stars for Your Buck

Pros

It cost me £0: the whole edit used only free tools, GraXpert, StarNet2 and AstroWizard's own sharpening and stretch.
All in one program: crop, gradient, colour, sharpening, noise reduction, stretch, star removal and export, without opening anything else.
Nine guided steps with a tip on each, so you always know what comes next.
The Stretch Wizard lets you choose the stretch by eye from real previews, not by sliders.
The Scrying Orb replays the whole edit as a GIF to share beside the finished picture.

Cons

It does not stack on its own, but its free sister app, StackingWizard (public beta), does, and sends the finished stack straight into AstroWizard.
Star-true colours and object labels need sky coordinates in the file's header; my stack had none, so both were skipped.
The strongest sharpening, noise and star tools it offers are RC Astro's, which cost extra; the free ones did the job for me.
Still an open beta, with new builds every few days.

A finished image for £0, from raw stack to export, all inside one program. AMAZING!

Who the AstroWizard is for

Smart telescope owner

Buy

It opens the stacks a Seestar or a DWARF saves and finishes them for nothing.

First dedicated camera

Buy

Each step is explained as you go, and every one can be undone.

Imager on a budget

Buy

My whole edit cost £0, using free tools it runs for you.

PixInsight regular

Skip

It trades fine manual control for speed and guidance.

Needs a stacker

Buy

Stack in its free sister app, StackingWizard, and one click sends it here to finish.

Three alternatives I have reviewed

Questions and more about this review

Reviewed by

Damon Scotting

The Telescope Man Verified

BSc (Hons) Physics with Astrophysics and Cosmology, Loughborough University PGCE / QTS, University of Nottingham

About Damon About Damon Damon Scotting is The Telescope Man. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Physics with Astrophysics and Cosmology from Loughborough University and a PGCE with QTS from the University of Nottingham, and taught physics in secondary schools before becoming an astronomy creator. He is a contributing writer for BBC Sky at Night Magazine and the author of 42 Wonders of Our Night Sky, and his photograph of the galaxy M100 with the dwarf planet Ceres was Highly Commended in the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2024 competition run by Royal Observatory Greenwich. He has appeared on the BBC's Blue Peter. More than 750,000 people follow his astronomy channels on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, and he has reviewed more than 140 telescopes, mounts, cameras, filters and accessories hands-on for this site. More about Damon · How I test · Damon's book

I review all kinds of gear: most of it I buy, some is gifted and some is loaned, and all of it is reviewed the same way. How this site is funded

Six questions, answered

Questions about the AstroWizard

Reviewed 28 October 2026 ·Updated 28 October 2026

I review all kinds of gear. Most of it I buy, some is gifted and some is loaned, and all of it is reviewed the same way: no company sees or approves a review before it is published. Some shop links are affiliate links: I earn a commission when you buy through them, at no extra cost to you. How this site is funded

Is AstroWizard free? Yes. It is free, with no adverts or accounts; a tip jar and a Patreon are optional. It can also drive RC Astro's tools, which cost extra, if you own them, but my edit used only the free ones and cost £0. The specifications and the comparison table ↓
Does AstroWizard stack my frames? Not by itself. It starts from a stacked FITS, TIFF or XISF file. Its maker's free sister app, StackingWizard (public beta), calibrates and stacks your subs, from colour cameras, mono filter sets and smart telescopes like the Seestar and DWARF, then sends the stack to AstroWizard with one click. The specifications and the comparison table ↓
Which computers does it run on? Windows 10 or 11, macOS on Apple silicon or Intel, and Linux x86-64 as a test build. Windows 7 and 8 are not supported. The specifications and the comparison table ↓
Do I need any other software? Only a stacker, and its free sister app StackingWizard is one. GraXpert and StarNet2 run inside AstroWizard, so the whole edit on this page happened in the one program. A walk through AstroWizard ↓
What is the Scrying Orb? A button at the last step that replays your edit as an animated GIF, one frame per step, to post beside the finished picture. A walk through AstroWizard ↓
What have I not tested on the AstroWizard? I processed one colour camera stack through a dual-band filter. I have not tested its mono channel combine, the dual-band to SHO split or the RC Astro steps inside it. I have not tested StackingWizard yet.