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A heads up about stacking photos for deep sky objects
I keep seeing people post single long exposure shots and call them 'stacked' when they're not. This really matters because stacking is what pulls faint details out of the noise. I processed a shot of the Orion Nebula last week, and stacking 50 lights versus using one 5-minute exposure was a total game changer. The difference in the dust clouds was huge. You can't fake that with just one frame, no matter how long the shutter is open. What's your go-to stacking software for keeping things simple?
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kelly.emma3mo ago
Actually, sometimes a single long exposure can work better for certain targets. Last month I got a cleaner shot of the Andromeda Galaxy core with one ten-minute sub than I did stacking thirty shorter ones, because the wind died down completely. Stacking software can introduce weird artifacts if your frames aren't perfectly aligned, which happens a lot with basic trackers. What targets are you usually shooting where stacking always wins?
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wendyc5317d ago
Oh the alignment artifacts thing @kelly.emma mentioned is a big deal. @sandra916 I saw that same forum post about Orion and it makes me wonder how many people give up on stacking because of bad results from basic trackers. The wind point you made is spot on too, I had a similar experience with a single eight minute shot of the North America Nebula that came out way better than any stack I tried that night. Sometimes those long subs just capture the detail without the software messing it up. I shoot a lot of globular clusters and faint nebulae, and stacking usually wins for those because they need the extra signal, but you can't beat a clean single frame when conditions are perfect.
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sandra9163mo ago
Yeah the alignment artifacts thing @kelly.emma mentioned is real. I read a forum post where a guy had the same issue with his tracker on Orion, stacking made it look worse.
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