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Stacking 40 frames of the Orion Nebula on a cheap DSLR beat my one long exposure by a mile
I spent weeks trying to get one clean 3 minute shot of the Orion Nebula from my driveway in Fort Worth and it always came out grainy and washed out. A guy at a star party told me to stop chasing one long exposure and instead shoot 40 short ones at 8 seconds each, then stack them in free software. I tried it that night and the difference was nuts, the noise basically vanished and I could actually see the nebula's shape. The catch is you have to throw out the frames where a plane or satellite cut through, I lost 6 of my 40 that way. Has anyone else had luck stacking with a tracking mount, or does it stop helping past a certain point?
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hugos671d ago
Man I feel your pain on those ruined frames, losing 6 out of 40 hurts when you only got 40 to begin with. I fought the same battle from my backyard near Dallas and kept wondering why my single shots looked like garbage no matter how long I let the shutter stay open. Light pollution down here just eats everything alive and stacking was the only thing that finally made a difference for me too. The plane and satellite problem is real though, I usually grab a few extra shots just to have backups to toss. As for your tracking mount question, stacking keeps helping but the gains get smaller once you are past a couple hundred frames, so there is a point where more subs stop being worth the computer time. You still win on noise, it just tapers off and you have to decide when good enough is good enough.
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