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Stacking photos with free software changed everything for me
I used to think you needed a $2,000 telescope and fancy software to get good deep sky shots. Been messing with astrophotography on and off for about 5 years, mostly just pointing my DSLR at the sky with a kit lens. My Orion nebula shots always came out as a blurry gray smudge. Then a guy on a forum told me to try DeepSkyStacker, which is free, and stack maybe 20 or 30 short exposures instead of one long one. Took me a weekend to figure out the workflow, but the first time I stacked 25 shots of Andromeda, the detail blew me away. Has anyone else found that stacking with cheap gear gives you way better results than you'd expect?
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clark.iris3d ago
That DeepSkyStacker workflow really is a game changer, but your exposure count is actually on the low side for Andromeda. 20 to 30 frames will give you a decent start, but you want 80 to 100 short subs to really pull out the dust lanes and that faint outer glow. I did a run last fall with only 40 shots and still had a ton of noise in the background until I doubled it. The free software is amazing though, even lets you do darks and flats with the same tool. Have you tried adding calibration frames yet to clean up the hot pixels?
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margaretrivera2d ago
Honestly yeah, 40 subs is barely scratching the surface for Andromeda. Calibration frames are a must too.
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