Stacking vs single exposure photos - which is actually worth the time?

I spent like 4 hours trying to stack 50 frames of the Orion Nebula last night using DeepSkyStacker and it kept crashing on me. Finally gave up and just used a single 2-minute exposure that looked almost as good after tweaking the curves in Photoshop. Is all that stacking effort really worth it for amateur setups or am I just doing it wrong?

3 comments

3 Comments

eric35915d ago

I read somewhere that stacking really shines when you are trying to beat noise in super long exposures or pull out really faint stuff like the IFN or dark nebulae. For bright targets like Orion a single good frame with modern sensors can get you like 80% of the way there with way less hassle.

grant_torres15d ago

Man you are not alone with that struggle. I tried stacking the Pleiades like six months ago and DeepSkyStacker just gave me a black image every single time for no reason I could figure out. Sometimes I think stacking is way more trouble than it's worth unless you are trying to pull out super faint dust lanes or something. A single well exposed shot with some careful curve stretching can look really clean especially with modern cameras. I'd say stick with single frames until stacking stops being a headache and you can spend your time actually enjoying the hobby.

the_jenny14d ago

Wait was DeepSkyStacker just throwing random black images at you too grant_torres? I had that same issue with stacking Andromeda a few years back and finally realized my flats were completely borked because I had dust on the sensor I didn't spot.