13
Overheard a guy at a star party say stacking 50 frames is pointless if your tracking is off by even 2 arcseconds.
Makes total sense now after I wasted 3 hours on a single M31 shot last night that came out blurry because I didn't check my polar alignment first. Has anyone else found a quick way to verify tracking accuracy before the first sub?
2 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In2 Comments
davidwright10d ago
Blame my astrophotography hero complex for that one I spent two hours imaging a nebula that looked like a smudge because I was too lazy to redo my polar alignment. Quick tip I learned the hard way is just take a 30 second test shot on a bright star near your target and zoom in on the back of the camera screen if it's not a perfect dot you're gonna have a bad time. Saves me from crying over three more hours of blurry data every time now.
1
rayy8310d ago
Man I feel that pain deep in my soul, spent way too many nights staring at blurry blobs thinking maybe stacking would fix it. That test shot tip is gold though, I started doing the same thing after I lost a whole night of data on the Orion nebula because my mount was slightly off. Nothing worse than putting in hours only to realize your stars look like little comets.
0