Stacked 400 frames of M31 and I still pick the single 10-second shot over it

I spent 2 hours in my backyard in Tucson guiding that tracking mount, and the fancy stacked result just looks plastic, while one handheld phone shot through my 8-inch dob actually shows the dust lane, so which do you trust more, the clean data or what your eye remembers?

1 comments

1 Comment

avery_foster3119d ago

Have you tried loosening up the star count and letting the noise be part of it? I stopped chasing perfect tracking and just take a few single frames that actually feel alive, the dust lane pops way more than any stacked version I've made. The clean data is nice for detail, but my eye always goes back to the one shot that looks like what I saw through the eyepiece.