Finally got a halfway decent shot of Orion after 6 months of trying

I've been using a beat up Canon T3i with a 70-300mm kit lens for deep sky stuff. Last week I finally compared stacking 30 second exposures vs 60 second ones from my backyard in Bortle 6 skies. The 60 second frames were way too noisy and I had to toss half of them. Sticking with 30 second subs at ISO 1600 gave me a way cleaner nebula core. Has anyone else found a big difference dropping exposure time in moderate light pollution?

3 comments

3 Comments

nelson.nancy24d ago

Oh man I TOTALLY get the frustration with longer exposures in Bortle 6. I had a similar thing with my old T3i actually. One night I tried 90 second subs and the whole frame looked like static snow. Ended up going back to 20 seconds at ISO 800 and it was way more manageable.

kevin_dixon24d ago

I read somewhere that shorter subs actually reduce thermal noise buildup on older sensors like the T3i.

phoenix2924d ago

WHOA hold on, are you SERIOUSLY saying shorter exposures actually REDUCE thermal noise on older sensors? I thought it was the OPPOSITE since you get less total dark current with shorter subs but more read noise! Every tutorial I ever watched said use the longest subs you can without clipping the histogram, now I'm totally second-guessing my whole imaging workflow.