Rant: I was wrong about image stacking software

For years I thought stacking was just cheating to make a bad photo look good. I figured if you couldn't get the shot in one frame you just weren't trying hard enough. Then I spent a night at a dark site in Texas and shot 200 frames of the Orion Nebula. Tried stacking them in a free program called DeepSkyStacker just to prove myself right. Instead the detail in the gas clouds blew me away, I could see structure I never knew was there.

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3 Comments

dylan6045mo ago

Same here man. I was dead set on being the "real photographer" who only does single exposures. Now I'm out here stacking 200 frames of the moon like some kind of lunatic.

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reesemiller5mo ago

Wait, you're stacking 200 frames of the moon? @dylan604, that's some next level dedication, thought I was bad with my 50 frames.

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thomas.tyler4mo ago

Stack the frames in groups of 50 first, then stack those groups together. Saves your computer from choking halfway through and you still get that clean detail.

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