Stacking 200 frames beat my single 30-second exposure by a mile

I compared the same nebula shot two ways last month from my backyard near Sacramento. Single 30 second exposure at ISO 1600 looked like a muddy mess even after editing. Then I took 200 ten second frames and stacked them in DeepSkyStacker, just following a tutorial I found. The difference was unreal, way more detail in the dust lanes and the stars didn't look like bloated balloons. Took me about 40 minutes to capture and another hour to process, but it was worth every second. I get why people say stacking is the real deal now, I wasted six months doing single shots. Has anyone else made the switch and noticed their noise just disappear? What software do you all use for stacking, I'm still figuring out the calibration frames part.

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mark_mitchell7d ago

My buddy Rick swore by single frames for a year, then tried stacking once and never looked back.