Tried stacking my telescope shots for the first time and my Andromeda photo looked like a blurry mess.

I spent last Saturday night taking 50 frames of Andromeda with my basic DSLR and tripod setup, thinking stacking would magically fix everything. Turns out I forgot to refocus between shots and my alignment was way off, so the software just combined a bunch of fuzzy blobs. Has anyone else had their first stacking attempt fail that hard, or did I just pick a really bad night to learn?

3 comments

3 Comments

williamb2925d ago

One thing nobody mentioned is your tripod settling time. If you start shooting right after adjusting the tripod it can take a few minutes for vibrations to stop, which ruins your frames before you even start. Try waiting 30 seconds after touching anything before each shot, it made a huge difference for my own Andromeda stack last month. Did your raw frames look sharp when you zoomed in on the camera screen?

ward.jamie25d ago

Calling it a "blurry mess" sounds about right for a first attempt, you're not alone in that. I'd argue that night wasn't a bad pick, it taught you the two biggest lessons right off the bat: focus and tracking matter way more than just taking lots of frames. Next time just grab maybe 10 good focused shots and see what the software can do with those, it'll probably look a lot better.

bennett.mason25d ago

Software can work wonders with a handful of clean shots versus a hundred shaky ones. Stacking 10 solid frames usually gives way better results than trying to salvage a pile of blurry data. That exact lesson cost me many late nights before I figured it out, so you're already on the right track.