I was stacking my astro photos wrong for a whole year

I spent months stacking my deep sky shots with a free program, always getting grainy results. The moment I knew was when a guy at the Denver star party looked at my Andromeda shot and asked, 'Did you check your dark frames for satellite trails?' I had been using my dark frames from a different night every single time. Anyone else have a basic stacking step they messed up for way too long?

2 comments

2 Comments

taraanderson2d ago

That's a classic rookie mistake... we've all been there. The right calibration frames make all the difference. It's a relief when you finally figure it out.

rileyb612d ago

Yeah, but honestly I don't think dark frames are the make or break thing @taraanderson. I've seen plenty of great stacks from people who just use good bias frames and solid flats. The real killer is rushing the integration time. If you're only stacking like 30 minutes of data on a faint target, no amount of perfect calibration is gonna save it from looking noisy. That was my hard lesson, anyway.