I finally nailed the Milky Way shot after 3 failed attempts

My problem was always light pollution and bad focus. I live near Austin so the sky glow is brutal. I tried stacking 5 short exposures in DeepSkyStacker last Tuesday and it turned out way better than any single long exposure I've done before. Still had to drive 45 minutes out to a dark site but the extra effort was worth it. The core details popped out like crazy compared to my old single shot attempts. Anyone else have luck with stacking for widefield astro photos?

2 comments

2 Comments

taylor.mary1mo ago

the extra effort was worth it" - I don't know man, is it really? I mean sure stacking is cool and all but driving 45 minutes each way plus setting up the tracker and spending an hour in the cold just to get a slightly sharper picture of some stars? I've done the dark site thing a few times around here too and half the time the weather doesn't even cooperate. Last time I went out I got home and realized my intervalometer battery died after 8 frames. Ended up with a blurry mess. I'm not saying don't try it but maybe for most people a decent single shot with a fast lens is good enough. No one's gonna notice the difference on Instagram anyway.

sage521mo ago

Read somewhere that even Hubble's first images were a mess until they stacked multiple exposures.