Spent 4 hours trying to stack lunar photos before realizing my alignment was off by 2 pixels

I kept getting blurry results from my telescope shots of the moon and it turned out my stacking software was misaligned by just a tiny amount, has anyone else wasted that long on a simple fix?

3 comments

3 Comments

veramiller2mo ago

Look, you're acting like "2 pixels" is some huge tragedy, but honestly that's just part of the hobby. You WASTED 4 hours because you didn't double check your alignment from the start, that's on you and your process, not the software. Stacking is all about precision so maybe next time you'll learn to zoom in and verify before hitting "start".

jade7382mo ago

Did you actually check pixel alignment at full zoom or just eyeball it?

blake_black4723d ago

You said "2 pixels is just part of the hobby" but even a 1 pixel offset can throw off a full res stack if you're doing focus stacking for macro or landscape. I've had shots where half a pixel of drift ruined the edge sharpness across a whole row of images. Zooming to 100% and checking the alignment grid is the only way to catch that stuff before you waste time. Is there a specific folder or sequence you usually check first to make sure things line up?