Stacking vs. single exposure debate after my Andromeda shot came out muddy

I spent weeks taking 2-minute subs and stacking them in DSS, got a decent galaxy but a ton of noise. Then my buddy just took one 5-minute exposure with a cheaper camera and his came out sharper. Is stacking really always better for deep sky or is it just overkill for bright targets like the core of M31?

2 comments

2 Comments

xena_kim1mo ago

Yeah my first stack of M31 looked like someone dropped a burger in the mud and called it art. 12 hours of 90 second subs and still had that gross green noise everywhere. I actually switched to taking just 3 or 4 longer exposures like 5 to 8 minutes each and then tossing them in Sequator instead of DSS. Way less headache and the galaxy core actually looks like a galaxy and not a blurry smudge. Stacking is great if you live under Bortle 1 skies with a cooled camera but for the rest of us regular folks a single clean sub might beat 100 noisy ones haha.

the_henry1mo ago

Yeah stacking just amplifies your noise too, a single clean sub beats a dozen noisy ones every time lol.