Talked to a guy at the observatory who said stacking 30 frames is pointless if your tracking is even slightly off, and now I'm going back through all my old data feeling foolish.

He showed me a single 5-minute exposure that looked better than my 100-frame stacked image of M31 because his mount was dialed in perfectly, which hit me hard since I spent $600 on that mount last spring and never bothered to tune it right, has anyone else had to redo a whole project because of a simple setup mistake?

3 comments

3 Comments

terryb111mo ago

Last month I reprocessed 80 frames of the Orion Nebula because I realized my polar alignment was off by almost a full degree. I spent three hours on it and the result was way better than anything I had done before. It changed my whole view on spending time on setup versus just collecting more data. What did you end up finding when you checked your tracking?

jamienguyen1mo ago

@terryb11 same here, polar alignment was the game changer for me.

karen_hart24d ago

Geez, that totally hits home for me. I used to be the type who would just rush out and start shooting, figuring more data would fix any tracking issues later. Then I spent a whole weekend stacking 120 frames of the Andromeda Galaxy only to find my mount's PEC was way off and the stars were all egg-shaped. It was frustrating, but once I finally dialed in my alignment and balance, the difference was night and day. Have you considered setting up a permanent alignment routine before each session?