Finally got a sharp Andromeda shot after 4 tries with my beginner setup

I've been messing with astrophotography for about 3 months now with just a DSLR and a basic tripod. My first 3 attempts at Andromeda were just blurry smudges - disappointed doesn't cover it. Then I tried this trick I saw in a YouTube comment: took 100 shorter exposures at 2 seconds each instead of 10 long ones. Stacked them in a free program called DeepSkyStacker and it actually worked. The galaxy core came through with way more detail than I expected. Anyone else had luck with stacking short exposures for galaxies?

2 comments

2 Comments

laura2111mo ago

Have you tried dithering between your short exposures? I read somewhere that even a slight shift between frames can help cancel out sensor noise in the stacking software.

fiona3321mo ago

I appreciate you sharing your process but "way more detail than I expected" seems like a bit of a stretch for a 2 second exposure stacking method. I tried something similar with my Canon T3i last year and while it did clean up the noise a bit, the core was still pretty washed out and nowhere near what I'd call detailed. Your mileage may vary of course, but I've had way better results just upping the ISO and going for 10 second subs on a tracking mount, even a used one.