I finally stopped stacking my subs after a guy at the club meet in Mesa called my M42 shot 'a blurry quilt'

Val Thomas · 2026-09-30T15:30:03.195467+00:00

I used to shoot 40 lights and 40 darks and just stack them all in one go, thinking more frames meant more signal, but he pulled up my Orion photo on his phone and pointed at the core, which was completely blown out while the dust lanes looked like mud. He showed me his own version, same telescope, same light pollution, but he shot 10 second subs instead of 60 and stacked only the sharpest 80 percent, and the trapezium stars were actual points instead of one white blob. So how do you all decide your sub length and how many frames you toss, because I've been guessing this whole time?

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I finally stopped stacking my subs after a guy at the club meet in Mesa called my M42 shot 'a blurry quilt' | Astronomy Photos - Hub Chatter