I think the obsession with super long exposures on deep sky objects is overrated

I set up my tracker for a 5-hour session on the Orion Nebula, and honestly, the final stack looked muddy compared to a cleaner 45-minute one I did last month. I learned that more integration time isn't always better if your seeing conditions aren't perfect. Has anyone else found a sweet spot for exposure length before the returns diminish?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_felix14h ago

Your muddy 5-hour stack was probably from bad seeing, not the total exposure time itself.

grace_fox313h ago

Ugh, tell me about it. I once spent a whole night on the Andromeda galaxy, convinced more time meant more detail. The final image looked like I shot it through a bowl of soup. @the_felix is right, it's all about the conditions. My sweet spot is usually around 90 minutes now. After that, if the sky isn't rock solid, I'm just stacking blur. Feels like a waste of a good sleep schedule.