Vent: I used to think stacking 10 frames was enough for a decent deep sky shot

After a clear night in Tucson last month, I tried stacking 50 and the noise reduction was like night and day. Has anyone else found a specific number where the quality really jumps?

3 comments

3 Comments

spencer6642mo ago

Oh man, totally feel that. For my setup, the jump from like 30 to 60 frames was the real game changer for cleaning up the background. @grantl94 has a point about target brightness though, a faint nebula needs way more frames than something bright like Orion.

grantl942mo ago

Tucson's dark skies probably helped a lot with that jump. Was your gear or target the same for both the 10 and 50 frame stacks? I'm curious if the subject brightness changes that magic number.

finley_flores282mo ago

Magic number? I get the theory but man, people get SO hung up on the exact frame count. Like @grantl94 said, your sky and target matter way more. I've seen clean shots from 30 frames in the desert and noisy messes from 100 in my backyard. Sometimes you just gotta shoot and see what works, not chase a perfect formula.