Pro tip: Stacking multiple 30-second exposures beats a single 5-minute shot for nebula detail on a shaky mount

I kept getting blurry Orion Nebula shots with my old tripod mount. So I tried something different - took 100 short exposures at 30 seconds each and stacked them in free software. The result was way sharper and showed more color than my longer single shots ever did. Now I'm wondering if anyone else found that stacking is actually better for detail than fighting for perfect polar alignment. Has anyone compared both methods side by side?

2 comments

2 Comments

king.derek19d ago

Yeah, I've done this exact comparison. Stacking 200 thirty second subs with deep sky stacker gave me way better detail on the Orion nebula than a single five minute shot ever could. The mount shake in longer exposures just kills the contrast on the darker clouds and makes the whole thing look washed out. Plus you can toss the bad frames if the wind picks up.

margaret_kelly5519d agoMost Upvoted

... and my buddy Tom tried the same thing with the Andromeda galaxy last summer. He spent all night getting a single 10 minute shot and the tracking was just off enough that the stars had little trails. He was so frustrated. Then I told him to try stacking 45 second subs instead and he got like 150 of them. The final image was way sharper and you could actually see the dust lanes in the arms. He sent me the comparison and it was night and day honestly.