Stacking vs tracking astrophotography - I was wrong about both

For like 2 years I was dead set that a cheap star tracker was the only way to get decent deep sky photos. I spent $400 on one and honestly my first 20 attempts at the Andromeda Galaxy looked like blurry smudges. Last month my buddy let me borrow his stacking software setup from a single tripod shot with just a DSLR and a 200mm lens. I could not BELIEVE how much detail came out of 300 frames stacked together compared to my tracked single exposures. The tracking mount still has its place for sure but I was totally ignoring stacking as a tool because I thought it was cheating or something. Now I do both together and my last shot of the Orion Nebula from my backyard in Tucson looked way better than anything I got before. Has anyone else tried the free Siril software vs paid stuff like PixInsight? I'm on a budget and wondering if it's worth upgrading.

2 comments

2 Comments

emery87916d ago

Tracking mounts push you to focus on mechanics not technique. Stacking forces you to learn proper dithering and calibration frames which actually improves your overall workflow. Siril does 90% of what PixInsight does for free but takes way more manual work to get clean backgrounds.

seanjohnson16d ago

Wait, you're telling me Siril does 90% of what PixInsight does? That's a massive stretch, man. I've spent hours fighting with Siril's background extraction and it takes like three times longer to get something half as clean as what PI spits out in minutes. And the dithering and calibration frames thing - sure, that helps, but I've seen people with perfect workflow still get garbage results because Siril's algorithm just doesn't handle gradients as well.