Finally tried stacking 50 frames of the Andromeda Galaxy instead of just 10 and wow the difference is insane

I was skeptical that spending an extra 45 minutes on processing would matter that much, but the detail in the dust lanes came through so clearly it completely changed my mind, has anyone else had a similar moment where more data actually paid off?

2 comments

2 Comments

felixfisher25d ago

My first deep stack was of the Orion Nebula back in 2019, I think I combined around 200 frames and it still looked like a blurry cotton ball. But then I went back and re-stacked 600 frames from the same session and suddenly there were these faint red hydrogen patches I hadn't seen before. It's wild how that extra hour of data can turn a blob into something that actually looks like a real place.

skyler4325d ago

Love that you went back and re-processed @felixfisher, I did the same thing with the Andromeda Galaxy. My first 300 frames gave me a blurry disk, but when I pushed it to 800 frames those outer spiral arms actually started to show up with some structure. It's like the universe rewards you for being patient with more data.