Realized I was stacking my Orion Nebula shots all wrong

Been using DeepSkyStacker for a year, just stacking everything from a session. Saw a post from a guy in Flagstaff who separates his frames by sky quality. Tried it with my last batch, grouping only the best 80 out of 200 subs. The final image was way cleaner. Anyone else sort their lights before stacking?

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3 Comments

emma_jones216mo ago

My buddy had the same problem with his Andromeda shots. He was dumping all his frames in, even the ones with plane trails and bad seeing. His images always looked soft. Then he started grading each sub, only stacking the top half. The difference was crazy. His dust lanes actually popped for once. Makes total sense to be picky.

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johns186mo ago

My old 40% rejection rule changed everything. The extra time grading pays off in the final stack.

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tarab545mo ago

Honestly, grading is key but tossing half your data seems rough. You can still use decent subs with trails if you crop or mask them out first.

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