Tried stacking 200 substandard moon photos instead of 20 good ones, weird result

I was always skeptical about the whole 'more frames equals better image' thing because my single shots of the moon looked crisp enough on their own. Then last week I took 200 frames during a foggy night where each one looked terrible, stacked them in Autostakkert, and the final result had details I never saw before. Has anyone else found that really bad data actually cleans up better than you'd expect when you drown it in numbers?

3 comments

3 Comments

barbara_grant41mo ago

Oh yeah, I've definitely been there! Stacking a ton of mediocre frames can actually average out the atmospheric crap and bring out real details, especially on nights when the seeing is rough. Try using a lower quality percentage in Autostakkert too, it'll ditch the absolute worst frames but still grab way more data than you'd think.

jamieb801mo ago

Wait, did the fog actually help by smoothing out the bad frames?

charles_young921mo ago

Man that's actually a solid point, @barbara_grant4 basically nailed it with that stacking trick. Honestly it's like how a rough patch in life can blur out the small annoying details and help you see the big picture clearer.