Compared stacked vs single exposure moon shots this weekend

I shot the moon with a single frame on my Canon and then tried stacking about 50 frames in Registax. The stacked image had way more crater detail and less noise even though it took longer to process. Has anyone else noticed a big jump in quality when they switched to stacking?

3 comments

3 Comments

ray3561mo ago

My buddy Mike tried stacking moon shots last winter with his old Celestron and a Sony body he found on Craigslist (total trooper). He hit about 40 frames in Registax and texted me a before/after - the single shot looked like a fuzzy pancake, but the stack showed those tiny crater walls clear as day. @lee847 nailed it with that "little ridges inside the craters" description, that's exactly what Mike was raving about after his first try.

lee8471mo ago

Yeah, "way more crater detail" is exactly what I noticed too when I finally tried stacking. I was using a pretty cheap telescope with my Nikon, and the single frames always looked kinda mushy, but the first time I stacked 30 or so in Registax, I could actually see the little ridges inside the craters. It definitely takes longer to sort through the shots and run the software, but that jump in sharpness and how much cleaner the image looks is totally worth it for me.

rose_reed1mo ago

Exactly what @ray356 said about his buddy Mike's before and after is what sold me on trying it myself. Once you see those crater walls pop out from a stack, it's hard to go back to single frames. Just gotta be patient picking out the sharpest ones to feed into Registax.