I just realized I've been stacking my astro photos wrong for two years

I was looking at a shot of the Orion Nebula from a guy in my local club, and his dust lanes were way clearer than mine. He asked what software I used for stacking, and I told him DeepSkyStacker with the default settings. He laughed and said 'You're just averaging the noise, man.' He showed me his workflow using pixel rejection in Siril, and it was like a fog lifted. All my old data from my backyard in Austin is basically useless now. Anyone have a good guide for re-processing a whole library of raw files?

3 comments

3 Comments

paul_taylor211mo ago

DeepSkyStacker defaults are fine for a lot of people though. That guy's backyard probably just has darker skies than Austin. I doubt all your old data is actually useless.

dakotab931mo ago

Wait, so you think DSS is fine even with light pollution?

david_jones381mo ago

My old data is mostly just pictures of my neighbor's porch light.