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My $800 star tracker was a total game changer for deep sky shots, but my buddy says it's a waste when you can just stack short exposures.
I dropped about $800 on a solid equatorial mount last year and it completely transformed my astro photos, letting me get those crisp, long exposure shots of nebulae without star trails, but a friend insists modern software can stack hundreds of short, untracked shots to get a similar result for way less cash, so what's the real move here for someone getting serious?
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wesleyb201mo ago
Read a piece by a guy who tried both methods side by side on the same target. He stacked like 500 untracked shots and compared it to a dozen tracked exposures. The tracked image had way better signal in the faint stuff, less noise, and the stars were sharper points, not little smudges. The untracked stack looked okay on a phone screen but fell apart when you zoomed in. For getting serious, that extra detail is the whole point, so the tracker seems worth it if you can swing it.
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wendy1311mo agoMost Upvoted
That "fell apart when you zoomed in" part is the real cost of all that untracked shutter time.
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kimmurphy1mo ago
But my best shots came from my tripod.
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