angela587•2mo agoProlific Poster

Choosing between a star tracker and stacking for my first Milky Way shot

I was in Joshua Tree last month trying to get a clear Milky Way photo and had to decide between buying a star tracker or just stacking a bunch of short exposures. I went with stacking about 50 three-second shots in DeepSkyStacker because the tracker was over my budget, and the final image turned out way better than I expected. Has anyone else had good results with just stacking, or is a tracker really worth saving up for?

5 comments

5 Comments

the_thomas2mo ago

Nice, stacking can really pull through on a budget!

tara6422mo ago

That blog post @the_thomas linked last week explained it perfectly.

angela_knight32mo ago

Yeah, that post Thomas shared was solid. I saw a breakdown on the PC Builder forum last month, tara642, that said you can get a 15% performance boost just by pairing the right RAM with a mid-tier CPU. Makes a huge difference without spending a ton.

murphy.aaron1mo ago

Totally, it's like a free upgrade.

the_claire1mo ago

Did you see how @the_thomas nailed it, because stacking totally saved my first try too?