The Orion Nebula looked like a smudge through my cheap scope, but stacking 50 frames blew my mind

I got a $150 telescope last summer and pointed it at Orion. Honestly I was super disappointed because it just looked like a fuzzy gray blob. Then a guy in this forum told me to take lots of short exposures and stack them. I used DeepSkyStacker on 50 frames and suddenly there was all this red and purple gas. Has anyone else felt like stacking is a total game changer for basic setups?

4 comments

4 Comments

ellioth3728d ago

Yeah I used to think stacking was overhyped but man was I wrong...

lee84728d ago

Man that green noise struggle is so real! Sounds like you got it sorted though, which is awesome.

grantp1428d ago

Green noise is the worst." Stacking is the real game changer for sure.

ellis.faith28d ago

OH man stacking is what made this hobby REAL for me too! But here's my question - when you stacked those 50 frames, did you take calibration frames too like darks and bias? I skipped those at first and got all this green noise in my background sky. Once I figured out darks especially, my Orion shots went from looking like a color freakout to actually having nice clean detail around the Trapezium area.