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Update: I was stacking 30-second exposures for years before a guy at the Riverside star party pointed out my polar alignment was off by a full degree, ruining all that integration time.
He showed me a single 5-minute sub from his rig on the same target, and the detail was so much cleaner because his mount was actually tracking right, which made me finally buy a proper polar scope and learn to drift align.
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jessica1301mo agoMost Upvoted
Wait, more data beats perfect tracking? @mark_carr7, you can't fix trailing stars with stacking, a sharp sub is the real goal.
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oliverhernandez1mo ago
Man, that hits close to home. Used to be so focused on just piling up exposure time that I skipped the basics. Seeing a single sharp sub from a well-aligned mount is a real wake-up call. It makes all that integration time actually mean something instead of just adding soft stars. Definitely learned the hard way that good tracking is way more important than just collecting more light.
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