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Last month I tried stacking deep sky shots with free software instead of paying for it

Ive been shooting nebula photos for about 2 years now with my old Celestron scope. Last month I got tired of spending so much on software subscriptions so I tried using DeepSkyStacker instead. The image of the Triangulum Galaxy came out way grainier than I expected even after 60 subs. Has anyone else had luck getting good results out of free stacking tools or should I just go back to paying?
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3 Comments
young.nora
young.nora23d ago
Do you think your subs might have been a little short for free stacking software? I mean, my cat could probably stack images better than me with my old DSLR and a cardboard box.
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shanelee
shanelee23d ago
3 minutes of sub data with a cheap webcam, @young.nora, would have worked better.
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ninas67
ninas6723d ago
Is it really that big of a deal if one stack came out a little grainy though? I mean, you're comparing a free tool to paid software that's been refined for years, so of course there's going to be a difference. You might just need to tweak your workflow a bit, like @young.nora hinted at with their cat comment maybe your subs were just too short for the free program to handle properly. Honestly, 60 subs isn't nothing, but if your exposure length was off it would look bad no matter what you paid for the software. I'd say give it another shot with longer subs before you decide to open your wallet again.
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