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Was skeptical about stacked galaxy photos. Not anymore.
Kept seeing those composite shots with multiple galaxies layered. Figured it was fake processing. Then I tried stacking 12 frames of M51 myself last month. Got details I never saw in a single shot. Anyone else have a "that can't be real" moment with processing?
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cooper.mark3d ago
Fake processing" - yeah I felt that way about star reduction until I tried it and my jaw hit the floor.
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Did you catch that article on Cloudy Nights about the guy who stacked 200 short exposures of M31 and resolved individual stars in Andromeda's outer halo? That's the one that finally got me to stop being a skeptic. I remember reading how each sub exposure looked like absolute trash, just noise and a faint smudge, but when you align and combine them all, the signal builds up while the random noise cancels out. It's like magic, but it's just math and a lot of patience. I tried it with a cheap 8-inch SCT and a DSLR, and the difference between a single 30 second frame and the stacked result was night and day. For the first time I saw the spiral arms of M51 with clear, defined dust lanes, not just a blurry blob.
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