Spent 2 hours trying to stack a single astrophoto and it was user error the whole time

I finally got a clear shot of the Orion Nebula last Saturday night. It took me 45 minutes to get 30 good frames. Then I spent 2 whole hours trying to stack them in DSS and the result looked like a blurry mess. Turns out I had the wrong calibration frames selected the entire time. I clicked the darks box instead of flats and DSS just gave up. Has anyone else wasted a whole night on a silly software setting?

3 comments

3 Comments

olivia6705d ago

Wait, so @robinp89 is saying flats fix dust spots too and I had it all backwards?

wesleyflores5d ago

At least you didn't spend hours blaming your telescope like I did last week...

robinp895d ago

Oh man, 30 frames of Orion is actually pretty solid for a first try though. I think you might have the stacking order mixed up a little. In DSS, you actually want to load your darks AND flats AND bias frames separately, not just check one box or the other. The darks are for removing sensor noise, flats fix dust spots and vignetting, and bias frames handle read noise. If you only had darks selected and no flats, that blurry mess might be from uneven lighting in your telescope, not just the stacking. I did the same thing with M31 last month and about threw my laptop out the window when I realized I had my flats in the wrong folder.