Tried stacking 200 photos of the moon last night and my laptop just gave up

I was out on my balcony around 11pm trying to get a decent shot of the lunar surface with my Canon T7. Thought I'd try stacking like 200 frames in Registax to really bring out the craters. But after about 30 minutes of processing, my 5 year old Dell just froze up completely and I had to force restart it lol. Ended up using only 50 frames instead and it turned out okay I guess. The detail on the rims of Copernicus crater was still pretty sharp though. Has anyone else had their computer choke on a big stack like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

emma_wells8319d ago

Registax is a total beast on older hardware, I feel your pain lol. My old rig could barely handle 80 frames before it would lock up on me too. Actually, have you tried pre-processing your frames in something else first to cut down the file sizes? I usually run mine through PIPP to center and crop the moon before stacking and it cuts the workload in half. Plus, PIPP will let you filter out any blurry frames so you're not wasting processing power on junk. 50 frames still sounds solid if you picked the sharpest ones though, Copernicus is a tricky one to get crisp detail on without overdoing the sharpening.

cameron_hernandez6918d ago

Oh absolutely, nothing says "fun hobby" like watching your computer freeze up because you tried to stack one too many frames of a crater. It's like the universe is telling me to slow down and appreciate the moon at 30 frames per lockup.

the_sean18d ago

Respectfully, I kinda disagree on the PIPP thing. Pre-processing adds an extra step that can introduce its own compression artifacts if you're not careful. I've had better luck just being pickier with my frames upfront and letting Registax handle the rough work. 50 sharp frames of Copernicus can beat 200 mediocre ones if you pick right, no need to overcomplicate it lol.