The debate over stacking astro photos: noise reduction vs. losing detail

I stacked 15 shots of the Orion Nebula last week and got a super clean image but lost some faint stars. Some folks say stack as many as you can, others say less is more for keeping fine detail. What do you all lean towards for nebula shots?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_tara25d ago

Read that more frames help tame noise but too many blurs the small stuff.

tylerlane25d ago

WAIT hold on. You're telling me there's actually a SWEET SPOT where too many frames starts BLURRING small details? That's honestly blowing my mind right now because I always thought MORE frames was just strictly better for noise. Like I've been stacking up to like 32 frames on some of my deep sky shots thinking I'm being clever with noise reduction. But now I'm wondering if I've been sacrificing all that fine structure in the dust lanes and tiny nebula features without even realizing it. Is that why some of my images look kinda smooth but also kinda mushy at the same time? I need to go recheck all my old data now because this might explain why my M51 came out looking like a soft blob last month.