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Letter of the Month
I love the astro photos and guides you’ve featured in PhotoPlus over the years. I have had only limited success in taking star shots, partly as I don’t follow the instructions in your guides as I tend to forget one or two important things. A lot more practice and learning from my mistakes would be prudent.
Recently, some of your best night sky pictures have been produced by stacking many exposures to get more stars in the shot. Although I get the mechanics of producing these images, I do not see why stacking tens or even hundreds of seemingly identical short exposures gives you more detail than one long exposure?
Thanks for the email, Andy, glad we are inspiring you! Canon pro astro photographer Chris Grimmer replies:
“Digital camera noise is random, so stacking several astro images shot at ISO3200 helps even the noise out. Secondly, stars are known to ‘twinkle’ so might appear lighter or darker from one frame to the next, and again stacking several images helps even out the brightness.”
