Just compared stacking 100 vs 500 frames on my Jupiter shot and it's not even close

I spent two nights last week trying to get a decent image of Jupiter with my 8-inch scope. The first night, I only captured about 100 frames because I was tired and called it early. The second night, I pushed myself to get 500 frames. I stacked both sets in AutoStakkert and the difference is massive. The 100-frame stack looks noisy and soft, like a fuzzy orange ball. The 500-frame stack actually shows the Great Red Spot and some banding detail. It took longer to process, sure, but the extra data smooths out the atmospheric distortion so much better. I used to think more frames was just a minor improvement, but now I see it's the key to pulling out real detail. Has anyone else found a specific number of frames where the quality really jumps for planetary imaging?

3 comments

3 Comments

sams254mo ago

My Saturn shots were the same way. The difference between 200 and 800 frames was like night and day for the ring detail.

aaron1974mo agoMost Upvoted

Wow, that's a huge jump in quality. I'm curious what gear you were using to stack that many frames. I've never managed to get 800 decent frames before the planet rotates too much.

beth5592mo ago

Yeah the rotation limit is real lol. I found that limiting my capture sessions to 90 seconds or less keeps the frames usable even on a C11. Stacking 800 frames works best when you use a high speed camera like the ZWO ASI462MC at 100+ fps. Also helps to derotate in WinJUPOS before stacking, that way you can combine multiple runs and get way more frames without smearing.