Overheard a guy at REI say stack your exposure brackets differently for Milky Way shots

I was grabbing some lens wipes at the REI in Boulder last month and this dude was explaining to his friend how he stacks his short exposures in groups of 5 instead of all 15 at once. Said it cuts down on star trailing artifacts in the final merge. Tried it on my last trip up to Mt. Evans and honestly my composite came out way cleaner without that weird blur around the edges. Anyone else tweak their stacking order like that or just slam everything into one blend?

2 comments

2 Comments

cora_martinez1mo ago

I read somewhere that the stacking algorithms actually work better when you give them less movement to track at once. Like how Sequator or DSS tries to align everything in one pass and gets confused when stars have drifted too far between the first and last frame. Breaking them into groups of 5 keeps the star positions closer together so the software doesn't have to stretch things as much. I saw a thread on CloudyNights where a guy tested this with 30 second exposures and the grouped method kept star shapes round instead of oval. Makes me wonder if I should go back and redo some of my old composites from last summer.

jessel351mo ago

Yeah I used to just stack all my shots at once in Sequator and call it good. Always had this weird softness around the bright stars that drove me nuts. Your REI guy's method makes total sense though. Breaking them into smaller groups first helps the stacking algorithm handle the movement better before the final merge. Tried it myself last week with 20 exposures on Orion and the difference was pretty obvious. The star cores stayed sharp and the background noise dropped way more than before. I'm sold on this approach now.