Tried stacking my Beehive shots: Wow, hard to get the shot out of stacking anywhere close to correct exposure on this. After stacking I had to run it through Lightroom to pull the dark...

Albuqshutterbug Loc: Albuquerque NM

Wow, hard to get the shot out of stacking anywhere close to correct exposure on this.
After stacking I had to run it through Lightroom to pull the dark back out. It was way over exposed by the stacking process and was almost white.
I musta goofed up somewhere.
This is the same shooting information as my previous post only with 10 photos stacked with Deepsky.
Alas no darks so that may have been why it was so over exposed.
I am new to this part.
What's fun for me is this is shot in Albuquerque. Not quite a 10 on the light scale and not LA or Dallas light but still really bright. I can't see the smudge of this without aid.

Beehive stacked

(Download)

Oknoder Loc: Western North Dakota

I played with DSS shortly after you brought it to my attention, after stacking it will show you the combined image and autosave the master, but I believe there is a way to alter it to bring out the midtones. If I remember correctly, and I am sure someone who knows the program better than I will chime in, it shows a histogram of the three primary colors and there are tabs/arrows at the bottom of the histogram that allow you to alter the image. I used this to help pull information out of whatever stack I was playing with at the time.

Sorry if this wasn't very helpful
Matthew

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

I, too, got lost quickly in these stacking programs.
I'm wondering if I might have better success trying a two, or three picture stack to start with?
I sure haven't had much luck of large piles of files, So I was thinking of baby steps before trying to run. ;)

I love the stars in your result... :thumbup: :thumbup:

Albuqshutterbug Loc: Albuquerque NM

SonnyE wrote:

I, too, got lost quickly in these stacking programs.
I'm wondering if I might have better success trying a two, or three picture stack to start with?
I sure haven't had much luck of large piles of files, So I was thinking of baby steps before trying to run. ;)

I love the stars in your result... :thumbup: :thumbup:

Thanks for the double thumbs Sonny.
Stacking for me works sometime, other times I don't know what I do wrong but it wont run or it wont stack or it gives me a smeary mess. Someday I will figure this out and likely have a massive coronary. ;)

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

Albuqshutterbug wrote:

Wow, hard to get the shot out of stacking anywhere... (show quote)

Beautiful pinpoints for stars Jim. Excellent job . As you have found out Stacking is just the beginning of the process. And yes Darks, Flats and bias' all add to the quality. At least shoot Darks if you can. Exact same settings with the Scope & Camera completely covered, you want no light pollution on the Sensor. Be sure to load the Darks desperately as "dark files" Good luck.
Craig

Albuqshutterbug Loc: Albuquerque NM

CraigFair wrote:

Beautiful pinpoints for stars Jim. Excellent job . As you have found out Stacking is just the beginning of the process. And yes Darks, Flats and bias' all add to the quality. At least shoot Darks if you can. Exact same settings with the Scope & Camera completely covered, you want no light pollution on the Sensor. Be sure to load the Darks desperately as "dark files" Good luck.
Craig

I know how I was just lazy. I didn't expect to stack because I wasn't sure my track was that good. Live and learn.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Albuqshutterbug wrote:

Thanks for the double thumbs Sonny.
Stacking for me works sometime, other times I don't know what I do wrong but it wont run or it wont stack or it gives me a smeary mess. Someday I will figure this out and likely have a massive coronary. ;)

That's my problem too. On one occasion, I do 24 and everything turns up looking better. And other times, I don't get nearly the same effect. I'm sure it is my learning curve portion of this.