I used to think stacking filters was the only way to do deep sky photos

Spent 2 years layering Ha and OIII data like crazy, thinking more filters meant better shots. Switched to a dual narrowband filter last summer after a cloudy month in Maine and now I get clean nebula images in half the time with way less noise. Anyone else find that simpler setups actually give you better results?

3 comments

3 Comments

seanjackson5d agoMost Upvoted

Man I totally feel that. I was stacking everything I could get my hands on for months, thinking more data meant a cleaner image. Then I stripped it back to just a single dual band filter and suddenly my Orion shots had way less noise and I wasn't spending all night fighting with gradients. Less gear really does mean more time actually shooting and less time fixing stuff later.

jamesf415d ago

@seanjackson you got it backwards though, Ha and OIII is better for detail than dual band.

drewgonzalez5d ago

Double down on what seanjackson said. Once I ditched the multi-filter stacking approach and just ran a dual band on a stock DSLR, my M42 shots went from noisy messes to actually having sharp detail in the core. The biggest thing for me was realizing that more data from different filters just means you spend more time fixing alignment and star color issues, not actually getting better signal. Your mileage may vary of course, but for my setup and sky conditions, keeping it simple with one good filter and just capturing more subframes has been way cleaner.