My buddy the astrophotographer told me I was "looking at noise, not detail" and it ruined my favorite photo

I was showing him this shot I took of the Andromeda galaxy with my stock Canon and a tripod. I was proud of it, you could see the core and everything. He zoomed in and spent like 5 minutes pointing out all these little speckles, saying that's just sensor noise from high ISO, not actual stars or nebula gas. Said I needed a tracker or at least stacking software. Kinda deflated me honestly because I thought I had a winner. But now I can't unsee it. For people who do deep sky stuff, how much does gear actually matter vs just knowing your processing? I'm trying to decide if a $400 star tracker is worth it or if I'm better off just learning better editing first.

3 comments

3 Comments

the_kim19d ago

See it different honestly, a great edit can pull detail out of a noisy mess if you know what you're doing.

nora_park20d ago

Had a buddy who spent a year shooting deep sky with nothing but a stock DSLR and a cheap tripod. He got some nice wide shots but the second he tried to zoom in on anything it was just a mess of noise. Finally borrowed a star tracker from someone for a weekend and came back with a single 3 minute exposure that was cleaner than anything he'd stacked over 2 hours before. So he bought one the next day. The thing is you can only edit what you capture. Better processing can smooth out noise but it can't pull out detail that was never there because the sensor didn't collect enough light. A tracker lets you take longer exposures at lower ISO which means less noise and more actual signal hitting the sensor. Your friend is a dick for killing your pride but he's not wrong. Save up for the tracker if you actually want to get into this hobby and stack 30-50 subs instead of one long one.

olivia39819d ago

It's funny how needing the right tool is basically every hobby, you're just stuck until you get it.