Originally posted by GR Jim You manually moved the camera during the shots? That's amazing how sharp it still came out. Nicely done.
GR Jim - I only moved the camera after the five shots not during. Deep Sky Stacker takes care of lining all the images up. Star Tools also makes the stars round if any have spikes or have slight trails. I cant recomend Star Tools enough. It has made a massive difference to the quality of the final images I take.
---------- Post added 11-09-20 at 06:09 PM ----------
Originally posted by Bertrand3000 It is really a wonderful shot. How did you manage those weird starbursts? They are wonderful. And you say moving your tripod on a regular basis to keep your subject on frame... with 630mm focal length? How exactly can you be sure to point to the exact same place on the sky? Unless of course you use one of those equatorial tripod mount... but since you mentioned astrotracer, maybe not.
Bertrand 3000 - I line a star up in the frame and note where it is. After 5 or so shots the star has moved. I reframe by gently nudging the lens so the star is in approximately the same position. Deep Sky Stacker will line up all the images later on and I get it to crop out the outside areas that dont align with the other frames.
Star Tools is a great program, similar to Pixinsight but cheaper, and easier to use from looking at the online videos. It can create a star mask and add the telescope diffraction spikes to the brighter stars. It gives it that little bit of polish but some may say its unnecessary.
---------- Post added 11-09-20 at 06:13 PM ----------
I may give this another go in the future, try to see if I can get better definition and detail. Taking the calibration frames really helped with the noise, I just need about 2 hours worth of light frames instead of the 15 minutes in this one.