Compared my first astrophotography attempt from 2018 to last night's stack and I barely recognize it's the same sky.

Switching from a cheap kit lens to a dedicated astro camera and actually learning how to dither between frames made the biggest difference in killing that ugly walking noise, has anyone else had a specific upgrade that suddenly made their old shots look like garbage?

2 comments

2 Comments

evanfox24d ago

But doesn't the noise add character to the image though?

mila_mitchell24d ago

Oh absolutely, @evanfox I had the exact same thought at first (like, hey maybe the grain makes it look dreamy or whatever) but then I did one of those comparison overlays and it was just night and day. My old M42 shots looked like someone smeared vaseline on a watercolor painting compared to what I'm getting now after switching to a cooled camera and actually learning how to calibrate darks and flats properly. The noise in my old images wasn't adding character it was just covering up all the faint stuff that makes astro actually impressive in the first place. I mean sure, a little warmth is fine but walking noise is basically the enemy of ever seeing those faint IFN currents or dusty nebula details. Your old stuff probably looks way better than you think though because you were working with way less information back then.