Stacked vs tracked astrophotography which way is better

I been going back and forth on this for months now. On one side you got stacking in software like DSS or Siril which aligns and averages like 100 frames to cut noise. On the other side you got tracking where you use a mount to follow the sky so you can take longer single exposures. I tried taking 300 untracked 2 second subs of Andromeda last week vs 30 tracked 60 second subs and the tracked ones looked way sharper even with way fewer frames. But my tracker cost me $400 and the stacking software was free. Is the money worth it for a beginner or should people just stack more frames instead of buying gear? What do you guys think works best for getting clean images on a budget?

2 comments

2 Comments

sage_perry14d ago

You say the stacked image looked worse, but were you actually aligning your untracked subs right? I'd bet better stacking technique and skipping bad frames would close the gap without dropping $400.

danielmartinez14d ago

Stacked Andromeda at 2 seconds each? That's just crazy talk, you'd need like a thousand of 'em to compete with tracking.