Stacking 20 frames of the moon with free software beat my $200 camera app every time

Everyone told me I needed Sequator or DeepSkyStacker to stack lunar shots, but I got better results using the free trial of RegiStax on a single 2-minute capture. Has anyone else found a cheap free tool that out-performs the paid stuff in a weird way?

2 comments

2 Comments

johnson.ryan5d ago

Did your buddy ever figure out if Lynkeos was doing something different with the alignment or registration that made the craters sharper? I’ve heard some of these free programs use basic averaging while others do more complex wavelet sharpening, but I’m curious which one Lynkeos is actually doing.

valwest5d ago

You mentioned the free trial of RegiStax, and that reminds me of something a buddy of mine found out by accident. He wanted to stack moon photos but his computer is old and slow, so Sequator kept crashing on him. Out of frustration he tried this super basic free tool called Lynkeos (it's meant for Macs) and somehow it handled his 200 frames without a hiccup. The weird part is he said the final image had way less noise than the paid software he was using before, and the edges of the craters looked sharper too. He's not a tech guy at all, just a dude with a telescope and a beat-up laptop, so it wasn't like he had some special setup. Makes you wonder what other free stuff is hiding out there that the pros don't talk about.