Stacking exposures

[Via]

I am sorry if I've missed a tutorial somewhere but struggling to find anything for stacking multiple exposures for a normal starscape picture (not star trails) and have a few questions.

Firstly can these be done with a static mount or does it need a tracking mount? If static how are stars aligned, would this need to be done manually or is there any software that can manage this?

[PeterCPC]

Deep Sky Stacker is free software for stacking here.

You can stack short exposures from a static mount but a tracking mount is really what you need.

Peter

[Zakalwe]

Have a look at lonelyspeck.com

Wide-angle starscapes can be stacked in Photoshop quite well. There's a tutorial on there showing how to do it.

[MarsG76]

It can be done on a static mount with a reasonable amount of time and a realistic focal length.

I use Nebulosity 3... you basically select "align and rotate" and select teh same two stars in each fram which you want to stack.... the program de rotates and stacks the frames for you.

 

[buzzc150]

Whats a good free Mac option ? I spent the last hour reading through Deep Sky Tracker only to discover its Windows only ?? Looks like Nebulosity cost £90 or so.