Stacking images from multiple nights

[Somerled7]

A question about Deep Sky Stacker.  If I wanted to image the same object over several nights, do I have to keep all the original light files and re-stack everything, or could I just retain the Autosave.tiff file from the first night, then re-load it and add more light images?  It would obviously save a lot of storage space if the original raw images could be deleted once they've been stacked.  I'm using a standard DSLR at the moment, so just thinking of adding more raw files to extend the total exposure time.

 

[Adam1234]

Hi, I would personally keep all of your light frames from the previous sessions and stack them all together with new light frames from your next session (s).

It is possible to stack frames from each session, and then stack the resulting images (I've no idea if the result would be the same or worse than stacking all frames together, someone else may be able to answer that). 

The reason I would suggest keeping all your light frames regardless is that as your processing skills improve you may wish to revisit old data, and it certainly helps if you have the originals files, especially if you want to re-process from scratch using different software and experiment with registration/stacking/rejection parameters.

 

[Somerled7]

On 28/12/2020 at 15:02, Adam1234 said:

Hi, I would personally keep all of your light frames from the previous sessions and stack them all together with new light frames from your next session (s).

It is possible to stack frames from each session, and then stack the resulting images (I've no idea if the result would be the same or worse than stacking all frames together, someone else may be able to answer that). 

The reason I would suggest keeping all your light frames regardless is that as your processing skills improve you may wish to revisit old data, and it certainly helps if you have the originals files, especially if you want to re-process from scratch using different software and experiment with registration/stacking/rejection parameters.

 

It's a good point about processing skills improving. However I'm still finding that my subs are often compromised in some way - last few attempts it's been dew and moonlight, not so bad to ruin the night, but not really good enough to re-use if I get better data. So, if I get some good subs, I'll keep them, otherwise I think I'll just process to the best I can, then move on.