Good Data and Bad Data

[festoon]

Hoping for some advice on how to stack data from multiple nights imaging sessions. My set up is with an OSC, and I don't have narrowband filters at the moment (waiting for an NBZ).

If I acquire data on a clear moonless night, does adding data from another night where say its a full moon going to lead to the image signal to noise going up or down? I'm particularly thinking about faint nebula or galaxies. What I'm wondering is - am I wasting my time imaging during full moon. If I add that data will it degrade the image from a dark night or sky.

[ollypenrice]

Even narrowband (3 Nm Astrodon Ha) during literally full moon is useless, in my opinion. Others might disagree.

Right from the start of my deep sky imaging life I've been receptive and respectful (I hope) of the findings of others but I've also wanted to find my own way forward by experimenting. I honestly think that you are the best person to answer your own question if you have both dark and moonlit data to play with. Experiment with them. I've done this with galaxy data, for instance. You have a pile of subs shot in good seeing and another pile shot in poor seeing. Do you ditch the ones from the poor seeing? Maybe not. Maybe they add to the very faint outer glows even though they detract from the nice sharp inner spiral bits. So make two stacks, the sharp data for the sharp bits and all the data for the faint bits. Then combine them selectively.  I really do hate to throw anything away...

Olly

[festoon]

That's a very good suggestion to have a play with data sets and try it out.

Last night...we a had a night of clear skies from dusk till dawn in Cambridgeshire and I took hours of data on M81 and M82....However, Murphy's Law - Clear night=Moon out! The forecast is also the same for tonight. I'm debating if I should set up or just wait for the next dark night Or just image the moon