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PSA: I gave up autoguiding and my star trails got way better
For the past year I was convinced that autoguiding was the only way to get clean astro photos. My setup is a Canon T7i on a Star Adventurer, and I kept fighting with my guide scope every clear night in my backyard near Denver. Last month I drove out to a dark site about 90 minutes west of the city and forgot the guide camera cable at home. I had no choice but to shoot unguided, so I just did 30 second subs at 200mm and stacked about 80 of them. When I processed the shot of Orion, the stars were rounder than anything I ever got with guiding because I wasn't chasing bad corrections or dealing with cable snags. I ended up selling my guide setup for $180 and now I use that money for gas to get to darker skies. Sometimes simpler really is better, at least for wide field stuff. Has anyone else dropped guiding for short exposure stacking, and what's the longest sub you can get away with before trailing shows up?
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ross.jason22d ago
Sometimes simpler really is better" until you actually want faint detail and your 30 second subs are drowning in read noise. At 200mm unguided on a Star Adventurer you're fine, sure, but that's basically a glorified tripod shot. Try that same trick at 400 or 500mm and watch your keep rate fall off a cliff, you'll be throwing away half your frames and stacking mush. One good night at a dark site doesn't prove guiding is useless, it just proves you got lucky with polar alignment and a short focal length. Guiding also lets you dither, which is how you actually kill walking noise, and no amount of short subs fixes that on its own.
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