
This claim assumes that an average is represented using floating point values however. It doesn't make any difference whether you stack into a sum or an average. The short answer is that they are identical. If one doesn't follow my explanation, then one might disagree with me. Since this remains an issue of contention I can only claim that my explanation makes sense. One point of confusion that should be resolved early on is whether there is a difference between averaging and summing. It increases the signal-to-noise ratio and increases the dynamic range. Image stacking does two very different things at once. But of course the real explanation is quite simple to understand. It seems almost magical that so much real information can be gleaned from such horrible original images. The first time I witnessed the effects of image stacking, I was completely blown away by the result.
#PHOTO STACKING SOFTWARE ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY SERIES#
In the case of planetary images, they change slowly enough that a series of images spanning at least a few minutes can be acquired without observable motion. In the case of deep sky objects, the objects are virtually permanant. Astrophotography happens to be perfectly suited in this manner, in that astronomical objects are effectively static for reasonable durations of time.



Image stacking is a popular method of image processing amongst astrophotographers, although the exact same technique can be applied to any situation where identical images can be captured over a period of time, in other words in situations where the scene isn't changing due to motion or varying light and shadow.
