Photography Moon Pictures

[casualaction]

I've always had issues when trying to stack my moon photos (much worse if I attempt handheld, but happens on the tripod too). The software I've tried to use cant seem to fix the small rotation I get in between the moon photos. I'm not willing to manually attempt to match 40-100 photos. I've tried to work with Registax and Autostakkert. I generally end up using only the closest 5 photos or so that I have to try and get a successful photo.

Any advice/thoughts would be appreciated!

 

[stubanham]

I've always had issues when trying to stack my moon photos (much worse if I attempt handheld, but happens on the tripod too). The software I've tried to use cant seem to fix the small rotation I get in between the moon photos. I'm not willing to manually attempt to match 40-100 photos. I've tried to work with Registax and Autostakkert. I generally end up using only the closest 5 photos or so that I have to try and get a successful photo.

Any advice/thoughts would be appreciated!

Not sure what 'rotation' you mean, the Moon doesn't spin relative to the Earth, it's the same side all the time.

As the exposure is so quick compared to say a deep sky image of a few minutes that needs a tracking tripod, just set the fastest motordrive setting you have and take a bunch of frames that way.
My example was 1/800th second shutter, 20 frames, which on my Canon is about a 2 second burst - nothing's moving in that timeframe

 

[casualaction]

I've always had issues when trying to stack my moon photos (much worse if I attempt handheld, but happens on the tripod too). The software I've tried to use cant seem to fix the small rotation I get in between the moon photos. I'm not willing to manually attempt to match 40-100 photos. I've tried to work with Registax and Autostakkert. I generally end up using only the closest 5 photos or so that I have to try and get a successful photo.

Any advice/thoughts would be appreciated!

Another way I can describe it is that the camera isn't level to the horizon the whole time. If I'm handheld, I am accidently rotating the "face" of the moon in between shots (if the moon was a volume knob, im turning it). Even with my ball-head tripod they dont seem aligned perfectly on that rotational axis and the stacking software just creates a blurry/soft final composition.