Stacking software
- There are several free applications available on the Internet for stacking deep sky photos
- The most popular one is called Deep Sky Stacker (DSS)
- I wrote my own called GRIP (GR's Image Processor)
- it does a lot of other processing, not just stacking
- it runs on most PCs: Windows, Linux, MacOS
- available free from my web site: www.grelf.net
- There are other stacking applications for photography of the moon and planets, which requires quite different techniques
eg, Registax - not suitable for deep sky
My career was in software development, including 20 years on image processing systems, so I was in a position to write my own stacker.
For me, astrophotography is an ideal hobby because it combines several interests: astronomy, physics, photography, programming.
Stacking is not a quick process - it will take tens of minutes (depending on the number of exposures of course). So use the clear night to capture as many exposures as possible and do the stacking next day or later, on a cloudy evening perhaps.