ProcessingBeginner

Best Stacking Percentage for Planetary Imaging

Choose a stacking percentage based on seeing, frame quality, and the tradeoff between sharpness and noise.

How It Works

Start by judging seeing and target brightness. Poor seeing smears detail, so plan a low selection rate (5-15%); average nights work around 20-30%, good nights 35-50%, and excellent nights 50-70%.

Check the frame quality ranking in your stacking tool. Look for a steep drop in scores; that knee often marks where sharpness begins to fall.

Consider frame count and capture length. With only a few thousand frames, going too low will make noise dominate; with 10,000+ frames you can be more selective.

Create two comparison stacks around your baseline (for example 15%, 25%, 40%) and inspect fine detail at 100% zoom.

Pick the percentage that keeps real detail without turning noise into grain. Lower percentages usually need gentler sharpening and more denoise.

Revisit the percentage after processing. If details look mushy, lower it; if noise overwhelms, raise it slightly and restack.

Pro Tips

-Weighted and Local Quality stacking let you push a little higher because sharper frames are emphasized.
-On Jupiter, keep captures short to avoid rotation blur rather than stacking too high.
-Mars usually rewards lower percentages because the disk is small and seeing-sensitive.
-The Moon has strong signal, so higher percentages often work well.
-If the image looks too smooth, reduce percentage before increasing sharpening.
-Keep notes of percentages that worked for each planet and seeing condition.