[codemonkey (Lee)]

I've never binned RGB before (actually never done much RGB at all until recently), but I'm questioning whether I should start doing it.

Analysis of recent images using PI's Sky limited exposure script suggests the following unbinned exposure times:

L = 480s
R = 956s
G = 1461s
B = 2992s

So that's about 38min exposures for blue to be at the beginning of "sky limited". I've been aiming for an arbitrary 5 subs RGB lately, with 30+ for L. Doing a mere 5 blue subs is over 3hrs, and that's assuming none of them get trashed. While I'm sure I'd have great data if I did it, I'm not sure if I have the patience for that just yet.

I'm considering binning my RGB, and then drizzling it 4x (L will be drizzled 2x) to combat this, but I'm not sure if this would be doing me more harm than good.

I had been adding my RGB to the L to improve SNR, but obviously if I start doing this I'll no longer be able to do that.

Thoughts?