[Gavin1234]

Just a question about integration in PixInsight. I’ve been told many times that taking some long exposure subs plus some shorter ones will help my image so I’ve done exactly that.

As an example I have a whole bunch of subs of helix ranging from 15 minutes right down to 10 secs. To keep this example simple let’s say I have
50 x 30 sec lights
50 x 30 sec darks
10 x 5 min lights
10 x 5 min darks
50 x flats
250 x bias

So first question is that I’ve been assuming when people tell me to take long and short exposures they mean that I should stack them all together. Is that correct or do I make a separate images and then copy one onto the other as a layer?

Next question, do I mix them all together I.e just ignore the fact that they’re two different length exposures or do I make 1 x 5 min master dark and 1 x 30 sec master dark etc and then just stack the final two calibrated, aligned, debayered, registered images together?

Any links to tutorials on this would be greatly appreciated. I haven’t been able to find one yet. I would prefer to do it manually instead of batch pre processing if at all possible.

Thanks in advance