Welcome to Our Alpha Shooters Community Forum

We'd love to welcome you on board, join today!

A7R5: 15 mp vs 61 mp for star tracker astro shots?

rcreamer

Newcomer
Followers
0
Following
0
Joined
Dec 17, 2025
Posts
13
Likes Received
13
Trophy Points
3
Name
Richard Creamer
CC Welcome
  1. Yes
I was wondering, does anyone knows if the 4x additional memory/processing burden for 61 mp vs 15 mp for high-iso star tracker tracked images is worth it? [A7R5]

Especially since:

• The 15 mp doesn't need Bayer interpolation vs the 61 mp which does

• The inherently lower pixel data value accuracy for low-brightness high-iso images

• The cumulative minor sub-pixel alignment (registration) errors when stacking dozens of noisy images with lens abberations, imperfect polar alignment, etc

• The additional SDXC card, hard drive, memory footprint + the additional CPU burden through all the post processing steps

I'm just getting started with a Star Adventurer GTi and knowing that 15 mp data is essentially as good as 61 mp data would greatly reduce the memory and processing time.

Thanks in advance.

PS: I'm new here so any suggestions on how to improve this posting such as Tags are welcome.
 

* Please Consider Becoming a Site Supporter To Remove These Ads *

Update:

About 10 minutes ago I entered a tweaked version of my original post/question below into [Perplexity] [dot] [ai].

Its answer is: go with 15 mp for astro.

I decided not to withdraw my question/post here because it may very well be of interest to other astrophotographers here. Also, I'd enjoy any discussion of this topic here:)

I recommend pasting the below into Perplexity as I certainly learned a thing or two:)

-------

Question text entered into Perplexity:

I was wondering, is the 4x additional memory/processing burden for 61 mp vs 15 mp for high-iso star tracker tracked images is worth it? [A7R5]

Note: this question is not about capturing 61 mp and then downsizing that to 15 mp. It is about capturing 15 mp images natively in-camera using the Sony a7r5's 15 mp lossless compression raw capture mode.

Especially since:

• The 15 mp doesn't need Bayer interpolation vs the 61 mp which does

• The inherently lower pixel data value accuracy for low-brightness high-iso images

• The cumulative minor sub-pixel alignment (registration) errors when stacking dozens of noisy images with lens abberations, imperfect polar alignment, etc

• The additional SDXC card, hard drive, memory footprint + the additional CPU burden through all the post processing steps

I'm just getting started with a Star Adventurer GTi and knowing that 15 mp data is essentially as good as 61 mp data would greatly reduce the memory and processing time.
 
I must admint, i dont know anything about astrophotography.
 

New in Marketplace

Back
Top