GIMP for combining astrophotos?

[Zatnikitelman]

It looks like I'll get getting a new telescope soon (6" Schmidt-Cassegrain) and with its equitorial mount, makes it better for astrophotography.
I was wondering if anyone used GIMP for combining multiple exposures of perhaps the same area of sky. Like maybe I could take 5-6 pictures of the Orion nebula, then combine all the pics together to produce a brighter, sharper etc. picture from those.
If GIMP's not the best, then are there any freeware programs out there that are better?
Thanks,
Zat

 

[TSPenguin]

If you have distinct features (Moon, planets and nebulae) I can highly recommend RegiStax. I don't know how well it will perform with a starfield.

 

[McWgogs]

RegiStax works fine with star fields, and even if it mis aligns the stars, you can manually point the same star and the program will then align them perfectly. I highly recommend it.

 

[tblaxland]

Some good info in this thread that would be applicable to GIMP:
http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=5236&highlight=registax

Also, a thread on using a compact camera for sky photos:
http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=2723&highlight=registax

 

[Messierhunter]

Not sure what kind of camera you have or are planning to use, but here is some freeware I use for all my deep space stacking:
http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/index.html