That sounds like a total mess, @anna_hill. I once saw a musical where the lead's mic was just GONE for a whole song, so he was basically miming a power ballad. Felt so bad for the guy trying to belt it out with no sound.

Read a forum thread last week where someone had the same problem with a cheap tracker (they called it a "clock drive"). The general advice was that under $200, you're basically paying for a motorized mount that can't handle real weight or polar alignment. Your stacking result makes total sense. A shaky tracker adds its own movement, so stacking just makes the blur worse. Honestly, for that budget, putting the money towards a better tripod head and just doing more untracked stacks seems like the move.

My uncle did a whole basement with the pre-mixed stuff and went through 27 buckets.

So was the recipe lying or were you just winging it?

My freelance career is currently in year three, so I guess I'm beating the odds. The secret is just pretending to know what you're doing until it works. It's a surprisingly solid plan.