c/astronomy-photos

10

emma96•3d ago

Stacking photos of Andromeda took me 4 HOURS to get right

I spent forever trying to figure out why my stacked images looked blurry. Turns out I was using the wrong alignment setting in DSS, wasted 4 hours that could have been spent actually capturing data. Did you guys figure out your stacking settings fast or did it take you ages too?

2

the_alex•4d ago

Widefield vs closeup on the Orion Nebula - I chose wrong

I spent a clear night last winter trying to decide between a 135mm lens for the whole constellation or a 500mm scope to zoom in on the nebula core. Went with the 500mm because I wanted detail, but ended up with a blurry mess because my tracking mount couldnt handle the longer focal length. The 2 minute subs were all streaky and I wasted 4 hours freezing my fingers off. Anyone else regret going too narrow too fast with their gear?

6

brooke_jones•4d ago

Looking at that nebula photo from Kitt Peak last Tuesday really changed how I see the night sky

I was just browsing the sub and saw that sharp image of the Orion Nebula taken from Kitt Peak last week. It hit me that those fuzzy blobs I can barely see through my cheap backyard scope are actually giant clouds of gas where stars are being born. Three years ago I would have just scrolled past and thought it was a cool picture. Now I'm sitting here wondering if anyone else has that moment where a photo makes you feel really small but in a good way?

5

val_shah•6d ago

Just hit 10,000 stars in one astro photo and had to double check

I was stacking frames of the Orion Nebula last night and my software showed 10,247 stars detected in a single sub. That seemed way too high so I counted a few random sections and averaged it out. Turns out even with my modest 80mm scope, a 2-minute exposure picks up way more points of light than I expected. Has anyone else been surprised by how many faint stars their setup can actually resolve?

10

barbara_jenkins66•7d ago

Ran into a guy at a star party in Arizona who showed me how to stack 30-second exposures on a free app.

He pulled out his phone and walked me through DeepSkyStacker right there under the dark sky, and I finally got a decent shot of the Orion Nebula without spending a dime on fancy software, anyone else discover a free tool that changed how they shoot?

1

betty_perry24•9d ago

Hot take: That 'Andromeda through a telescope' photo everyone loves is staged and here's why

I keep seeing people post those super zoomed-in Andromeda shots claiming they're single exposures through an 8-inch scope, but there's no way because Andromeda is actually pretty small visually through most amateur gear. Am I missing something or are people just stacking 50 exposures and calling it a single shot to sound cool?

6

jenny_lee•10d ago

Random reddit comment made me fix my star stacking

Somebody said my Milky Way mosaic had tram lines from not dithering enough between frames. I went from 5 pixel dithers to 20 pixel ones and the gradient literally vanished overnight.

16

maxl93•12d ago

Driving home from Sedona and noticed something weird about the sky

I was coming back from a job near Flagstaff last month and pulled over near Oak Creek Canyon around 10pm. The sky was so clear you could see the Milky Way just pouring across, but what really got me was how different it looked compared to when I was a kid. Back then, you could see that same river of stars even out in the suburbs, not just way out in the desert. Has anyone else noticed how much light pollution has crept into places that used to be dark?

27

wilson.olivia•13d ago

Read a forum post claiming Hubble images are 'overprocessed' and it made me laugh

Some guy on Reddit said Hubble photos are basically fake because NASA tweaks the colors. I tried explaining that raw space data doesn't look like anything to the naked eye, you have to stretch the signal to see the detail. He called me a shill. Ever tried explaining basic image processing to someone who thinks they're smarter than astrophotographers?

11

baker.christopher•15d ago

Just realized stacking ND filters beats buying a variable one

I read a post from a guy who shoots Milky Way photos near Flagstaff. He said he tried three different variable ND filters and all of them gave him weird X cross patterns in his images. He switched to stacking a 6-stop and a 10-stop screw-on filter and said the color shift was way less noticeable. I tried it last weekend on a lake shot near my town and he was right. The stacked combo cost me about 45 bucks total. Anyone else ditch the variable ND filters for stacked ones?

14

troyknight•15d ago

The one thing that finally made my Milky Way shots pop

I spent like 2 years stacking astro photos and wondering why my Milky Way always looked muddy and flat compared to other people's stuff. Then a guy on YouTube casually mentioned that he darkens the black point in his raw converter before even touching the curves. I tried it last month on a shot from a dark site near Flagstaff and the difference was immediate. The dust lanes actually had depth instead of just being a gray smear. Anyone else been doing this the whole time and just never said anything?

26

bailey.jennifer•16d ago

Went back to a photo I took from my backyard 3 years ago and noticed something I totally missed

I was looking through old files last month and found this shot of the Orion Nebula I took from my driveway in Phoenix. At the time I thought it was just okay, but zooming in now I can see a faint little arc of gas I never caught before. It's not much, but it made me wonder how many other hidden details are sitting in our old photos. Has anyone else found surprises in their old astro shots?

29

julia_carter61•16d ago

Just realized most astro photos from the desert have this weird warm tint

I was looking through my shots from a trip to the Mojave last October and every single one has this orange glow near the horizon even though the sky was pitch black. It took me a while to figure out it was light bouncing off all that dry dirt and dust in the air. Anyone else notice this when shooting in arid places?

12

logan_wood•16d ago

Showerthought: That Orion photo I took last week would have blown my mind 3 years ago but now it feels average

3 years ago I spent $400 on a used DSLR and a tripod to get a blurry blob of the Andromeda galaxy, but last week my phone mounted to a $50 tracker pulled out way more detail than that old setup ever could, what little piece of gear made the biggest jump for you?

13

anthonynelson•17d ago

Stacking 200 moon shots taught me something about focus

I kept getting blurry edges until I realized I was refocusing on the wrong crater each time. Anyone else drop their first 100 frames because of a tiny focus ring shift?

0

anthonynelson•18d ago

The night I realized my telescope was out of focus for 3 months

I kept getting these blurry shots of Jupiter and couldn't figure out why. My neighbor Dave came over last Tuesday and asked if I'd ever checked the collimation on my reflector. I thought 'collimation' was some fancy term I didn't need to worry about, you know? Turns out my primary mirror was way off, and after 5 minutes with a cheap laser collimator, the image snapped right into crystal clear focus. Has anyone else made that same dumb mistake with their scope?

5

ivan_harris•19d ago

Tried stacking 200 photos of the moon last night and my laptop just gave up

I was out on my balcony around 11pm trying to get a decent shot of the lunar surface with my Canon T7. Thought I'd try stacking like 200 frames in Registax to really bring out the craters. But after about 30 minutes of processing, my 5 year old Dell just froze up completely and I had to force restart it lol. Ended up using only 50 frames instead and it turned out okay I guess. The detail on the rims of Copernicus crater was still pretty sharp though. Has anyone else had their computer choke on a big stack like that?

7

troychen•19d ago

Warning on that $50 moon filter I bought

I dropped $50 on a 'high contrast' moon filter off Amazon for my 8 inch dob, thinking it would cut glare during the full moon. It turned my sharp lunar view into a blurry mess with weird color rings around craters. Anyone else get burned by cheap filters or have a brand that actually works?

10

wendy_henderson21•20d ago

Critic said my nebula shots had bad star color - now I calibrate everything in Siril first

Someone on here pointed out that all my stars looked the same blue-white and I realized they were right. Now I spend 10 minutes doing photometric color calibration before any stretch. Does anyone else find it makes a bigger difference than the actual nebula processing?

14

the_oliver•24d ago

A cloudy night in Boulder taught me a better way to stack astrophotos

I've been messing with stacking astrophotography for like 6 months and always ended up with weird gradients or blurry stars. I thought you had to use the fancy settings in DSS or PixInsight to get good results. Then last week I went out to a spot near Boulder and shot 400 frames of the Andromeda galaxy on my old Canon. A guy at the trailhead told me to just try the 'average' stacking mode instead of 'median' or 'sigma clipping'. I was skeptical but figured why not. It cut out all the satellite trails and plane streaks in one pass without me having to tweak anything. Now I look like I actually know what I'm doing. Has anyone else had luck with a simple setting change that made stacking way easier?

8

spencer_gonzalez1•24d ago

Stumbled on a light pollution filter tip from a guy at Cherry Springs

Was at Cherry Springs State Park last August and a guy with a massive telescope showed me you can stack two cheaper filters instead of buying one expensive one. Has anyone else tried doubling up on filters like that?

6

fiona_kim97•26d ago

Hot take: that picture of the Andromeda galaxy from last week was way overprocessed

I get that everyone wants their astro photos to pop but that thread on the front page looked like someone cranked the saturation to 200% and clipped the highlights on purpose. Real space doesn't look like a neon sign. I've been shooting deep sky stuff for about 5 years now and I'm not saying my edits are perfect but that blue glow around the core was just fake looking. Am I the only one who actually prefers the raw stacked frames where you can still see the natural color gradient?

4

phoenix_grant•27d ago

Got roasted for my star trails having uneven gaps

A guy on here pointed out my 30-second exposures had 5-second gaps between them and they looked choppy. Switched to continuous shooting with an intervalometer and the trails came out silky smooth, anyone else get a basic thing wrong for way too long?

14

barbara_jenkins66•27d ago

Warning: Spent 6 months framing astro shots wrong before a park ranger set me straight

I was over at Cherry Springs State Park in Pennsylvania last month and this ranger walked by while I was stacking frames on my laptop. He just casually pointed out I had my tracking speed set to solar rate instead of sidereal for deep sky objects. I'd been doing that since I bought my mount in March and wondered why my stars always had tiny trails after 60 seconds. Has anyone else had a dumb setting mess up months of data without realizing it?

19

thomasgonzalez•28d ago

That talk with my dad about star photos hit me hard

He mentioned how the Hubble deep field image is just a tiny empty patch of sky. Said there are more galaxies in that photo than grains of sand on earth. Then he asked why I only take pictures of bright, easy stuff like the moon. It made me realize I was barely scratching the surface. Anyone else feel stuck taking the same basic photos?

Astronomy Photos - Vivisector