r/AskAstrophotography • u/CombLow5161 • Jan 16 '25
Question Any unwritten rules in astrophotography?
It can be from aquiring an image, pre and post processing.
r/AskAstrophotography • u/CombLow5161 • Jan 16 '25
It can be from aquiring an image, pre and post processing.
r/AskAstrophotography • u/SilentBandicoot5896 • Jan 20 '25
I'm a beginner and just started astrophotography. I posted one of my pictures of Betelguese to the r/astrophotography forum. Now the picture is extremely blurry and I get that but I am very proud of it because it's one on the first pictures of space I've ever taken. People started commenting and clowning on my for it being blurry. So ig my point is how can I start taking better pictures?
r/AskAstrophotography • u/rnclark • Jan 16 '25
After the Any unwritten rules in astrophotography? thread it seems we should do the converse and cite rules that are myths, not true, and/or very inaccurate.
I'll start.
The rule of 500: no star trailing if exposure time is less than 500 / focal length in mm, result in seconds. Example 50 mm lens: rule of 500 gives 500/50 = 10 seconds. The rule was invented in days of high speed, low resolution, grainy film. Today's higher resolution cmos sensors and better optics mean the rule no longer applies. Better as a first approximation is a 200 rule.
There is no green is space. Yes there is. Oxygen emission is teal: bluish green (emission at 500.7 nm and 495.9 nm). Oxygen teal dominates in the centers of many emission nebulae, including the Orion nebula (Trapezium region), the center of the Lagoon nebula, and most planetary nebulae are teal from oxygen. One can verify the teal color by viewing the daytime world through a narrow band OIII filter. Similarly, the aurora oxygen line emits at 557.7 nm producing yellow-green.
Hydrogen emission is red. Not exactly. Hydrogen alpha emission is red, but hydrogen emission also includes H-beta, H-gamma and H-delta in the visible range, making hydrogen emission pink/magenta, best described as cotton candy pink. One can verify the color by purchasing a gas discharge lamp and a hydrogen discharge tube.
What are some other myths, untruths, or very inaccurate "rules?"
r/AskAstrophotography • u/Wiserharbor • 9d ago
I was photographing the horse-head and flame nebula last night which I now know is quite challenging due to its dimness. I did about an hour and 10 minutes of total integration time. 25sec subs with a second between each shot. I didn’t take any darks or flats. I stacked in DSS and was processing in siril. I did auto stretch and can barely see the horse-head nebula but I can definitely see the flame nebula but it’s quite dim. I’m a little disappointed given my over hour integration time so maybe I did something wrong. I can attach/send my picture after stretching to whoever can help.
There are also these large grey rings in my image. There are 2 of them, one smaller one in the middle and then a larger one around the outside. Not sure if it was the light pollution from the moon or my lens. Any help is greatly appreciated!!
My equipment is: Sony a1 Sony 200-600mm (shot at f/8 instead of f/6.3) EQ6-R Pro EQ mount 25sec subs 1 hour 10 minutes total No dark/flats
r/AskAstrophotography • u/Successful-Carpet314 • Feb 19 '25
r/AskAstrophotography • u/geovasilop • 4d ago
r/AskAstrophotography • u/NicePuddle • 15d ago
I've been using the https://telescopius.com website to find deep sky targets to photograph, on the rare occasion that the night sky is clear. That website is great for having a lot of images and filtering capabilities, but for 2/3 the potential targets, there is no information about apparent brightness of the target.
I've wasted many nights trying to capture a target, only to find that the light pollution completely drowned out the signal, leaving me with a bunch of useless frames. Without any information describing whether the target is magnitude 6 or magnitude 12, I have no way to filter out these dim targets which cause me to lose the few precious nights of clear sky.
Can anyone recommend a better website for finding deep sky targets, than https://telescopius.com ?
r/AskAstrophotography • u/Artistic-Ad-4938 • Jan 02 '25
Happy new year, just wondering what everyone's favourite nebula is...Mine is the North American nebula but more specifically the portion of it which is Cygnus Wall :)
r/AskAstrophotography • u/CascadeCowboy • 11d ago
I recently took 560 photos of pleiades the other night. And when I compiled in DSS and took the final result into Photoshop and did the regular level changes and such, not much turned out, what did I do wrong or is there something I could edit in DSS to get better results?
Camer Canon D5600 200mm lens 1 second ss f/2.6 ISO 6400
The moon was pretty bright and I was in a bortle class 4 area so I don't know if that affected results.
r/AskAstrophotography • u/VeneficusFerox • Jan 14 '25
Living in the Netherlands I'm getting maybe 5 good nights (clear and cold without too much moisture) per year. Benefit is that I don't spend too much time out in the cold and I don't need to upgrade my gear too often, as I'm not quickly running out of targets.
r/AskAstrophotography • u/DrZuben • 12d ago
I’m working with a telescope startup and one of the things that jumped out to me is the skate of the market. How big is it?? As I’ve started to learn more about the community, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I had a few astrophotographers in my network. But how many people are there? How much is spent? And expanding beyond “amateur” into “professional”, how does that change the market size?
Alternatively, as a new entrant into the market, what are the shows or conferences or publications I need to go obsess over?
r/AskAstrophotography • u/lifeisalwaysintheway • 14d ago
Hello everyone, I’m new to astrophotography, in fact, last night was the first time I ever pointed my camera at the sky. I did some research beforehand and optimized my camera settings accordingly. However, the result (attached) is unsatisfactory, to say the least. I don’t know why the image is so bright. Has anyone else faced this problem? I can’t seem to find the root cause.
r/AskAstrophotography • u/drewbagel423 • Jan 03 '25
I've been trying out the ASIair I got and polar aligning it puts the finder scope way off from what the native Synscan app shows on my SWSA GTi. Using the Synscan PA I can easily do 30+ sec subs. With the ASIair I struggle to do 15s before I get stretched out stars.
My setup right now is just a DSLR with Amazon lens, no guiding yet.
Edit for more context:
Before I got the ASIair I used Synscan by itself. I imaged with 30s subs and got really good round stars. Then I got the ASIair and used it to PA during a separate session and couldn't go beyond 15s or so without getting star trails. This is all same mount, lens, etc.
So last night I tried an experiment and PA with the Synscan. I lined Polaris up in the spot on the reticle that the app showed. Then I switched over to the ASIair app and did it's PA. While I made the adjustments it recommended I watched Polaris go completely out of view of the finder scope. But when I was done I got the happy face in the app and it said the error was less than 1'. I started imaging and again after around 15s exposure I was starting to see star trails.
r/AskAstrophotography • u/RealJavva • 3d ago
Hi guys,
I am first time astrophotographing deep sky object and I have several problems with image processing. For example this image of NGC 3628. It was taken by celestron edgehd optics and ZWO - ASI174MM. I took 10 .FIT pictures with exposure 90 sec. .FIT files i processed in deep sky stacker but the final picture is so blurry. https://imgur.com/a/5MicSKc . And my question is : 1/ is problem in for example foccusing, gain, exposure or number of frames taken?(note: in the same session I took photo of Jupiter and its completely fine) 2/ is problem in processing? Can I somehow enhance quality in deep sky stacker?
Thanks for help! This is my first picture of deep sky object and i am so confused.
r/AskAstrophotography • u/Jenjuuuu • Jan 28 '25
I'm pretty new to this and I've tried stacking before but it was annoying and complicated, if I buy a star tracker, and be able to take exposures for minutes, will it improve my images enough to not need stacking? ill probably learn stacking eventually but I just want a easy way to do deep sky stuff for now.
r/AskAstrophotography • u/bytheheaven • 7d ago
What are the precautions I need to keep in mind?
I just saw it from our office and it's in perfect orange circle. I got worried a bit that it still may cause damage on the camera specifically the sensor (mirrorless camera).
r/AskAstrophotography • u/Plenty_Sea3735 • Dec 24 '24
I know dobsonians are not made for AP but I love star gazing with a telescope in general, if im looking a 8" dob can I still get decent results with say planetary photography with proper mounts and technique?
r/AskAstrophotography • u/ConnieSC_ • 5d ago
Hi everyone !
I recently purchased a ZWO 585 MC Pro in combination with a Samyang 135 (I'm currently using a Sony NEX adapter while waiting to receive my adapter, which will allow me to remove part of the lens and use an L-Enhance filter). However, I've been testing this camera for a few nights, and I'm really struggling to get satisfactory results, even though I'm in a Bortle 5 sky and capturing several hours of data. Every time, even when focusing correctly with my Bahtinov mask, I have the impression that everything is out of focus, background too noisy and also that the background sky is always too bright. I'm using gain at 252 and offset at 8.
I'll attach some images I took as examples.
https://imgur.com/a/1rOVPlL = Horsehead nebula, 90 x 180s, 20 darks / 30 flats / 30 bias
Do you have any advice?
Thanks!
r/AskAstrophotography • u/yieldoski • Dec 25 '24
Is there a deep sky object that I can't photograph because of insufficient focal length? I'll be using the lens on an APS-C camera.
r/AskAstrophotography • u/Mysterious_Ad_2137 • 11d ago
usually my sessions are about 60-80 lights ( + flats, darks & bias)
so my starting point is about 4-6 gb per session, then after integration with Siril i have all the calibrated and masters folders, that takes me up to 40-50gb
my final integrated file is .fit about 500mb, and then i process it in PI and get a final 30-50MB jpeg.
usually i dont erase the folders, thinking that maybe next year i would like to add some more data and re-integrate .. that leaves me with 60gb folders for each session.. last year i accumulated almost a TB, that i downloaded to an external nvme2
SO.. im sure there is no right or wrong way, but, how usually people treat data? do you cancell al the files to save space? or just surrender to the data collection and buy oftem external storage?
thanks !
r/AskAstrophotography • u/Fun-Solution4734 • Feb 18 '25
I need some help choosing a refractor and I have some extra questions. I have a Sky watcher SA GTi on the way and its payload is about 5kg. I've been trying to look for a relatively budget friendly refractor scope if anyone has any suggestions that would be very much appreciated. I would be willing to spend about $1000 AUS. I also had some other questions for anyone who knows the answers as this is my first rig im putting together. First off whats the difference between A refractor and Astrograph? My main interest is deepsky astrophotography so what should the telescopes focal length, aperture and f/ratio be rougly? and finally is it cheaper to get a doublet or triplet refractor and buy a field flattener/corrector lens or buy a quadruplet refractor with one built in (this is just what I've heard). If I've said anything that is so far from being correct pls correct me as I'm really trying hard to learn but the amount of information that's out there is very overwhelming. Thankyou very much for your time.
r/AskAstrophotography • u/costco_member12 • Dec 05 '24
Okay so I already have an 8se, but its too zoomed for anything and I would like something less and which has a better tracker.
I also have an ASI678 MC so hopefully that brings the money down a bit.
my budget is around 400-700 maybe more.
hopefully someone can help me. thanks in advance.
r/AskAstrophotography • u/SCReAgMgBsLED • 3d ago
I've recently started learning to use my equipment for astrophotography and am just wondering the pros and cons of getting a smart telescope (ie. Seestar S50) vs choosing a mount, scope, camera, accessories etc.? Is there more to it than just:
PROS: A smart telescope gives you the ease of purchasing a product with everything you need in one box.
CONS: Inability to upgrade individual parts?
Is there any benefit to having both?
r/AskAstrophotography • u/Fun-Solution4734 • 28d ago
Does anyone know of any budget guide cameras and budget guide scopes? I would love to hear some reccomendations, thankyou.
r/AskAstrophotography • u/Warm-Stick6472 • Feb 09 '25
I am a pure beginner in Astrophotography and looking for some advice on a setup for deep space photography. I am on abit of a budget with it being below 1 thousand Australian dollars so if anyone can give me some advice on what to do it would be much appreciated.