Astro-photography (open thread)

[jerryy]

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The Shadow is winning, the Moon is disappearing.

2 / 3.

[jerryy]

So far, it seems like the eclipse is no different visually in the sky than the normal waxing and waning. But as the Moon drifts deeper into the Shadow, the rest of the Moon re-appears tinted red.

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Full eclipse.

3 / 3.

[MARRIEDGUY9]

On 3/14/2025 at 2:44 PM, jerryy said:

So far, it seems like the eclipse is no different visually in the sky than the normal waxing and waning. But as the Moon drifts deeper into the Shadow, the rest of the Moon re-appears tinted red.

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Full eclipse.

3 / 3.

I love it!!!  I wanted to photograph it in DE, alas, it was cloudy!

[MARRIEDGUY9]

First attempt at a tracked photo, Orion, 16mm 1.4, shot at f2, 20 60 second exposures stacked, no editing done......yet. Welcome any tips/opinions.

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[jerryy]

9 hours ago, MARRIEDGUY9 said:

First attempt at a tracked photo, Orion, 16mm 1.4, shot at f2, 20 60 second exposures stacked, no editing done......yet. Welcome any tips/opinions.

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This is pretty good. How did you go about stacking the sub-frames?

I think once you recover from the fun you had, and decide to start editing, you will find a lot of detail in this image.

More please.

[MARRIEDGUY9]

Hi Jerry.......used Deep Sky Stacker and I was playing around with the photo in Pixinsight, I was pushing and pulling using GHS and I couldn't really see any differences or nebula...........I thought I was going to be able to see something.  I haven't tried separating the stars yet, thought about purchasing star exterminator.

[jerryy]

Hmmm, there are some things you might try.

Assuming you are using .raf frames, jpeg or tiff* frames do not work well for astro stuff, open one of the raw sub frames in your favorite raw converter (even Fujifilm’s Raw Converter will work) and push the ev exposure all the way to the right, in the + direction, as far as +3 ev or as far as it sill go. You should see nebula stuff showing up, it may be faint, but if that frame has any, you will see something. Based on the image you posted, there is a pretty good chance you have some of Barnard’s Loop hiding there.

You are probably using Windows since DSS does not run on macOS, have you considered using Siril https://siril.org ? It will work with .raf files without needing to convert them.

edit: I should also mention ASTAP: https://www.hnsky.org/astap.htm works with .raf files.

edit: Affinity Photo, which you have probably heard about more as an image editor, has an entire built in section for astrophotography and has some macros written by James Ritson (one of the developers) that some folks like.

Starnet is a free version of Star Exterminator, it works with both PixInsight and Siril or as a standalone app. It has its fans and detractors like any other plugin, but it may give you some help for stretching the starless nebula regions. https://www.starnetastro.com/download/

Welcome to the next, altogether different kind of fun step of astrophotography, processing the images. Very different from the fun of getting the images.

* tiff frames that are still linear will work, but tiff frames that come from converting raw frames do not work well because they have had a tone curve (essentially stretching the image) applied to them.

Edited April 5 by jerryy

[MARRIEDGUY9]

This is all GREAT information, thanks!  When I stacked the RAF files in DSS, I exported the stack as a TIFF.  I tried editing it in Pixinsight, but I did not get any nebula detail, per above.........I use Capture One as my "regular" photo edit software.  I did not import a RAW file into Capture One to see what was there.  I will also try your suggestions above, totally new to astro editing, sounds like a pretty cool hobby........not that I need another one. lol. 

[MARRIEDGUY9]

OK...........first attempt at screwing around in Siril, I have no idea what I'm doing, lol.  Wasn't sure how to get all of that bright schtuff out of the righthand side of the image.  Thanks for the ideas.......pretty cool stuff!

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[jerryy]

6 hours ago, MARRIEDGUY9 said:

OK...........first attempt at screwing around in Siril, I have no idea what I'm doing, lol.  Wasn't sure how to get all of that bright schtuff out of the righthand side of the image.  Thanks for the ideas.......pretty cool stuff!

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Very nice, I knew you would find some cool stuff there. You got Orion’s Nebula, the Flame Nebula, the Witch Head Nebula, Barnard’s Loop and a bunch more all in one 20 minute image!!

The “bright schtuff” on the right hand side is called a gradient, usually from a light pollution source — but it also could also be from the moon. Gradients are one of astros (astronomy, astro physics and astro photography) banes, discussions about them can get quite colorful at times. These are mostly fixable, but I am not in a good place this weekend to be able to explain how to deal with them in Siril. Hopefully, this coming week, I will be able to give you some pointers. Of course, the internet is chock full of tutorials about removing gradients and over in PixInsight land there is something called GradientXTerminator: https://www.rc-astro.com/software/gxt/

There is a standalone program: https://graxpert.com that may help you.

Siril does have built in tools for removing or diminishing them and I hope to be able to come back and give you some pointers.

Very well done!

p.s. The Milky Way season has started, right now in your area it should be visible around midnight or so — earlier as the season goes on. Your 16mm lens should get you some beautiful keepers.

[MARRIEDGUY9]

thanks Jerry.......I appreciate the jump start, prob would've taken me months to watch videos and figure it out........like I've done with everything related to photography in the last year and a half.  I've waited my whole life to get into it and I'm trying to go 100 mph and catch up.  been a lot of fun for sure!

[jerryy]

Part One

Note: this approach is for manually processing the sequences, it will not work for script-based processing. If it seems like I am glibly glossing over some steps, well it will seem like that. I am not trying to re-create the user manual or re-do the many tutorials and videos on the internet that more thoroughly work through these tools.

The idea of stacking is to take all of the individual frames, overlay them on top of the chosen one (the reference frame), align them based on the stars in the image, then merge them all together. This unfortunately also mushes in bad pixels which makes cleaning the final image tricky. So if the bad pixels are accounted for in each individual frame, editing the final image will be much easier. Or so the idea goes.

I will start with assuming you have gotten all of the images and any calibration frames you took loaded onto your computer into the appropriate folders, turned them into the fits format and then calibrated the individual sub frames (called pre-processing) and would normally be ready to begin registering the sequence for stacking.

Your screen should look something like this:

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It all be awfully dark, because the viewing mode is Linear. [This is actually what a raw frame looks like without any of the tone curve processing.] Change the view mode to AutoStretch and the screen will brighten up some:

It is normal at this point to see mostly green.

Cycle though the color channels and you will see that gradient show up, here it is in the lower left side:

Go back to the RGB channel and set the view mode to Histogram:

This will really make the gradient show up.

01/02

[jerryy]

Go up into the Image Processing menu and select Background Extraction...

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A new dialog window will open, set the Interpolation Method to Polynomial and Degree order: to 1. Do NOT click on any other options, these will be set manually.

Move the dialog window out of the way and then click on places in the main screen to place dots where you think the background should be "dark". Try to avoid places where there should be nebula parts (called appropriately enough -- nebulosity) and do not click on any stars. There is no need to put lots of dots there, a few goes a long way. If you make a mistake and want to remove a dot, right-click on that dot and it will be removed.

After you think you have enough dots, click on the Compute Background button and the window should change:

If things get weird, just hit the Cancel button and then try again, but Do Not Get Carried Away with trying to get this screen perfect, it is in a view mode that is used for diagnostic purposes, it not normally used for the final image.

Switch the view mode from Histogram to AutoStretch and you should see the gradient is considerably diminished for this one frame.

Now it is time to apply that to all the other frames.

Click the box for Apply to Sequence Output prefix bkg_ and click the Apply button -- Do not click the Close button, set back and let Siril process the sequence. The window will close when it is finished.

Okay, now continue onwards with registering and stacking the sequence.

This is the end of Part One. I am hoping to have Part Two up sooner or later.

02/02.

[MARRIEDGUY9]

awesome stuff Jerry, I really appreciate the information!  I may try to get a milky way shot on Assateague Island soon.......pretty dark there, at least for my neck of the woods.

[jerryy]

On 4/6/2025 at 7:42 PM, MARRIEDGUY9 said:

awesome stuff Jerry, I really appreciate the information!  I may try to get a milky way shot on Assateague Island soon.......pretty dark there, at least for my neck of the woods.

I am looking forward to seeing your images.

I am working on Part Two of the jump start guide for diminishing light pollution gradients and I do hope to have it up sooner rather than later.

This may help for focusing a wide angle lens: https://www.diyphotography.net/make-use-hartmann-mask-quick-easy-focusing/

You may have heard of things called Bahtinov masks or Carey masks, they work well — there are various discussions as which is better, Bahtinov masks are more well known, but once the lens’ focal length gets smaller than around 50mm or so, they are not useful because the diffraction pattern is almost invisible. The Hartmann masks works differently and can be used on  planets, the Moon, and stars. And, you can make it out of cardboard you have laying around the house.

Edited April 7 by jerryy

[MARRIEDGUY9]

I will try that...........I shot Orion at 16mm (Fujinon) and I used a 12mm Samyang last year when I shot the Milky Way.  thanks!

 

[jerryy]

Part Two

After stacking, you may find although the light gradient is diminished, there is still a gradient or two or more in your image. As you are tracking the sky object throughout the night, gradient sources can change, sources may wander in and out of your region of interest or your lens' field of view. After stacking, you can try extracting the background, again using a degree one polynomial or a higher degree polynomial to diminish more complicated gradient patterns. You may have to split the sequence into parts and work on the diminishing the gradient in the parts, putting the sequence back together and then move onto registering and stacking things. Gradients are ... hmm, not nice. (Oh yes, you can get them from bright stars as well, Alnitak is very famous and gives its regards.)

But there is a tool you can try before resorting to such measures. Right after stacking, with the view mode in AutoStretch:

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Open up the Image Processing menu and select Background Extraction... but this time choose the RBF method:

Change the View Mode to Histogram and just as in Part One, place some dots where the background should be 'dark".

Once you think you have enough dots (a few still goes a long way) click on the Compute Background and take a look:

If the image looks okay, click on the Apply button, close the BG extraction window and you are ready to continue on with your regularly scheduled editing and processing.

There are plenty of tutorials out there more thoroughly discussing finer points of using these tools, but those are waaaaaay beyond this jumpstart guide, hopefully this is enough to be able to get you going 😀.

This is the end of Part Two.

Uh, some notes: Save your work and save often! Stuff Happens, Murphy was an optimist. Also, you may have observed there a lot of large-sized intermediate files with the .fit extension littering your folders. The only one you really need, after the project is finished, is the stacked image, its file name should end something like ... _stacked.fit, the other files are intermediate development files and you can toss them. You may want to keep the .raf files in case you want to go back later and try something different.

[MARRIEDGUY9]

Thanks again for this!!!!.......I will try to reprocess using these tips...............it's been super crappy here lately in DE, either cloudy/rainy or windy.  I was hoping to get out before the end of the month and try to snap a photograph of the comet, I read an article that says it's visible low in the Eastern sky before sunrise, perfect for Bethany beach, we'll see how it goes.

[jerryy]

1 hour ago, MARRIEDGUY9 said:

Thanks again for this!!!!.......I will try to reprocess using these tips...............it's been super crappy here lately in DE, either cloudy/rainy or windy.  I was hoping to get out before the end of the month and try to snap a photograph of the comet, I read an article that says it's visible low in the Eastern sky before sunrise, perfect for Bethany beach, we'll see how it goes.

Hopefully the weather will let you get some fun time outdoors for this. You might get several tries:

https://starwalk.space/en/news/upcoming-comets

 

Edited April 12 by jerryy

[jerryy]

Back on Page 4 of this thread is a brief excerpt about Coma Berenices. At the bottom of the constellation lies Messier Object M-53.

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This is the equivalent of an exposure that is a little less than 17 minutes.

A Closer Look on a different day:

This is the exposure equivalent of a little more than 45 minutes.

NASA used the Hubble and got a pretty good shot of M53:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-53/

About Berenice: https://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/coma-berenices-constellation/

 

[MARRIEDGUY9]

playing with trails at Assateague Island.......bout an hour and a half, Milky Way rising in the bottom throughout

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[jerryy]

10 hours ago, MARRIEDGUY9 said:

playing with trails at Assateague Island.......bout an hour and a half, Milky Way rising in the bottom throughout

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Awesome!

[MARRIEDGUY9]

Not super happy, but pleased, going back soon for more milky way action!  Assateague Island in late April.

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[jerryy]

On 6/9/2025 at 2:29 AM, MARRIEDGUY9 said:

Not super happy, but pleased, going back soon for more milky way action!  Assateague Island in late April.

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I hope you are able to get out and see the many wonderful sights!!!

Locally, weeellll, mostly we have had this during the days and something similar during the nights. Arrgh!!!😃

For completenesses sake, clouds did clear away in time for the Strawberry Full Moon and the smoke from the wildfires... The clouds are back.

Edited June 17 by jerryy

[jerryy]

Sometimes questions about cameras' resolution and astrophotography pop up. More often the questions are noise related, but 'are more pixels better' has its fans.

'Sometimes, it depends' is about the best answer out there.

I think maybe it is better to instead ask back 'do you use your camera for daytime photography as well and do you like the images you get?' If so, then stick with the camera you have.

Everything from pixel size to smoke levels or turbulence in the atmosphere to the telescopes' optical limits and so much more impact how images turn out. There are so many rabbit holes to fall into, that if you go down into them, it may be many years before anyone sees you come up for air. 😄

There are two things though that can be said 'with certainty' about using a higher resolution camera in place of your current gear:

1.     The angle of view becomes wider in the higher resolution camera's image. Think of it as if you use a normal lens to get a photo, then put on a wide angle lens and take the same photo. The region covered by the higher resolution camera is wider.

2.     The supporting equipment; mount, tripod, image processing gear, etc. etc. become much more [expletive deleted] expensive 😇, that is you need a sturdier tripod and mount, more computer -- drive space and powerful processors, and so forth and so on. 

From last night's Sturgeon Moon, an example:

Both of these images are taken of the same subject using the same lens, at just about the same time, but with two different camera bodies. I got a first set of images, took the first camera body off of the lens, put the second camera body onto the lens and got a second set of images.

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Tamron 150-600mm at 600mm. F16, 1/60s, ISO 160. 6240 pixels x 4160 pixels.

Tamron 150-600mm at 600mm. F16, 1/60s, ISO 200. 4896 pixels x 3264 pixels.

Okay, so they look the same or close enough. That is because both images have been scaled to 900 pixels wide. That and the essentially empty backgrounds are misleading.

Here are crops from the full size images:

1801 x 1505 pixels (scaled to 900 pixels wide in this image) from 6240 x 4160 pixels leaves 4439 pixels wide for other stuff.

1178 x 1205 pixels (scaled to 900 pixels wide in this image) from 4896 x 3264 pixels leaves 3718 pixels wide for other stuff.

If you like your camera's images, use it for daytime and night photography. There is not much good in chasing resolution hoping more pixels will better resolve astronomical objects just like they do in the daytime images, making the fluff on distant bird feathers pop out.

As a thought, those beautiful images from the Hubble are made using "The UV/optical channel has two CCDs, each 2048×4096 pixels, while the IR detector is 1024×1024." (*1) The new James Webb Telescope is using an array of 4 megapixel cameras similar to how terrestrial giga-pixel images are made. (*2) I believe other agencies such as the European Space Agency (ESA) do something similar with their gear.

*1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Field_Camera_3

*2 https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/58179/4-megapixels-seems-rather-low-why-werent-james-webbs-sensors-updated-to-highe

Sturgeon Super Moon: https://nasaspacenews.com/2025/08/sturgeon-moon-2025-two-magical-nights-under-one-full-moon/

 

edited to upload the correct cropped images.

 

Edited August 11 by jerryy