c/astronomy-photos

Stacked my first astrophoto against a pro's and it hurt my pride

I spent like 4 hours stacking and editing a shot of the Andromeda Galaxy in DeepSkyStacker (you know, the free one). Then I saw my buddy's result from PixInsight and it was night and day. His colors popped way more and the noise was almost gone. I used 120 light frames at 60 seconds each and he used 90. But his software somehow pulled out way more detail. Is it really just the tool or am I missing some secret setting? Has anyone else made the switch and felt the pain of 30 hours wasted?

Spent a whole night deciding between a tracking mount and a star tracker

Tbh I was stuck trying to pick between a motorized equatorial mount and a simple Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer for my DSLR. The mount would set me back about $1200 but let me do deep space stuff later on. The tracker was only $400 and I could take it hiking without killing my back. I went with the tracker after reading a bunch of forum posts and honestly it was the right call for now. Got some decent 2 minute exposures of Orion last Thursday and the results were way better than I expected. Has anyone here regretted going with a full mount instead of starting small?

A quick chat at the observatory open house changed my view on stacking software

I was at the local astronomy club's open house last Saturday night. This older guy named Tom was showing me his picture of the Andromeda Galaxy on a tablet. I mentioned I spend hours messing with DSS settings to get my stacks right. He laughed and said he just uses the default settings in his stacking program and moves on. He told me he'd rather be outside taking more frames than inside tweaking sliders. That hit me because I've been wasting whole nights on software. Now I just run my subs through with basic settings and get to the fun part. Has anyone else had a moment like that where you realized you were overcomplicating things?

Hot take: I spent 3 years using the wrong stacking mode on my deep sky images

I been stacking my nebula photos with 'average' mode since I started astrophotography back in 2020. Last week I watched a tutorial where the guy said 'median' stacking removes satellite trails and hot pixels way better. I tried it on a 2 hour shot of Orion and the background noise was so much cleaner. Has anyone else blown hours of integration time because of a wrong setting?

That $85 lunar filter I bought was a total bust on my first full moon shoot

Spent 85 bucks on a variable polarizing moon filter thinking it would cut the glare for better crater detail, but it just made the whole image look hazy and soft - has anyone found a filter that actually works for lunar photography without breaking the bank?

Tried stacking photos of the Milky Way from my backyard in Phoenix last week

I live in Phoenix, so light pollution is a nightmare for astrophotography. Last week I decided to finally try stacking some shots of the Milky Way using free software I found online. I took about 40 raw images with my old DSLR on a cheap tripod, each one at 15 seconds exposure. The stacking process took forever on my laptop, like over an hour just running the alignment. The final result actually turned out way better than I expected, with some faint dust lanes showing up. But I'm getting a lot of weird color halos around bright stars in the final image. Has anyone else dealt with this kind of color fringing after stacking, and is there a trick to fix it in the software settings?

Just realized I've been framing moon shots way too tight for months

I was looking at my stacked moon photos from last month and noticed they look like a boring white ball. Then I saw someone's shot that included some tree silhouettes and landscape and it clicked, I was zooming in so much I lost all context. Anyone else make that mistake starting out?

Three hours to figure out why my star photos all had weird streaks... was just a dirty lens cap the whole time

Wish I'd ignored that guy who said a star tracker was a waste of money

Some dude on a hiking forum told me last spring that I didn't need a star tracker for astro photos, said just use a tripod and stack exposures. I listened to him and spent 6 months getting frustrated with blurry 30 second shots at 200mm. Finally rented a Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer from a shop in Portland for a weekend trip to the Oregon coast. First night out I got a single 3 minute exposure of the Andromeda Galaxy that looked better than anything I'd stacked for hours before. That guy probably takes photos of stars that just look like dots. Has anyone else wasted time listening to someone who clearly never tried the gear they were trashing?

That guy at the star party was right about eyepieces

Ran into an older guy with a Dobsonian at a dark site in Joshua Tree. Told me to skip the cheap Plossls and save up for one good Explore Scientific instead. I argued back. Figured more eyepieces equaled more fun. Bought a set of four budget ones for $150 total. Three of them have terrible eye relief. One has a scratch already. Now I'm shopping for that ES he mentioned. Anyone else get burned by cheap eyepiece sets?

Appreciation post: the night I realized my scope alignment was all wrong for years

Honestly, I thought I had it figured out. I'd been setting up my 8 inch Dobsonian the same way for like 4 years, just eyeballing the polar alignment and hoping for the best. Then last month, I was at a star party in Joshua Tree and this older guy walked over and asked why my tracking looked so jittery. I shrugged it off, but he offered to help. He spent 10 minutes showing me how to do a proper drift alignment with a cheap laser pointer. I felt stupid, but the next night my images of the Orion Nebula were crisp and clear for the first time ever. Has anyone else had a simple tip from a stranger totally change how they shoot?

Found a technique that beat my old star stacking method hands down

I tried using Sequator for my stacked Milky Way shots and it's way better than the deep sky stacker I've been wrestling with for years. It handled my lens distortion automatically without me having to tweak stuff for an hour. Anyone else switch software and see a big difference?

Almost ruined my telescope trying to get that Orion shot

I was out at Cherry Springs State Park in Pennsylvania a few weeks ago, trying to capture the Orion Nebula with my Celestron 8SE. I got so focused on framing the shot that I forgot to check the dew heater, and by the time I noticed, the corrector plate was completely fogged up. Spent the next 45 minutes with a hair dryer on low trying to clear it, lost the best viewing window between 2 and 3 AM. Has anyone else dealt with dew ruining a long exposure session?

I finally stopped trusting the guy who told me a 30-second exposure of the moon was fine without a tracker

Took me 18 blurry photos of a full moon over Phoenix last month to realize his advice about handheld shots was garbage, has anyone else had a self-proclaimed expert steer them totally wrong with astrophotography gear?

Set my telescope up for 45 minutes to get a photo of Jupiter then realized the lens cap was still on.

Wasted a whole clear night last Tuesday before I looked down and saw the cap sitting there, has anyone else done something this dumb with their gear?

Why does nobody talk about how bad smartphone astrophotography apps are for stacking?

I spent 3 hours last night trying to stack moon shots with a free app on my phone and the result looked like a blurry potato. Then I busted out my old laptop with DeepSkyStacker (the same program I used 5 years ago) and it cleaned up the noise in about 10 minutes with way better detail. Am I missing some magic app that actually works, or is phone software just a total waste of time for this hobby?

Vent: my astronomy buddy swore I didn't need a star tracker for nebula photos

He said my tripod and stacking software would be fine, but after 6 months of blurry Orion shots I finally caved and bought a used Sky-Watcher and honestly the difference is night and day, has anyone else had someone give them advice that just set them back?

Had to choose between a star tracker and a better lens for my astrophotography rig

I spent three weeks going back and forth on this. Ended up picking the star tracker, a Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer, over a Sigma 14mm f/1.8 lens. First night out with it in Joshua Tree last month was a mess trying to polar align in the dark. But once I got it dialed in, my 5-minute exposures of the Milky Way came out way sharper than any wide lens could have done handheld. Anyone else wrestle with that same gear choice and regret going one way or the other?

That guy who told me my 15 minute Andromeda shot was lazy

I was at the Griffith Observatory parking lot last October setting up my telescope, and this younger guy walks over and sees my camera rig. He asked how long I was exposing for, I said maybe 15 minutes total, and he laughed and said that's barely even trying. He went on about how real astrophotographers stack for hours and hours. I told him I was just there to enjoy the night sky, not win some contest. He kept arguing until another guy nearby actually backed me up and said not everyone needs to treat this like a competition. Have you ever had someone try to gatekeep your hobby like that?

Finally tried stacking 50 frames of the Andromeda Galaxy instead of just 10 and wow the difference is insane

I was skeptical that spending an extra 45 minutes on processing would matter that much, but the detail in the dust lanes came through so clearly it completely changed my mind, has anyone else had a similar moment where more data actually paid off?

That overprocessed moon shot I keep seeing on here

I keep noticing people stacking and sharpening lunar photos until the craters look like plastic, not rock. I shot the moon last Tuesday from my backyard in Cleveland with just a single 1/125th exposure at ISO 100, and it looked more real than any of the overdone composites. Has anyone else stopped trying to push the processing and just let a clean single frame speak for itself?

Stacking vs single exposure for Andromeda took me way too long to figure out

I spent almost 4 hours last night trying to get a decent stacked shot of Andromeda after fighting with flats and darks for way too long. Single exposure gave me a usable image in 2 minutes. Which approach do you lean toward for nebula shots?

I finally figured out why my night sky photos came out blurry after wasting $300 on a new lens

So I spent months blaming my old kit lens for those fuzzy star shots. Bought a nice Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 around $300 after tax. First time out with it at a dark spot near Flagstaff, still getting blurry stars. Took me 3 more trips to realize I wasn't tightening the tripod head down all the way. A little wiggle from the breeze was ruining everything. Feel like an idiot. Anyone else ever chase the wrong fix for a problem like this?

Stumbled on the Perseids from a random dirt road in Colorado last week

I was driving back from a job near Salida and pulled over around 2am to check a tire. Looked up and saw maybe 20 meteors in 15 minutes without even trying. Has anyone else had a night where the sky just put on a show completely out of the blue?

Discovered how wildfire smoke changes sunset photos over just 3 days

I was going through my photo archive from last summer (August 2023) and found three sunset shots I took from my backyard in Denver. The first one from Tuesday was a normal orange and pink sunset, pretty typical stuff. By Thursday that same week, the sun looked like a glowing red marble behind a thick brown haze. What changed was a wildfire in British Columbia that sent smoke plumes 800 miles south to us. The smoke particles scattered the blue light way more than regular clouds do, leaving only deep reds and oranges to get through. I had no idea the atmosphere could shift that dramatically in just 48 hours from a fire I couldn't even see. Has anyone else noticed how different your photos look during fire season depending on the wind direction?