Turning 50,000 stars into 87 galaxies - my spreadsheet surprised me

I've been processing my own astrophotography for about 3 years now, and last month I finally cataloged every object I've captured. The count came to 87 galaxies, 34 nebulas, and 12 star clusters from my backyard in Michigan. But here's what bugs me - should we count individual stars resolved in a photo as separate objects, or stick with deep sky objects only? I had 50,000 stars in one Milky Way shot alone, which feels like cheating to include. What do you all count when you tally up your image library?

2 comments

2 Comments

ben_nguyen21d ago

Own two separate folders myself, one for deep sky objects and one for wide field star shots. But here's the thing that's been sticking with me lately. I noticed this same sorting habit shows up in my garage where I have one pile for "tools I actually use" and another for "tools I bought but keep just in case." It's like our brains naturally want to separate what feels meaningful from what's just clutter, even when both are technically real things. So yeah, 50,000 stars in one shot is cool to have on record but I wouldn't count them as individual objects any more than I'd count every nail in my toolbox.

tessa_clark7421d ago

Same boat here. I keep two separate counts now - one for proper deep sky objects and another "total files" number that includes everything I've captured including star fields.

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