The Community Guide

c/astronomy-photos

15

mason.mary•5h ago

My neighbor swore the 'golden hour' rule for stacking photos was a must...

Old Mr. Chen from two doors down kept insisting I had to shoot everything during golden hour if I wanted decent stacked astro shots. He said any other time and the noise would ruin it. Well last week I tried layering a sequence I took at midnight out near the county line. Turned out way better than his dawn stuff. Guess he was wrong about timing. Anybody else find that stacking works fine outside that window?

4

gavin80•1d ago

Someone told me I was overprocessing my astro photos and they were right

Was going through my old shots from last summer, the ones of Andromeda and the Milky Way. I always went heavy on the saturation and sharpening, thought that's what made them pop. Then a guy on here commented on one of my posts, said my stars looked like they were bleeding into the background. He sent me a link to a tutorial about keeping the processing subtle, just pulling out the natural colors. Tried it on a fresh stack of Orion nebula data I had sitting around. Cut the sharpening by half, barely touched the vibrance. First time I looked at the result and it actually looked like space, not a cartoon. Made me rethink every edit I did for the last year. Has anyone else had to unlearn bad habits from watching too many YT tutorials?

17

carter.hugo•19d ago

Finally figured out how to stop star trailing on my Nikon D5300

Been fighting blurry stars for months until an old guy at the observatory told me to use the '500 rule' and keep my shutter under 20 seconds for my lens. Ended up with sharp Orion shots on the third try last Tuesday. Anybody else have a trick that clicked after you heard it from someone in person?

17

rowan262•19d ago

My telescope mount gave out during a clear night last month

I was out at a dark spot near Flagstaff and the motor just seized up on my mount halfway through a 3-hour exposure. I had to manually track Jupiter for the rest of the night with a rubber band trick I saw online. Has anyone else had a motor fail mid-session and rigged a fix on the spot?

30

the_avery•20d ago

My neighbor's night sky photo from last year vs this year is wild

I was looking at two photos of the Milky Way he took from his backyard, one in July 2023 and one just last week. The first one was crisp and clear, but the new one has this weird orange glow covering the whole bottom half. He told me the town put up 20 new LED streetlights down the road since then. Has anyone else noticed light pollution getting way worse in just a year or so?

9

patricianguyen•23d ago

Got a $15 star tracker off Craigslist and it’s way better than I expected

I thought it would be junk but I used it to shoot Orion last night and got 30 second exposures with no star trails. Anyone else find cheap gear that shocked you?

17

rileyl67•24d ago

My tracking mount gave out during a 3-hour deep sky session last night

About halfway through stacking 90-second exposures of the Andromeda Galaxy, the motor just seized up and ruined the whole set, so now I'm looking at buying a used Sky-Watcher HEQ5 on Craigslist - has anyone else dealt with sudden mount failures mid-shoot?

14

jenny_carr52•25d ago

The trick that fixed my blurry moon shots for good

I spent like 6 months trying to get a decent photo of the moon with my telescope and phone adapter. Every single picture came out looking like a fuzzy white blob no matter what I tried. I messed with the exposure, I tried different apps, I even bought a remote shutter clicker thing. Then last week I randomly read a comment from some guy saying the problem is usually vibration from the telescope tripod. He said to set a 2 second timer delay on your phone so it stabilizes after you tap the screen. I tried it on Wednesday night during the waxing gibbous phase and honestly the difference was night and day. I got craters and shadows that I never even knew my setup could capture. Has anyone else found a dumb simple fix like this that changed their whole setup?

9

finleyfox•25d ago

Is it just me or does every deep space photo need way more processing than people admit?

I saw a raw stack from a friend's 12-inch telescope last week, and it looked like a blurry gray mess compared to the final shot he posted. Then I looked back at my own M31 image from 2021 and realized I spent 4 hours just on color balancing in PixInsight. So is the real skill in astronomy photography actually in the editing, or are we just covering up bad data with software tricks? What do you think?

22

parker_patel84•27d ago

That $200 astrophotography filter I bought was basically useless

Picked up a cheap dual narrowband filter off Amazon for $200 thinking it would help with light pollution in my backyard. First night out, the images came out with weird halos around every star and the colors looked fake. Tried it three more times with different settings and same result. Ended up going back to my stock Canon and just shooting widefield from darker spots. Anyone else get burned by those budget filters?

9

davis.emma•27d ago

Took my telescope to Cherry Springs and fog ruined everything

I drove 3 hours to Cherry Springs State Park last Saturday, set up my 8-inch Dobsonian, and got about 20 minutes of viewing before a thick fog rolled in. The whole sky just vanished, and my mirror started fogging up too. I had to pack it all up and sit in my car for an hour hoping it would clear, but it never did. Has anyone found a good trick for preventing dew or fog on a big mirror in humid conditions?

5

aaronrobinson•1mo ago

Finally got a decent shot of the Orion Nebula after 4 tries

I've been trying to get a clear photo of M42 since I got my used Celestron last spring. The first three attempts were just blurry smudges because I was too impatient with the focusing. Last weekend at a park near my apartment in Portland, I actually sat there for 45 minutes letting the scope cool down and used a Bahtinov mask. It came out way sharper than anything I've managed before. Still not as good as the pro shots on here but it's a huge jump for me. Anyone else struggle with getting the focus right on their first few deep sky attempts?

17

the_sam•1mo ago

Warning: stacking filters gave me a weird halo effect for months

I was out shooting Orion back in January and stacked a UV filter with a light pollution filter on my Canon. Looked fine through the viewfinder but when I got the images on my computer there was this weird ring around every bright star. Took me about 4 months to figure out it was internal reflections between the two pieces of glass. Now I only stack if I absolutely have to. Anyone else run into ghosting or halos from multiple filters?

7

the_phoenix•1mo ago

Sat with an old astrophotographer at a star party near Sedona last month...

He told me he still shoots with a DSLR from 2012, no cooling, no guiding. Said back in his day they'd sit next to the telescope all night and watch the sky instead of fussing over software. I was running around tweaking my autoguider settings while he just leaned back with a Thermos. Made me wonder if I'm overcomplicating things for myself. Has anyone else had a moment where a simpler setup gave them a better night under the stars?

12

uma_mitchell83•1mo ago

Heard a guy at the observatory say stacking 1000 frames is always better than 100, but my best shot of Orion came from just 80 frames with a cheap tripod.

I tried his method with 2000 frames of the Andromeda galaxy and got worse noise than my normal quick stack, has anyone else found that more data doesnt always mean a better photo?

10

drew_thomas9•1mo ago

Can we talk about how I ruined 200 photos with bad calibration frames?

I spent 4 months stacking deep sky images wondering why everything looked noisy and washed out. Turns out I was taking my dark frames at the wrong temperature, 20 degrees off from my lights. A guy on Cloudy Nights pointed it out from one JPEG and I felt like an absolute fool.

16

gray_smith67•1mo ago

That one clear night at Death Valley ruined me for suburb stargazing

I drove out to Death Valley last February during a new moon. The sky was so dark I could see the Milky Way core reflecting off the salt flats. I set up my camera at 11pm and grabbed about 40 shots of the galactic bulge over Telescope Peak. Honestly, coming back to my backyard with streetlights bleeding into every frame has been brutal. Anyone else have a trip that set the bar way too high for normal night shooting?

-1

quinn_carr•1mo ago

Changed my mind about light pollution filters after visiting the McDonald Observatory in west Texas last month

I always thought those filters were just a gimmick for Instagram photos, but standing under that Bortle 2 sky showed me what I was missing with my city shots. Has anyone here actually used one to get decent Milky Way photos from a suburban backyard?

21

the_nathan•1mo ago

Appreciation post: My cheap phone mount for my telescope actually worked

I was struggling with shaky shots of the Orion Nebula until I used a $12 universal phone clamp from Amazon. Anyone have a better method for planetary imaging without a dedicated camera?

8

grant901•1mo ago

I used to just point my phone at the sky, now I stack 50 frames

For years, my astro photos were just blurry dots on a black screen. Last fall, I finally got a cheap star tracker and learned about stacking. My process now is to take about 50 two-minute exposures of a target, like the Orion Nebula, and use free software to combine them. The difference is insane, way more color and detail without all the noise. It took a weekend to learn the basics from a YouTube channel. Anyone have tips for dealing with light pollution in a suburban backyard?

2

the_hugo•1mo ago

Warning: I almost lost a whole night's work because I didn't pick the right stacking software

Last night I had a clear sky for the first time in a month, so I shot 300 frames of the Orion Nebula. When I got inside, I had to pick between using the free program I already knew or trying a new one that people said was better for noise. I went with the new one, but it crashed after an hour and corrupted the files. I had to start over from scratch with my old program and lost about 2 hours of sleep. Has anyone else had a stacking program eat their data like that?

3

mason.mary•1mo ago

My dew heater failed during the lunar eclipse and ruined my whole shoot

It happened about a month ago during the partial eclipse. I was set up in my backyard, everything was going fine, and then my lens just fogged up completely. The cheap heater strip I bought online for $25 just stopped working halfway through. I tried wiping it with a cloth but it kept coming back, so I missed the entire maximum phase. Has anyone found a reliable brand for these things that won't quit on you?

14

barbara_kim•1mo ago

TIL my backyard Orion photo from 2021 looks totally different now

I was sorting old files and pulled up a shot I took of Orion's Belt from my yard in Tucson. I compared it to one I took last month from the same spot. The difference is huge. The new photo has this weird orange haze around the stars that wasn't there before. I checked my gear, and I'm using the same camera and lens. The only change is the new streetlights they put in our neighborhood about a year ago. They're those bright white LED ones. I think the light pollution is just bouncing off the dry air here and washing out the sky. It's getting harder to see the faint stuff. Has anyone else noticed their night sky photos getting worse because of new local lighting?

6

perez.thea•1mo ago

My old phone vs a real camera for the Perseids last night

I tried to shoot the meteor shower with my phone first, got nothing but fuzzy dots. Then I switched to my buddy's DSLR with a 30 second exposure and a tripod. The difference was insane, like night and day, literally. His shots had clear streaks and you could see the Milky Way in the background. My phone pics just looked like someone sprinkled pepper on a black table. Anyone got tips for a good starter astro camera that won't break the bank?

7

terryrobinson•1mo ago

A kid at the local library's star party asked me a question that made my night

I was showing some of my Milky Way shots from Joshua Tree last year at a public viewing event. A boy named Leo, maybe 10 years old, pointed at a photo and asked, 'How do you know which little dot is a star and which one is a whole other galaxy?' It was such a smart, simple question that made me stop and really think about the scale of what we're looking at. I ended up showing him how to spot the Andromeda Galaxy in one of my wider shots. What's a question someone has asked you about your photos that made you see them differently?