r/astrophotography • • Aug 12 '24

Announcement Announcing updated rules

192 Upvotes

Recently, a few of us became new moderators and since then we have been trying to get organized primarily to update the rules to reflect what we believe are in the best interest of this sub. This has largely meant reverting to the structure prior to the protest while also adapting to current technology and tastes. While we supported the protest goals at the time, and agree with the mod decision to include this sub in that protest, we also recognize that it's time to move on and restore some process to the sub for its continuing members. We're excited to announce that these new rules are now live in the sub and in detail at our revised wiki. The changes from prior to the protest largely amount to:

  1. astrophotography images taken with cell phones were not explicitly forbidden before but we now clarify that they are permitted as long as they follow all other rules, including that acquisition and processing details are provided and are high-quality amateur OC. A star-field with no discernable astronomical object will not meet this threshold, but a stacked image of Orion that happens to have been captured using RAW images on an iPhone and further processed on that same phone will. We recognize everyone in this hobby starts somewhere and we want to encourage sharing of this work, but also need to avoid this sub devolving into low-effort cell phone pictures of an unrecognizable night sky.
  2. landscape images were forbidden before but we also recognize that there are some high-quality astrophotography images being created that happen to have a small amount of landscape in the foreground that are valued by many members. We are drawing the line here at astrophotography images where the landscape is incidental to the image and any image where the landscape is a primary focus will not be permitted. So for example, the Milky Way with a silhouette of a mountain will probably be accepted, but that same Milky Way that is in the background of well-lit (or brightened in post) barn/yard/house/etc will be removed. And as above, any post that doesn't include acquisition and processing details will still be removed.
  3. clarifications that certain types of posts are not allowed, including memes, UFO claims, questions about what image someone has captured, off-topic posts, or uncivil behavior.

We recognize not everyone will like these changes and that there are other subs that focus primarily on some of these types of images, but we feel that an "astrophotography" sub should include everyone. We are going to monitor how well this goes, so please try to be open-minded to help support these contributions from some members of the community. After some time with these changes we plan to poll you to see how they are going and what other improvements you'd like to see. In the meantime, with these rules back in place, expect to see heavier moderation if posts lack complete acquisition/processing details or otherwise violate these rules.

Lastly, we also want to thank everyone for their patience while we get organized to bring these changes to you and for the incredible work all mods on this sub have done over the years and continue to do (many from prior to the protest are still here and active, so show some love!).

Clear Skies!


r/astrophotography • • 4h ago

DSOs Garlic nebula

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202 Upvotes

I started this object last month and so far have 52 hours and it needs much much more.

Imaged using my skywatcher 200P setup, 533MMPro and starizona .75 reducer.

Also imaged using my SHO Altair 3nm filters and all of this resting on my AM5 mount.

It was processed in AstroStakr and Photoshop.


r/astrophotography • • 10h ago

Galaxies M31-The Andromeda Galaxy, in Ha, Oiii & LRGB

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225 Upvotes

r/astrophotography • • 2h ago

Lunar Hunter's Moon

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19 Upvotes

​

Hunter's Moon from Tennessee on 10-26-26

Equipment: Canon EOS 90D and Sigma 150-600mm Contemporary lens at 600mm

Exposure: 731 x 1/250 at f8 and ISO 100

Processing:

Centered/cropped in PIPP

Stacked in Autostakkert!

Sharpened in Registax

Final edit in Photoshop


r/astrophotography • • 1h ago

Nebulae Sh2-114, flying dragon nebula

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• Upvotes

142 hours of exposure over the last 4 months.

Mount- ZWO AM3
Telescope- William Optics ZenithStar81
Guide Scope- ZWO OAG
Camera- ZWO ASI183mc Pro
Guide Camera- ZWO ASI120mm
Imaging Filter- Optolong L-Ultimate, SII, OIII
Other accessories- ZWO EAF, ZWO filter wheel, ZWO ASIair Plus, 6aiii reducer/field flattener


r/astrophotography • • 8h ago

Nebulae Orion Nebula & Running Man Nebula

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59 Upvotes

The great Orion Nebula and Running Man Nebula! This majestic stellar nursery is about 1400 light-years away and is one of the brightest deep sky objects in the night sky!

A very nostalgic target for me. This was the first deep sky object I captured 10 months back when I was just getting started in this hobby. Visited this back again now that the orion constellation is back up again! 🙂

Telescope: Seestar S50
Data: 4.5 hours
Tools used: GraXpert, Siril, GIMP
Script mentions: DeepSNR, CosmicClarity Sharpen, VeraLux (Revela & Curves), HDR_multiscale
Bortle 8-9


r/astrophotography • • 12h ago

Nebulae SH2-171, Teddy Bear Nebula

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96 Upvotes

Taken from my bortle 9 balcony in Paris, this was didn't have such a strong gradient as I normally get here, so I enjoyed the processing a lot! I'd like to revisit this object with my wider FOV rig next year, I think it looks pretty cool

Equipment and acquisition:

- Askar 71F + 0.75X reducer

- Asi585MC Air

- Teseek 17

- SvBony + asi120mm guide camera

- ZWO EAF, ZWO EFW

- L-Ultimate filter: 216 x 180 sec

- Antlia ALP-T SII-OIII 3nm: 233 x 180 sec

(approx. 22.5 hours in total)

- 30 darks, 30 flats per filter, 30 bias

Processing (PI)

WBPP 2x drizzle, SetiAstro AutoDBE, SPCC, blurX correct only, starX

On starless images: DBXtract, linear fit to Ha, then channel combination. Extract L component. SetiAstro statistical stretch (soft), then manual curves transformations with different color and range masks, selective color correction script, noiseX. For luminance, stretch and masked curves to bring up details, noiseX. LRGB combination, dark structure enhance script.

For stars: setiastro NB to RGB star stretch, pixelmath to recombine with starless


r/astrophotography • • 15h ago

DSOs M95 — Barred Spiral Galaxy

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133 Upvotes

This is my first time processing this M95 data, captured from my backyard in Round Rock, Texas, on March 12–13, 2026.

M95 is a barred spiral galaxy about 33 million light-years away in Leo. Its central bar and tightly wound spiral arms give it that distinctive ringlike appearance.

The finished image combines 56 two-minute exposures—1 hour and 52 minutes—captured with my ASI2600MC Air and no added filter.

Processing included calibration and stacking in PixInsight, photometric color calibration, and separate treatment of the galaxy and stars. The final adjustments bring out the bar and surrounding ring while keeping the bright center controlled. A tighter crop gives M95 more presence in the frame.

Acquisition and processing details: ASI2600MC Air, 56 × 120 seconds, gain 200, offset 50, approximately −10°C, no added filter. Headers record an AM3 mount and 387 mm focal length; the telescope model is unconfirmed. Calibrated with a matching 28-frame 120-second dark master and a candidate flat; flat calibration is approximate because its bias pedestal was assumed. PixInsight VNG debayering, registration, PSF-weighted integration with Winsorized sigma rejection. Compared all 56 on-target frames with the sharpest 40 and retained 56. ABE background correction, plate solving and Gaia DR3 SPCC color calibration, mild BlurXTerminator, StarXTerminator, and masked NoiseXTerminator. Luminance-preserving stretch, separate star recombination, masked galaxy contrast and sharpening with core protection, and a native-resolution crop. No generative image processing.


r/astrophotography • • 4h ago

Planetary Saturn

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19 Upvotes

Finally got my Barlow x2 lens and this was my first time trying it.

Used 10 inch Sky-Watcher 254/1200 with s24 ultra 4K 120FPS with Barlow x2 and 6mm planetary eyepiece.

Processed with PIPP then Autostakkert! and then Astrosurface.

This was my second time trying planetary imaging so any advice will be welcomed.


r/astrophotography • • 2h ago

DSOs NGC 6914 - The Eyes

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12 Upvotes

r/astrophotography • • 5h ago

Lunar Luna, October 25th

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22 Upvotes

It’s a $20 telescope this is my first time, saving up for a better one. Let me know if yalls favorites


r/astrophotography • • 10h ago

Planetary Saturn

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29 Upvotes

Believe it or not, the image in the eyepiece was even better than the video!

12" DOB + Astral Fields EQ Platform

SVBony 705C + ADC + Barlow 2x

Firecapture + PiPP+ Autostakkert + Registax + Fast Stone Image Viewer


r/astrophotography • • 22h ago

DSOs The Soul Nebula (IC 1848) in SHO

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246 Upvotes

Target: IC 1848, the Soul Nebula

Location: Bortle 6, South Carolina

Gear:
Askar 103APO (700mm f/6.8)
ZWO ASI2600MM Pro
ZWO AM3N on iOptron LiteRoc tripod
ZWO ASIAir
Antlia 3nm Ha, OIII, SII and Antlia V-Pro RGB

Integration (about 22h 23m):
Ha: 44 × 500s (6h 07m)
OIII: 59 × 500s (8h 12m)
SII: 51 × 500s (7h 05m)
RGB (stars): 20 × 60s each
Calibration: darks, flats, bias


r/astrophotography • • 4m ago

Galaxies M81 Bode's Galaxy

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• Upvotes

This was taken over 2 nights in Bortle 2 skies camping in central Oregon with my Orion 16" Goto Dobsonian. I started this astrophotography habit in August. This was the last image on the last trip of the year and I'm quite happy with it. I can't wait for my first galaxy season!

Total integration: 5h 20m

Integration per filter:

- No filter: 5h 20m (3200 × 6s)

Equipment:

- Telescope: Orion SkyQuest XX16g GoTo Truss Tube Dobsonian Telescope

- Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro

- Accessory: Starizona Nexus 0.75x Newtonian Focal Reducer/Coma Corrector (NEXUS-075)

- Software: Aries Productions Astro Pixel Processor (APP), Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight, Stefan Berg Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy (N.I.N.A. / NINA)


r/astrophotography • • 11h ago

Nebulae North America nebula, untracked

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15 Upvotes

A couple of months ago I posted a pic of the North America nebula and its surroundings. Today I tried some more editing and I'm very happy with how it turned out.

- Canon M50, 50mm F1.8 but shot at 2.8. 75*4 seconds. Bortle 4.5. No tracker

- Post-processing: AstroWizard (stack, denoise using GraXpert, stretch and star removal using StarNet), Seti Astro Suite (sharpen), Photoshop (curves, stars reduction, contrast, etc).


r/astrophotography • • 7h ago

Lunar Moon

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3 Upvotes

Starseeker IV 150/750

Touptek Ae676c

Bortle 4.8

Exposure ~1ms, ~1000 Pictures

Positional correction and Stacking with Python (astroaligne)

Fine Tuning with Therawpee and Photocraft


r/astrophotography • • 21h ago

Melotte 15

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48 Upvotes

The heart of the Heart.

Askar 71F
ASI533MC Pro
CGEMii
4.5hrs UHC
Bortle 8

Processed in beta testing of the new AstroStakr program and a slight touch in PS.


r/astrophotography • • 1d ago

Planetary Saturn from the Houston area, six derotated videos through an EdgeHD 8

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102 Upvotes

Captured and processed entirely on a Mac.

Equipment

  • Celestron EdgeHD 8" at native f/10 (2032 mm), no Barlow
  • Player One Uranus-C Pro (IMX585, 2.9 µm pixels, uncooled)
  • MoonLite focuser
  • Rainbow Astro RST-135E
  • MacBook Air M4

Capture (Laminar)

  • October 14, 10:59 to 11:13 PM CDT, Saturn at 55° to 57° altitude
  • 6 videos of 2 minutes each, 15 seconds apart
  • 640×480 ROI, RAW8, 20.85 ms exposure, gain 295, about 48 fps
  • 5,747 frames per video, 34,482 total, none dropped
  • 0.29"/px
  • Collimated on a star half an hour before the run
  • 25 °C (77 °F) and 82% humidity, sensor sitting at 29 °C

Processing (Strata)

  • Stacked the best 20% of each video with Strata Warp, 2x drizzle. At f/10 a 2.9 µm color sensor is undersampled, so I drizzled instead of adding a Barlow.
  • Derotated and combined the six stills, so 13 minutes of data stack without Saturn's rotation smearing detail.
  • Wiener deconvolution with a PSF calculated from the telescope itself (aperture, focal ratio and central obstruction) to remove the scope's own diffraction blur
  • Wavelets on what the deconvolution left - Color balance and saturation - cropped in preview.

r/astrophotography • • 11h ago

Nebulae Orion Belt along with Orion Nebula Captured with Smartphone

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9 Upvotes

Device= Realme 15 Pro, ISO = 1000, Shutter speed = 15sec, White Balance = 4200-4500K, Max Focus, Number of Exposures = 70


r/astrophotography • • 8h ago

Comet Lulin

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3 Upvotes

This image was taken on February 23rd, 2009 with a Nikon D300 and Sigma 150-600mm lens at 150mm. Exposure was 8 seconds, f/5, ISO 6400. Processed in Affinity and On1 NoNoise.


r/astrophotography • • 1d ago

DSOs LDN 1355 - The Helping Hand Nebula

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209 Upvotes

By far the faintest deep space target I have ever captured.
Telescope: Askar 103APO
Camera: ZWO ASI6200MC Pro camera
Tracking Mount: ZWO AM5N
Total integration: 30 hours
Filters: 20 hours of 300" subs (Antlia Triband RGB) +10 hourt of 240" subs (UV/IR Cut)
Processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop
Full details: https://www.instagram.com/kasrak_film/


r/astrophotography • • 1d ago

DSOs PLEIADES (M45, Seven Sisters)

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70 Upvotes

Dates: October 18-23, 2026 (6 nights) Integration: 935 x 120 s (31.2 hours), plus 171 x 15 s (43 minutes) to keep the bright star cores from saturating Total: about 31.9 hours Final image: 5988 x 3916 pixels (about 2.2 x 1.4 degrees)

EQUIPMENT AND SETTINGS Telescope: Askar FF80 (80 mm, 597 mm focal length, f/7.5) Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Air (one-shot color), gain 100, offset 50, cooled to -10 C Image scale: 1.3 arcseconds per pixel Capture and guiding: ASIAIR Calibration: darks, flats and bias frames

PROCESSING Siril 1.4.4: calibration, registration, stacking, HDR blend of the 120 s and 15 s data, background extraction, star-catalog color calibration (SPCC, Gaia DR3), stretching and noise reduction StarNet v2: stars and nebula processed separately, then recombined


r/astrophotography • • 1d ago

Lunar Mineral Moon

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70 Upvotes

Moon altitude: 35 to 39 degrees
Location: Michigan, USA (Bortle 5)

Equipment
Telescope: Askar FF80 (80 mm, 597 mm, f/7.5), native focal length
Camera: ZWO ASI585MC
Image scale: 1.0"/px
Capture software: SharpCap 4.1

Acquisition
Mode: lucky imaging, SER video, RAW8, 2200x2160 ROI
Gain 99, exposure 1.75 ms, ~47 fps
Captured: 6,000 frames (3 videos x 2,000)
Stacked: best 1,800 frames (30%)
Calibration: 50 darks, 50 flats, 50 dark flats

Processing
Siril 1.4 plus custom Python (NumPy/OpenCV)
- Frame quality scoring and selection
- Sub-pixel alignment and stacking
- r/B realignment for atmospheric dispersion (0.7 px)
- Blue halo matching to suppress false color around bright features
- Multi-scale wavelet sharpening (luminance)
- Color separated from luminance, denoised, then saturation boosted ~22x


r/astrophotography • • 1d ago

Nebulae Soul Nebula - IC 1848 - 59 hours 50 minutes

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40 Upvotes

Equipment:

* Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro

* Scope: SkyWatcher EvoStar 80ED

* Mount: SkyWatcher HEQ5

* Guide Scope: SkyWatcher 8x50 Finderscope

* Guide Camera: ZWO ASI120MM

* Filters: SVBony SV220 HaOiii & SiiOiii

* Focuser: Gemini EAF

Acquisition:

* Gain 100

* 224 x 300" lights HaOiii

* 494 x 300" lights SiiOiii

* 20 Flats each session

* 20 Darks

* 20 Bias

* Total Integration time - 59hr 50m

Processing:

* Stack in Siril

* Process in Pixinsight

* Background extraction

* BlurXterminator

* Split channels DBExtract

* Linear Fit

* Combine Channels in SHO palette

* MultiScale Adaptive Stretch

* StarXterminator

* NarrowBand Normalization

* Curves Adjustments

* NoiseXterminator

* SetiAstro NB to RGB Stars script

* Recombine stars

Astrobin Link: https://app.astrobin.com/u/nqnewlin?i=eaof23


r/astrophotography • • 10h ago

DSOs IC 1318 and Sadr

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1 Upvotes

I found this session while going through my stored astrophotography data. I captured it from my Round Rock backyard on October 31–November 1, 2025, but had never processed it. This is its first finished image.

The bright star near the center is Sadr, also known as Gamma Cygni—a supergiant marking the center of the Northern Cross in Cygnus. It appears surrounded by the clouds of IC 1318, but that’s a line-of-sight effect: Sadr is roughly 1,800 light-years away, while the nebula lies much farther behind it, around 4,900 light-years away.

The red nebulosity is glowing hydrogen gas. The dark lanes cutting through it are clouds of dust blocking light from behind. This field captures part of the extensive gas-and-dust complex around Sadr.

The finished image combines 40 five-minute exposures—3 hours and 20 minutes—with my ASI585MC Air. Processing brought out the faint nebulosity and dust structure while controlling the stars and the glow around Sadr. A session sitting on a drive finally became an image.

Acquisition: ASI585MC Air, 40 × 300 seconds retained from 47 frames; gain 107, offset 15, recorded sensor temperatures −19.1 to −16.3°C. The headers record an AM3 mount and approximately 384 mm focal length; the telescope model is unconfirmed. Filter information was not recorded, and I no longer remember which filter was used.

Processing: bias and 100 same-night flats, conservative hot-pixel correction, registration and weighted integration in PixInsight. Compared 29-frame and 40-frame stacks and selected 40 for lower noise. Empirical field-star color balance, conservative BlurXTerminator, StarXTerminator separation, masked NoiseXTerminator, then scripted stretches, local contrast, selective color and localized halo control. Stars were blended back separately. No synthetic nebulosity was added.