Astrophotography
Welcome to !astrophotography!
We are Lemmy's dedicated astrophotography community!
If you want to see or post pictures of space taken by amateurs using amateur level equipment, this is the place for you!
If you want to learn more about taking astro photos, check out our wiki or our discord!
Please read the rules before you post! It is your responsibility to be aware of current rules. Failure to be aware of current rules may result in your post being removed without warning at moderator discretion.
Rules
- I | Real space images only.
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Astrophotography refers to images of astronomical objects or phenomena exclusively.
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~~Images that show objects or people below the Kármán Line (100km) will be removed.~~ We won't be enforcing this rule for now, but as the community grows eventually we will split and have a separate space for just landscape astro.
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Images must be an accurate representation of a real astronomical object.
- II | Original and Amateur Content Only
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Image posts can only be images that you have captured and processed yourself, or discussion about capturing and/or processing your own images.
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Images acquired from public sources, professional observatories, or other professional services are not allowed.
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If you have done a drastic alteration or reprocessing of a prior submission, you may repost your edit - but only after a minimum of one week has passed.
- III | Post Types
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Image posts are to link directly to the image, not to landing pages, personal galleries, blogs, or professional sites. Link to these in the comments. (AstroBin and Imgur, are allowed)
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Questions are welcome here for the time being.
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Links to blogs, articles or external websites should be interesting and promote discussion about amateur astrophotography.
- IV | Titles
- All image posts should just include include the name of the object being photographed. Extra info such as equipment, it being your first image, or other information should go in a comment along with your acquisition info. Please see this page for more details.
If your post is removed, try reposting with a different title. Don't hesitate to message the mods if you still have questions!
- V | Acquisition and Processing Information
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All submitted images must include acquisition and processing details as a top-level comment. All posts without this information may be given a warning, and if not updated will be removed.
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This includes the telescope, mount, camera, accessories, and any other pieces of equipment you used to capture the image.
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You must also include processing details, i.e. the programs you used and a general rundown of the workflow/processes you used within those programs. “Processed in Photoshop” is not enough.
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The Antennae Galaxies (NGC 4038/4039) are a pair of colliding galaxies about 65 million ly away. The collision over the last few hundred million years has resulted in streams of ejected stars, forming the 'antennae'. Despite having guide camera issues for the first hour of the night, and horrific seeing/guiding error/HFR values, this somehow turned out decent. I've also made an annotated version which highlights background galaxies in the uncropped FOV.
Captured on April 20th, 2023 from the Deerlick Astronomy Village (Bortle 3)
Places where I host my other images:
Instagram | Flickr
Equipment:
TPO 6" F/4 Imaging Newtonian
Orion Sirius EQ-G
ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Skywatcher Quattro Coma Corrector
ZWO EFW 8x1.25"/31mm
Astronomik LRGB+CLS Filters- 31mm
Astrodon 31mm Ha 5nm, Oiii 3nm, Sii 5nm
Agena 50mm Deluxe Straight-Through Guide Scope
ZWO ASI-~~120mc~~ 290mc for guiding
Moonlite Autofocuser
Acquisition: 3 hours 52 minutes (Camera at half Unity Gain, -15°C)
L- 55x120"
R - 21x120"
G - 21x120"
B - 19x120"
Darks- 30
Flats- 30 per filter
Capture Software:
PixInsight Processing
BatchPreProcessing
SubframeSelector
StarAlignment
Blink
ImageIntegration
DrizzleIntegration (2x, Var β=1.5)
Luminance Linear:
DynamicCrop
DynamicBackgroundExtraction
BlurXTerminator (i caved)
NoiseXterminator
ArcsinhStretch+HistogramTransformation to bring nonlinear
RGB Linear:
DynamicCrop
DynamicBackgroundExtraction
ChannelCombination
SpectrophotometricColorCalibration
HSV Repair
AcrsinhStretch + HistogramTransformation to stretch nonlinear
Nonlinear:
added stretched luminance to stretched RGB via LRGBCombination
DeepSNR
shitloads of CurveTransformations to adjust hue, lightness, saturation, etc. (some with star masks)
more curves
LocalHistogramTransformation
SCNR green
CloneStamp to remove one weirdly saturated Ha region (it looked bad)
even more curves
NoiseX
UnsharpMask
curves!
BlurXTerminator (star reduction only)
MLT for chrominance noise reduction
guess what more curves
final curves
Resample to 70%
DynamicCrop again
annotation