Astrophotography

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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.

Astrophotography refers to images of astronomical objects or phenomena exclusively.
~~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.
Images must be an accurate representation of a real astronomical object.
See this page for more details

II | Original and Amateur Content Only

Image posts can only be images that you have captured and processed yourself, or discussion about capturing and/or processing your own images.
Images acquired from public sources, professional observatories, or other professional services are not allowed.
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

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)
Questions are welcome here for the time being.
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

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.
This includes the telescope, mount, camera, accessories, and any other pieces of equipment you used to capture the image.
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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lefty7283

NGC 7380 - The Wizard Nebula (live.staticflickr.com)

submitted 11 months ago by lefty7283 to c/astrophotography

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[–] lefty7283 2 points 11 months ago

So this is my third time shooting NGC 7380 (previous pics were from 2018 and 2020). This time around I decided to go with a different false-color palette (exact details below) compared to my prior true color and Hubble palette pics. Captured over 4 nights in Nov/Dec, 2023 from a Bortle 9 zone.

Places where I host my other images:

Flickr | Instagram

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 for guiding
Moonlite Autofocuser

Acquisition: 12 hours 48minutes (Camera at unity gain, -15°C)

Ha - 33x360"
Oiii - 52x360"
Sii - 43x360"
Darks- 30
Flats- 30 per filter

Capture Software:

Captured using N.I.N.A. and PHD2 for guiding and dithering.

PixInsight processing:

Preprocessing

BatchPreProcessing
StarAlignment
Blink
ImageIntegration per channel per panel
DrizzleIntegration (2x, Var β=1.5) per panel per channel
StarAlignment in mosaic mode to align the two panels, then GradientMergeMosaic to combine them

Linear:

DynamicBackground Extraction

duplicated each image and removed stars via StarXterminator. Ran DBE with a shitload of points to generate background model. model subtracted from original pic using the following PixelMath (math courtesy of /u/jimmythechicken1)

$T * med(model) / model

BlurXTerminator
NoiseXterminator
Duplicated images, to be used later for stars only processing
STF applied via HistogramTransformation to bring nonlinear

Stars processing:

Extracted stars-only pic using StarXterminator
Pixelmath to make color SHO --> RGB image
SpectroPhotometricColorCalibration (narrowband working mode)
ArcsinhStretch + HT to bring nonlinear
SCNR > invert > SCNR >invert to remove greens and magentas from stars
Stars only pic saved for later addition to starless pic

Nonlinear:

StarX to remove all stars
PixelMath to create color image in OSH --> RGB palette
PixelMath to make a second image using Jimmy's Royal Palette:

R = 0.3*Oiii+0.7*(Oiii^~(0.7*Ha+0.3*Sii))^1.2

G = ((Oiii*Ha)^~(Oiii*Ha))*Ha + ~((Oiii*Ha)^~(Oiii*Ha))*Sii

B = 0.9*Sii+Ha-Oiii
PixelMath to blend OSH and Jimmy pics together 50:50
LRGBCombination using stretched Ha as luminance
shitloads of CurveTransformations to adjust hue, lightness, saturation, etc. (some with lum masks)
another round of NoiseXTerminator
Extract L --> LRGBCombination for chrominance noise reduction
LocalHistogramEqualization
More curves
MultiscaleLinearTransform
Relinearized narrowband and stars images to add in the stars only image

"unstretched" both images with histogramtransformation midtones set to 0.9999

pixelmath to just add those two images together

histogramtransformation to un-relinearize them by setting midtones to 0.0001

Even more curves
Resample to 60%
annotation