c/astronomy-photos

That $60 moon filter I almost skipped, glad I didn't

Back in 2019 I bought this cheap 1.25 inch moon filter from a shop near Boston, figured it was a waste since the full moon looked fine naked eye through my 8 inch Dob. First night out with it, I could actually see the rays around Copernicus and the terraced walls, stuff I'd been missing for two years. Now I loan it to friends who come over for viewing nights, they all say it's the best 60 bucks they didn't spend themselves. Anyone else have a cheap accessory that turned out way more useful than the expensive ones?

That advice about stacking filters cost me 2 hours of clear sky

Last month someone on here told me to skip the light pollution filter and just shoot unfiltered from my backyard in Phoenix. I listened, and my Orion nebula shots came out with this awful orange gradient that took forever to clean up. Then I tried their second suggestion, which was to just stretch the raw data harder, and that made the noise way worse. So I went back to my old Astronomik CLS filter, and the next night the same target looked 10 times better with barely any post work. I think the person meant well, but they clearly never shot from a city with that much sodium vapor. Has anyone else had a popular filter trick fail hard once you actually tried it on Bortle 8 skies?

My first attempt at the Milky Way core ended with a blurry mess

I drove out to the Mojave Desert last month, about 40 miles past Barstow, to finally shoot the galactic center. I set up my Canon 6D on a tripod and tried to use a star tracker I borrowed from a friend, but I didn't read the manual. The tracker stopped working after 20 minutes, so I switched to just shooting wide open at 3200 ISO with 15 second exposures. Every frame looked soft, like the stars were tiny blobs, and I couldn't figure out if the lens was out of focus or the tracker was slipping. I eventually realized the exposure time was too long for my 50mm lens, even at that high ISO. Has anyone else wasted a dark sky trip because of gear they didn't test first, and what do you check now before you drive out?

My camera battery died during a meteor shower and I missed the brightest fireball

Drove out to the dark sky spot near Lake George last Tuesday for the Perseids. Got everything set up, tripod stable, focus dialed in, but my spare battery was dead because I left it in the car overnight. The biggest fireball I've ever seen cut right across Cassiopeia and I only got one blurry shot before the shutter locked up. Had to sit there watching everyone around me capture it while my camera sat useless. Anyone else had a gear failure ruin a prime night of sky watching?

That $2,000 telescope I bought after seeing Jupiter through a friend's Dobsonian

I was out at Cherry Springs State Park in September, just tagging along with a buddy who brought his old 10-inch Dob. He let me take a look at Jupiter and I swear I saw the bands and three moons clear as day. That single 30-second view made me drop two grand on my own setup the next week. Now I'm hooked on planetary imaging and I can't even look at a cheap spotting scope the same way. Has anyone else had a single view through a good telescope ruin all the budget gear for them?

The first time I used a star tracker for Milky Way shots was a game changer

For years I just did single exposures on a tripod for night sky photos, relying on high ISOs and short shutter speeds. Last month I finally borrowed a friend's Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer and got a 4-minute tracked exposure that showed way more detail than I ever pulled out of stacked shots. Has anyone else found that using a tracker changes how you plan your whole night of shooting?

Debating whether to stack or align deep sky frames before stacking

I spent nearly 3 hours last night trying to fix star trailing in my M31 photo only to realize my dithering wasn't aggressive enough between subs. Some forums say stack first then align, others swear by aligning each frame individually before combining. Which method actually saves you time and gives the sharpest result?

Just learned why Andromeda looks so big in photos even though it's 2.5 million light years away

I read on NASA's site that the galaxy's actual disk is over 200,000 light years across, way bigger than the Milky Way. Did anyone else not realize how massive it really is until they saw those comparison shots?

Had to choose between tracking Jupiter and fixing my telescope mount. I picked wrong.

Overheard someone say stacking filters ruins sharpness...

I was at a local meetup in Portland last weekend and this guy claimed putting more than two filters on a lens kills your resolution. I shoot a lot of widefield shots with a star tracker and I use three filters sometimes. Has anyone actually tested this or is it just a thing people repeat?

Took me 4 tries to pick between a 12" Dob and an 8" SCT for my first real scope

I went with the Dob because the guy at the shop said it'd be easier to learn the sky with, and after 3 months I've already found 12 Messier objects. Anyone else struggle with that first big telescope choice?

The night I got 3 perfect shots in a row then nothing for 2 weeks

I was out near a lake last month on a clear night and got this amazing sequence of the Andromeda galaxy, a nice crescent moon, and a satellite trail all in about 20 minutes. Thought I had cracked the code or something. Then for the next 14 days every single night was cloudy, or I had to deal with neighbors leaving porch lights on, or the moon was too bright. Anyone else have a run like that where you get a bunch of good data then hit a dry spell that makes you question your setup?

Found a simple way to fix star trailing without buying a star tracker

I was getting blurry stars in my 30-second exposures on my Canon T7. Tried stacking 5-second subs instead and aligning them in DeepSkyStacker. No more trailing and the detail is way better. Anyone else do short subs for wide field shots?

Always thought stacked astro photos were cheating until I tried it myself

My buddy kept telling me to stack my shots of the Orion Nebula but I figured it was just digital trickery. Then last month I took 30 frames of 30 seconds each from my backyard in Tucson and ran them through DeepSkyStacker. The detail that came out of the noise was unreal. I could see the Trapezium stars clear as day. That changed my whole view. Has anyone else felt this way and changed their mind?

Critique on my Andromeda shot changed how I stack images

I posted a photo of Andromeda in here a few months back and someone pointed out that my background sky looked too smooth and artificial. They said it was probably from over stacking or using too aggressive a noise reduction setting in my software. I had been using DeepSkyStacker with the default settings and never really messed with the sliders. So I went back to my raw subs, tried a median stack instead of average, and backed way off on the luminance smoothing. The difference was kind of wild honestly. The stars looked sharper and the dust lanes had way more texture instead of looking like a blurry blob. Has anyone else had to totally redo their processing workflow because of one comment like that?

Snapped a pic of the Milky Way over my backyard in Ohio last August and it changed how I see light pollution

I used a basic DSLR and a tripod I got for $50, and after stacking 15 images in free software I could actually see the galaxy core. The difference between what my eye saw and what the camera picked up after 20 seconds of exposure was wild. Has anyone else had that moment where a camera shows you way more than your naked eye could catch?

Noticed a huge difference in a moon shot I took 3 years apart

I was looking through old photos from 2021 and found a moon picture I took with my old phone. Terrible, just a white blob. Last Tuesday I grabbed a shot with my current camera and a cheap telephoto lens I got off eBay for $40. Same moon phase, same time of night. The difference is insane. Better focus, way more craters visible. Anyone else go back and cringe at old astro photos?

Stacked my telescope shots for years the wrong way until a guy at a star party in Flagstaff showed me the difference

I used to just stack all my raw frames together in DeepSkyStacker with default settings and call it a day. Thought my images looked decent enough for an amateur setup. Then last October I met this older gentleman at a star party near Flagstaff who asked to see my workflow. He pulled up his laptop and showed me his process using calibration frames - darks, flats, and bias frames - something I had skipped entirely because I thought it was too much extra work. The difference was night and day. His Andromeda galaxy shot had no gradient, no dust motes, and the stars were pin sharp. I spent the next week re-shooting my data with proper calibration frames and the result was about 40% cleaner than anything I had made before. Has anyone else had that moment where they realized they were skipping a critical step for years? What technique did you finally adopt that made the biggest jump in quality?

Got told my nebula shots were too blurry and it fixed my whole process

Last month someone on here commented that my Orion Nebula photo looked soft and I got defensive at first. But I actually checked my focus settings and realized I was using the wrong micro-focus adjustment for my telescope. After watching a 10 minute YouTube tutorial I refocused the whole rig and my next shot came out crystal clear. Has anyone else had one piece of simple feedback totally change how they take photos?

Nearly ruined my rig because I ignored flat calibration frames for 2 years

I've been shooting deep sky photos since 2021 and thought my processing workflow was solid. Last week I compared two sessions of M31 - one with flats and one without - and the difference blew my mind. My old stacked images had this faint gradient ring that I always blamed on my light pollution filter. Turns out it was just dust bunnies on my sensor that flats would have fixed in 30 seconds. I probably threw away hundreds of hours of usable data doing it wrong the whole time. Has anyone else made this mistake and how long did it take you to figure it out?

That guy at Bryce Canyon who told me my telescope was 'overkill'

I was out at Bryce Canyon last October, setting up my 10-inch Dobsonian for a night of deep sky viewing. This older guy walks up, maybe 65, with this tiny little 60mm refractor on a flimsy tripod. He looks at my setup and says, 'You know you can't see the Andromeda Galaxy with all that light pollution, right?' I just laughed and showed him the core through my eyepiece. He didn't say another word for like 10 minutes, just stood there staring. Has anyone else had someone try to gatekeep your gear at a dark site?

Tried stacking 15 short exposures instead of 3 long ones for nebula shots

I was getting so much star trailing with 5-minute exposures on my Orion nebula shots. Switched to 15x 1-minute stacks last night and the detail is way cleaner with way less noise. Has anyone else found a sweet spot for exposure length vs number of frames?

Mount tried to track a satellite and it failed hard

Last week I set up my star tracker to get a pass of the ISS and the mount just gave up halfway through. Turns out the clutch was slipping because I didn't tighten it enough after leveling. Anyone else have a mount randomly crap out during a satellite shot and have a fix that doesn't involve buying a whole new head?

That guy on the astrophotography forum told me to ditch my intervalometer

Been shooting nightscapes for about a year. Asked on here about getting star trails and this user "NebulaFool" said my cheap intervalometer was introducing noise. Told me to just use the camera's built-in interval mode instead. I ignored him for 3 months because I spent $40 on that thing. Finally tried it last month during the Perseids. No joke, my shots came out cleaner. Less random hot pixels. Ever had someone give you advice that went against what you bought?

Just realized i was overexposing every night sky photo for 6 months

I was looking through my old astro shots and noticed all the stars were blown out, just white blobs instead of points. Turns out i had my ISO cranked to 6400 every single time because i thought more light = better picture. Found a video from a dude who does deep sky photography in Arizona where he showed a stacked image workflow using DeepSkyStacker, that free program. He was shooting at ISO 800 and pulling way more detail than my noisy garbage. I downloaded the software and reprocessed some of my old RAW files and it actually saved a few of them. The difference in star sharpness between 6400 and 800 is wild, like night and day literally. Anyone else waste months on a bad setting before someone showed you the easy fix?