c/astronomy-photos

Watching the Perseids from a church parking lot in Dripping Springs taught me to stop zooming in

I had my telescope cranked to 200x trying to get one hero shot when an old guy next to me just pointed his phone at the sky on a 10 second exposure, and his wide shot with a meteor streak and the whole Milky Way beat everything I got that night, so now I shoot wide first and crop later, has anyone else switched to phone or wide lens shots over telescope pics?

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ivangrant•1d ago

Took 4 hours on stacked lunar shots instead of a single frame, never going back

I spent all night stacking 800 frames of the moon from my backyard in Denver and honestly the craters look like you could reach out and touch them, but is the time worth it when one clean shot gets you 80 percent of the way there?

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pat360•1d ago

That wide-field epiphany after a decade of chasing closeups

Back in 2008 I got my first real telescope, a used 8 inch dobsonian from some guy in Toledo. I spent every clear night hunting galaxies and nebulae, but my photos always came out washed out and tiny. I thought it was my camera or my tracking, so I kept buying gear and getting more frustrated. Last month I joined a local club meetup and an older member glanced at my laptop and asked why I was cropping so tight. I told him I wanted the object big in frame, and he just laughed and said I was killing the context that makes astro shots work. He pulled up a wide shot of Andromeda with the core small and tons of surrounding sky, and suddenly it looked way more real and impressive. I had spent all those years zooming into nothing instead of showing the scale of the thing. Has anyone else had a basic habit that took them forever to break once they saw it done different?

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betty_shah•3d ago

Swapped my old tripod for a star tracker, images got sharper than expected

Used to think a heavy tripod was all you needed for deep sky shots, but after 14 nights fighting star trails in Flagstaff, I tried a used Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer. The difference was the ability to do 90 second subs instead of 10 second ones, and the detail in Orion's nebula showed up way clearer. What convinced me was comparing the same target on the same camera, the untracked stack looked noisy and soft next to the tracked one. Anyone else notice their old setup was holding back their photos more than they realized?

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baker.phoenix•10d ago

That one guy at Mauna Kea who refused to look at my processed image

I spent 3 hours stacking 120 frames of the Orion Nebula last month, and this older gentleman at the visitor center kept insisting real astrophotography meant film and a darkroom. He wouldn't even glance at my laptop screen, just said 'that's cheating, the sky didn't look like that.' I felt defensive at first, then realized he'd never adjusted to digital sensors capturing more than the eye sees. Has anyone else met purists who ignore how much processing is just bringing out data that's already there?

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evan_morgan81•11d ago

My $45 moon filter was a total waste of money last night

Last night I spent $45 on a new moon filter because my old one was scratched up. I got it from a local shop in Portland, waited for the clouds to clear, and the view through my 8 inch dob was actually worse. The contrast was muddy and I could barely see the terminator details compared to my old scratched one. Has anyone else tried a cheaper neutral density filter and gotten better results than a fancy polarizing one?

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xena_williams•12d ago

Caught the Northern Lights over Lake Superior and my phone actually did it justice

Was up at Copper Harbor on Tuesday and the aurora hit KP 6 around 11 p.m., so my 3-second exposure on a $200 tripod came out sharper than my buddy's $2,000 rig, has anyone else found that shutter speed matters more than gear in these shots?

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baker.phoenix•12d ago

Tried to capture the Milky Way for 3 nights straight, got clouds every single time

Drove up to Mount Pinos last week with my new camera setup. First night the fog rolled in at 9pm. Second night I waited 4 hours and the clouds never broke. Third night my neighbor's porch light stayed on until 2am and wrecked every long exposure. I got 12 blurry shots of a tree and called it a trip. Has anyone else had a run of bad luck like this or is it just my timing?

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casey943•15d ago

Two star trail shots, 2 nights apart, totally different results

Shot the Milky Way core from a hill outside Tucson on Monday night with zero clouds, then tried the exact same spot Wednesday after a dust storm blew through. The first image had crisp pinprick stars, the second came out hazy with this weird orange glow near the horizon that wasn't visible to my naked eye. What causes that kind of color shift where dust scatters city light, and is there a filter that fixes it without killing the star detail?

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carter.jennifer•18d ago

Tried to photograph the Perseids, ended up photographing my neighbor's porch light for 40 minutes

Set up my Canon T7 on a suburban street in Austin at 2am, aimed at the northeastern sky where the radiant should be. My intervalometer was set for 20-second exposures, but I forgot to switch the lens to manual focus, so every shot was a blurry mess of bokeh circles. The kicker? The neighbor's motion-activated floodlight kept flicking on every time a car passed, and I didn't notice until I checked the preview and saw a glowing white blob in every frame. By the time I fixed the focus and moved to a darker cul-de-sac, clouds rolled in. I ended up with 87 unusable shots and one decent picture of a bat flying across the moon. Has anyone else wasted a whole night on a gear mistake that you only catch on the back of the camera?

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rosejackson•18d ago

My tracking mount almost took out my telescope at 2am

Last Saturday I set up my GoTo mount for a night of shooting Orion. Everything was fine until the clutch slipped mid-exposure and the whole thing swung around faster than I could react. The counterweight bar whipped past my laptop stand and barely missed the tripod leg. I spent 20 minutes recalibrating in the dark because I forgot a red headlamp. Has anyone else had a mount do a surprise spin on them?

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juliam40•21d ago

Hot take: stacking moon photos is ruining the real detail

I keep seeing these overly sharpened moon shots in here that look like a CGI render, not a photo. Everyone stacks 500 frames and runs them through the same software until the surface looks fake and plastic. Last week someone posted a single frame from a phone through a telescope that had way more character. I get that stacking helps with noise, but people are pushing it way past what the data actually supports. Has anyone else noticed the sweet spot is more like 50 to 100 frames max before you start losing the natural look?

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hollym12•22d ago

Rant: My star tracker mount froze up at 2am on a solo shoot

Went out last Thursday night to Cherry Springs, finally got a clear sky after weeks of clouds. I had my mount all set up, polar aligned, camera balanced, the whole deal. About 45 minutes into a 90 minute imaging run on the Orion Nebula, the declination motor just stopped responding. No error code, no warning, just dead. The tracking kept going in RA so the stars stayed round, but the framing was stuck and I lost half the night troubleshooting. I tried swapping cables, resetting the hand controller, even reflashing the firmware from my laptop in the dark. Nothing worked, so I packed up at 3am feeling like I wasted the drive and the $40 in gas. Turns out the motor connector had a loose pin, I found it when I got home and took the cover off. Has anyone else had a mount fail mid-session like that, or am I just lucky?

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parkerrodriguez•23d ago

Drove 3 hours to a dark sky site but my camera battery died, so I shot 40 minutes of star trails on my phone instead

I had to pick between packing the spare battery or the heavier tripod, went with the tripod, and now I've got a grainy timelapse of the Milky Way that somehow looks more honest than anything my DSLR ever gave me, anyone else ever lean on a backup that turned out better than the main plan?

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brianellis•27d ago

Stacking 200 frames of Orion changed my mind about phone astro shots

I used to think phone photos of the night sky were pointless, but last month in Flagstaff I tried taking 200 short exposures of the Orion Nebula with my Pixel and stacked them in DeepSkyStacker. The result showed the trapezium cluster and faint red gas that I could barely see with my own eyes, and it completely flipped my view on what a pocket camera can do. It took about 20 minutes of holding still with a cheap tripod and figuring out the right exposure time, around 2 seconds each, to avoid star trails. Has anyone else gotten decent nebula shots with just a phone and free software, or am I pushing the limit?

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wyatta30•27d ago

Long exposure finally clicked after I learned the 500 rule in Moab

I've been shooting night skies for a year and always got blurry stars or overexposed shots. Last month in Moab I finally dialed in the 500 rule with my 24mm lens, capping exposure at 20 seconds. The difference was huge, crisp stars instead of streaky lines. What exposure tricks do you use for wide field shots that actually work?

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charles_green•1mo ago

Are stacked deep-sky images actually better, or just easier to process? Split decision from last month's meetup

Last month at the Dark Sky Society meeting near Flagstaff, a guy named Dave showed a 6-hour stacked image of the Veil Nebula that looked like butter. Then someone else pulled up a single 90-second exposure from a phone mount on a dob, and honestly it had more raw character. I've been shooting with a DSLR for about three years, and I keep going back and forth. Stacking gives you detail but sometimes it kills the natural color and makes everything look plastic. So which is it for you, are we chasing clean data or honest light, or is there a middle ground that actually works?

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the_robin•1mo ago

Why does everyone overprocess their star photos until they look fake?

I keep seeing these shots in the feeds where the nebula colors are so saturated it looks like a video game. I get that stacking helps, but I pulled up a raw single frame I took near Flagstaff last month and the natural color was way more subtle and honestly better. My rule now is if I have to push the saturation slider past 20% in Photoshop, I messed up the capture or the calibration. Does anyone else prefer keeping the noise and faint details over the neon look, or am I the only one who thinks we're losing the real astronomy in the editing?

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parkerrodriguez•1mo ago

My first stacked moon shot came out looking like a blurry pancake, then I found the issue

Spent 3 hours stacking 400 frames in DeepSkyStacker and got a mess. Turns out my exposure was too high and the histogram was clipped, so there was zero detail left to sharpen. Has anyone else wasted a whole night on a target only to realize the settings were the problem, not the software?

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richard_mason•1mo ago

Long exposure shots looked terrible until I gave up on stacking

For about 8 months I stacked every deep sky image with software like everyone recommends. Star alignment, calibration frames, the whole setup. My Eagle Nebula from last August still looked mushy. Then I tried a single 90 second exposure, just one frame, processed it alone. Way more detail and color. I know stacking works for faint stuff but for bright targets like M42 it honestly made things worse for me. Anyone else skip stacking for certain objects or am I doing something weird with my darks?

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jason_fisher4•1mo ago

Spent 6 months over-sharpening every deep sky shot, then found a basic histogram trick

My M31 image last Tuesday looked like a diamond knife, all crunchy stars and burned cores, and I couldn't figure out why. Turns out I was pushing the color saturation slider past 80% every time without checking the RGB histogram. Has anyone else wrecked a good galaxy stack with over-processing, or do you just go for the 'natural' look from raw captures?

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bencampbell•1mo ago

100k photo views from one boring moon shot, still weird to me

Took a basic full moon picture with a used 8 inch dob and a phone mount. No fancy filters, no stacking, just a single frame on a clear Tuesday night. Posted it here on a whim, went to bed. Woke up to 100k views and a ton of comments. Someone even asked if they could use it for a band album cover. The crazy part? My best attempt at Jupiter from last month got maybe 200 views. What photo of yours blew up for no logical reason?

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wade_young86•1mo ago

Bought a $200 solar filter, scratched it on the first try

I grabbed an off-brand solar filter for my scope before the eclipse last spring and thought I was saving cash. After one rough mount it got a hairline scratch that ruined every shot of the sun. Anyone else found a way to protect these things without paying triple for the fancy brands?

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noah_palmer42•1mo ago

Unpopular take: wide angle lenses beat telescopes for most backyard shots

I spent 3 years chasing deep sky objects with an 8 inch dob and ended up with maybe 5 keepers. Last month I rented a 14mm wide angle lens for a night at Cherry Springs State Park and got 20 sharp shots of the Milky Way core in one session. Telescopes are great for planets, but for the casual person who just wants a photo that looks cool, the lens wins every time. Am I missing something about the tracking setups, or does anyone else feel the same way?

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graytorres•1mo ago

Same nebula, 1995 vs 2024, the difference is wild

Stacked the HST archive image next to the new James Webb one of the Pillars of Creation and you can actually see new stars and gas details that were completely hidden before, has anyone else been blown away by how much sharper the infrared shots look?

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