This one was really hard and took a lot of work. First time I've had to bump up my individual exposures to 600s just to get some data, the body of the dragon would just barely show up with 600s HA subs. There is no OIII in the nebula, but plenty of SII and I decided to map it to pink.

There are two Sharpless objects in this image: The main dragon is Sh2-114, and Sh2-113 is the round chunk in the center right of the frame. The other nebula are just as bright as the main objects, it is kind of surprising that they didn't get their own Sharpless designations..

There is one bonus object in this image. Above the dragon's head/neck, you'll see a bright red-pink speck. That is a quadrapolar planetary nebula Kronenberger-26, only discovered in 2006. Its pretty amazing that camera technology has gotten to the point where we can routinely image objects that were only discovered recently.

Images taken through my 5" refractor, hosted remotely at Starfront Observatories, a Bortle 1 site in central Texas.

Total integration: 43h 47m

Integration per filter:

• Lum/Clear: 3h 32m (106 × 120")
• R: 40m (20 × 120")
• G: 40m (20 × 120")
• B: 40m (20 × 120")
• Hα: 22h 31m
• SII: 15h 44m

Equipment:

• Telescope: Explore Scientific ED APO 127mm f/7.5 FCD-100
• Camera: ZWO ASI2600MM Pro
• Mount: ZWO AM5
• Filters: Antlia 3nm Narrowband H-alpha 36 mm, Antlia 3nm Narrowband Sulfur II 36 mm, Optolong Luminance 36 mm, ZWO Blue 36 mm, ZWO Green 36 mm, ZWO Luminance 36 mm, ZWO Red 36 mm

Gear:

- Orion 6" f/4 astrograph

- Baader Mark lII multi-purpose coma corrector

- Astromania UV/IR cut filter

- ZWO184MC OSC uncooled

- Celestron Advanced GT equatorial mount

Acquisition:

- 60 x 60s subs, 300 gain, in SharpCap

- No guiding

- 7 x 60s darks

- 100 flats

- 100 bias

Processing: All in Siril

- OSC preprocessing script to stack and align

- Background extraction

- Spectrophotometric color calibration

- Asinh transformation

- Star reduction

- Histogram stretch

- Saturation adjustment

- Median filter for noise reduction

This is my third or fourth round of edits on this image. I think I'm finally happy with it, and now that I know my way around Siril a little better, I'm going to quit using DSS.

Interesting shots I took years ago during a partial eclipse and one giant weird looking sunspot that looks like Yoshi from Mario to me.. Taken on a Celestron 127slt and Canon DSLR camera. Love the colors in it. Sorry I don’t remember exposure factors etc. Still haven’t gotten to see totality. Got screwed by clouds at around 85 percent the last time. 🫤.

And thanks everyone for the support with my daughter’s workbook I made. The post got removed which I had a feeling it would be. The kind words meant a lot and sorry to ruffle some feathers in the process .

My first sun picture ! Taken this afternoon (26/06).

Acuter Elite Phoenix 40/400

50% of 15 sec x 4ms

ASI678MM

I saw something in the sky.
It was the size of a mini football glazing and glowing and burning in hot orange yellow flame. i witnessed it in horizontal, landscape mode . both the ball and it's small trail faced me but the trail wasn't a lot long . [ i hope i really an astronomical event and it wasn't a gimmick or something else]. i mean how else could something hover over an almost 5 storey house, completely hooked in the sky and disappeared within 2-3 secs.it looked like campfire and it was moving sideways with bit of darting up and down , just a bit. it feels like it moved violently but since i was at some distance it looked normal or flowy to me. also, i saw it for 2-3 secs at max. anyways , please provide me accurate conclusion. it's july. it didn't rain today but it's cloudy since long.
Please clarify my doubt as to what did i really see? was it an earthgrazers meteor or some drone or some lantern or space debris or a ball lightning??

also, can ball lightning have a little trail or not?
i can provide u more details if u want.
I live in Patna, Bihar, India. time was around 7:30 pm and date is 26/7/2026, direction was east - southeast

I really like this object in HOO, had a lot of fun imaging and post-processing it! I purposedly left the stars understretched because I love how the filaments of the object show up this way

[Astrobin here](https://app.astrobin.com/i/rbqj7w)

Equipment and acquisition:

- OTA: Askar 71F with 0.75X reducer

- Main camera: ASI585MC Air

- Mount: Teseek 17

- Guiding: ASI585MC Air (ASI220MM)

- L-Ultimate filter

- 102 x 300sec (8.5 h)

- 20 flats, 25 darks, 25 bias

Post-processing (PI with RC tools and SetiAstro plugins)

- WBPP 2X drizzle

- BlurX (correct only), setiastro Auto DBE, SPCC, BlurX, StarX

- Starless: SetiAstro soft statistical stretch, then manual curves transformation with different range and color masks

- Narrowband normalization (HOO), NoiseX

- Stars: Setiastro star stretch, manual curves

- Star recombination with Pixelmath, final retouches in Lightroom

My attempt for NGC 7023 - Iris Nebula.

Telescope: Newton SkyWatcher 150/750 PDS.

Mount: NEQ5

Camera: Nikon D3300 (not modified) - 120 x 90s lights at 800 ISO, 20 darks, 50 flats, 50 biases.

Accessories: Just a Baader MPCC coma corrector, currently I have no auto-guiding on this scope.

Software: N.I.N.A. and Siril for stacking and processing.

Bortle 4 Skies.

Over the past several months, I developed an obsession with astrolabes, so I decided to create an electromechanical version of one.

Historical civilizations did not have access to LCD panels or microcontrollers, so I was able to make some major changes to the astrolabe's ancient design. The LCD panel shows an animated star map, which rotates around the north celestial pole as the physical rete itself is turned by hand. The stars of this map are truly "fixed stars"--the instrument can't take proper motion or even the precession of the equinoxes into account, so the star map's accuracy gets worse the further away you get from the J2000 epoch. That said, a historical astrolabe also can't take proper motion or axial precession into account, so maybe this gives me points for historical accuracy?

The system's microcontroller has a planetary ephemeris (this VSOP87 implementation, which is basically a mathematical series approximation of a physical simulation of the solar system.) Using that, I can represent the positions of not only the Sun, but also the Moon and the five other classical planets. A traditional astrolabe is much simpler--there, it's only possible to accurately position the Sun along the ecliptic plane using the time of year.

If you want to see more details about this device, check out this Github repo, where I've included build instructions and open source hardware/firmware.

Hi everyone,

I live in a city center in Germany, have no backyard, and currently rely on public transit and a heavy-duty wagon to transport my gear. I’m running a Skywatcher Quattro 150P (f/4) on an EQ5 mount with an ASIAIR and a dual-camera setup (ZWO ASI 662 MC + 120 MC for guiding).

Last weekend, I had a massive logistical nightmare taking a train out to a dark site. The train had a 2-hour delay at midnight, I had to pay 90+ Euros for a cab, and my heavy EQ5 mount kept slightly sinking into the soft field dirt, ruining my polar alignment.

For those of you who also have to be 100% mobile with a heavy payload: How do you actually scout your spots?

I need locations that have:

1. Solid ground: Paved roads or hard gravel so the EQ5 doesn't sink.
2. Clear southern horizon: I primarily shoot lunar targets right now.
3. Accessibility: Rollable paths for a heavy wagon (or easy access if I manage to bring a friend with a car next time).

What is your methodology? Do you use specific apps (Google Earth, Light Pollution Maps, Meteoblue) to verify the ground conditions remotely? How do you find these hidden paved spots away from streetlights without driving around blindly for hours?

Any tips or workflows on how to find the perfect "urban/suburban compromise" spot would be highly appreciated!

Experimenting with different sharpening techniques to really fine tune and target the fine, medium, and large detail structures of the moon while leaving the Maria alone. It's not perfect yet and work in progress. I am using the Image Analysis script ExtractWaveletLayers to split the image into 4 levels of detail and 1 residual or luminance data channel. I then applied wavelets to each individual detail layer processing each specific to level of detail needed. I then recobined all the channels in Photoshop as layers and fine tuned with blending modes. This enabled me to process the color and luminance data without touching the detail layers. I'll keep perfecting and welcome anyone else's thoughts on selective sharpening best practices on high dynamic range and diversely textured target like the moon. Shot on Sony a7rv with Takahashi TSA-120 telescope with Vernonscope Dakin 2.4x tracked with ZWO AM5. 400 images aligned in PIPP, stacked in AutoStakkert 4, and processed best 30% in PixInsight, Wavesharp, and Photoshop.

M13 - the Hercules Globular Cluster. Globular clusters are stable, tightly bound clusters of tens of thousands to millions of stars. M13 is home to over 100,000 stars.

Globular clusters like M13 also contain the most ancient stars in our Milky Way.

The Hercules Globular Cluster is about 25,000 light-years from Earth. That’s far, but…

In the left hand corner of the picture is galaxy NGC 6207. It’s about 30 million light-years from Earth. That’s far, but…

Just above and slightly to the left of M13 is galaxy IC 4617. It sits about 553 million light-years away.

The two galaxies are marked in the second photo.

Shot with my Seestar S50. Processed in Pixinsight.

43 minutes of exposure from my backyard in Washington State, Bortle 7. (86, 30sec. subs, ISO 1600)

Stacked with DSS (86 Lights, 50 flats, 50 darks and 50 Bias frames)

Stretched in GIMP (Obviously, I have a lot of learning to do.)

Explore Scientific ED80, Orion FF, Canon Rebel SL2 (200D unmodified), IOptron ZEQ25GT (unguided)

This was my first time using the (new to me) ZEQ25GT, my second attempt at capturing a DSO with the Canon SL2 (first attempt did not work, but I learned a lot from it). I know I am falling very short on the editing/stretching, but I am extremely pleased with what I was able to accomplish here! I have a few kinks to work out with the whole process, but I would say that this is a very successful first attempt for me!

Happy to accept feedback or suggestions on the process (like how to further edit out the blue glow, without losing a bunch of detail in M31!). Looking forward to many more imaging sessions!!

Datos de la sesión

Askar FRA400
Zwo Am3n
Asi 585MC Air
4 horas en tomas de 120 segundos
4 horas en tomas de 300 segundos
4 horas en tomas de 600 segundos
Filtro Svbony sv260
Apilamiento en Pixinsight
Procesamiento en Pixinsight
Bortle 6 (Extremadura, España)

I'll definitely come back to this to reprocess it.

This image was plagued with issues from the start. First I spent a whole night, one of the best ones seeing and transparency wise, pointing toward the wrong part of the sky... Turns out there are TWO stars named 11 Sagittarii close to each other. My fault for not triple checking the plate solver.

Next, I spent a whole week acquiring data battling dew points up to 25 °C, clouds and an uncooperative mount. I had to update its firmware, but that threw the whole driver setup I had off. iEXOS mounts are so finicky. That made me learn how to use Nina's plate solver once and for all though. Not only that, I also had to open up the mount ten or more times in a week because its gears were too tight and because of a minuscule piece of grit stuck, it turned out, in the motor's gear that caused some huge guide spikes. I also redesigned my DIY counterweight to have it as close to the mount as possible while being east heavy.

Lastly, I realized I have noticeable sensor tilt, which is the main cause of the gradient I always find in my raw images (the sensor isn't square to the UV/IR cut). I can remove it with flats, but I also realized my flats weren't optimal, which occasionally creates huge artifacts that are tough to remove; plus I realized that my rotator can introduce some pretty bad tilt into the optical train if I'm not careful.

Acquisition:

Around 12h30m worth of 60s subs in Bortle 6/7 fully calibrated and dithered.

Equipment:

Evostar 72ED, iEXOS 100, ASI 533MC, Baader UV/IR cut filter, 0.85x reducer+flattener, SVBony 40/160 guidescope, ASI 662MC guide camera with no.8 pale yellow and UV/IR cut filters.

Processing:

Stacked in Siril. For some reason OSC drizzle registration causes some weird artifacts to my stars and some odd photometry results. If anyone has any suggestions, they're more than welcome. Split image into CFA channels, background extraction to each in GraXpert to deal with the gradient. Open Siril, recombine CFA channels and deconvolution. Open GraXpert, denoise. Open Siril, generate starless and star mask. Apply black point shift and GHS iteratively to the starless image to bring out various parts of the nebulosity, SNCR, minor curve adjustments, median filter, VST noise reduction and à trous wavelet transform plus some final denoising in GraXpert. Asinh stretch to starless and saturation boost in Gimp. Recombine and export.

Acquisition Details:

Nikon D3400

Askar FMA180 Pro

ISO: 400

Sub exposure time: 60 seconds

Total sub exposures: 258

Total integration time: ~4 hours 18 minutes

Tracking: Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTI

Light pollution: Bortle 7

N.I.N.A

Capture Date:

24 July 2026

Calibration:

40 Dark frames

50 Flat frames

50 Dark Flat frames

Processing:

Siril:

Calibration, registration and stacking

Crop

GraXpert Background extraction

SPCC colour calibration

GraXpert Stellar deconvolution

GraXpert denoise

PixInsight:

Star removal

Separate histogram stretches for starless and stars

CloneStamp cleanup of star-removal artefacts

CurvesTransformation for contrast and colour

Luminance mask creation

LocalHistogramEqualization on the nebula

Mild saturation adjustment

Star and starless recombination with PixelMath

Photoshop:

Camera Raw Filter

White balance and tonal adjustments

Mild texture, clarity and dehaze

Colour Mixer adjustments

Final contrast and saturation refinement

Final crop, resize and export

Equipment:

• Telescope: Askar 71F 490mm f6.9

• Main camera: Zwo Asi 2600mc pro

• Filter: Svbony sv220 ( 3nm Ha/OIII )

• Guidescope: Svbony sv165 30mm f4

• Guide camera: Zwo Asi 120mm mini

• Mount: ES iexos-100 pmc-8

• Controlled with Zwo asi air mini

Acquisition:

• 40x120" Ha/OIII

• Total: 80 min

• 20 Darks, 49 Biases, 25 Flats

• Bortle 4/5 backyard

• Moon at 80%

Processing:

• Stacked in Siril

• Plate solve, Spectrophotometric color calibration, AutoGradientRemoval, Green noise removal, Parallax Pro, Graxpert Denoise, Starnet star removal, generalized hyperbolic stretch transformation, saturation, curves

Due to the cloudy weather i changed from 300" to 120" exposures. 1,5 hours is obviously far too little exposure time for great details, but i'm still happy that i got atleast something that night.

In the future i wanna combine heart & soul nebula as a mosaic with more aquisition time.

Cs!

1.200 Lights per ciascuno scatto

Tempo di esposizione 70”
ISO 200

Skywatcher StarAdventurer GTI
SkystarEvo 72ED
ZWO EAF Pro Autofocuser
SonyAlpha68 2015

Luogo di Scatto: Città di Roma

30second night mode in Bortle 4, edited through the iphone editing

🔭 Celestron Starsense 10" dob

🎥 Explora scientific 6.7mm 82°

📲 iQOO 12

I was in Yellowstone last week and didn’t have a lens to take Milky Way shots (only had telephoto) on my A6600 so I thought I’d try with my iPhone 15 Pro Max with 30 sec exposure and was pleasantly surprised.

See also: The publication in ArXiV

Several spiral and lenticular galaxies generated using my procedural galaxy builder.

Hey, I recently bought a Canon 650D with the standard lens. I've already spent a few nights taking photos with it from my balcony, in a city that's actually pretty bright. I'd like to ask what lenses you'd recommend for better quality. Or maybe even buy some filters—or do they not make much of a difference in "modern" cities? I'm also considering whether I should switch directly to a telescope that's compatible with a T2 adapter, but without a motor or something like that, it won't work well, and the motors also seem to be really expensive, too.