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TIK_GT t1_j1ndfxd wrote

Second pic looks amazing!

Gear used in both pics?

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steliosmudda OP t1_j1ndzu7 wrote

Same camera in both pics: Canon 60d (Ha modded)

But other than that, not many similarities in terms of gear.

First image was taken with a 70-200mm canon zoom lens, iOptron skyguider pro on an Amazon tripod and intervalometer.

Second one was taken with a Skywatcher 150P, EQ6R pro, optolong l-enhance, 72ED plus 120mm mini for guiding.

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mattcraft t1_j1ntf0f wrote

About $3k USD plus a camera setup? Good results for sure.

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StarMan315 t1_j1p5nit wrote

I’m just getting into photography, (my camera is coming in a few days), but the first photo was really just taken with a 200mm zoom lens? And I see you have a star tracker for longer exposures. I just didn’t think a 200mm lens would have the magnification to see a nebula like that.

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SyN_Pool t1_j1oc93c wrote

Photos stacked with exposure, or video?

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ISpikInglisVeriBest t1_j1pd9cb wrote

Not OP but deep sky astrophotography basically requires the gear OP mentions, a few dozen light frames, then a series of calibration frames (flats, darks, bias).

Edit: So definitely photos and not video.

You then use stacking software and make the final touches in photoshop/Lightroom.

I use SiriL and Photoshop, Nico Carver has a video comparing pretty much all stacking software if you're interested.

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gregologynet t1_j1o08nj wrote

Did you move your camera a little closer to the nebula for that second shot?

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Wannton47 t1_j1p2hsp wrote

They waited for the right time of year where we would be closer obviously

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EnricoSuave1 t1_j1nkb8l wrote

I took my first astro images this week, obviously chose Orion and this is really inspiring! Love the progress

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steliosmudda OP t1_j1nkvvr wrote

Keep on doing it! It’ll pay off eventually, even if you’re not completely satisfied with your first results.

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Baconation4 t1_j1nqdyj wrote

Top picture is still really quite nice to look at, but the bottom one I can’t look away.

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DingGratz t1_j1o86jh wrote

Can I ask a really dumb question?

When we see these "clouds" in space, are we looking at gaseous material or is it just a bunch of relatively-close stars?

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MineTorA t1_j1pc7aq wrote

That is a bunch of gas and "dust" that's being illuminated by stars in and around.

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Myshoesareloose t1_j1psxg7 wrote

I also have an even dumber question. Just HOW do people take these? How does the camera catch these details but not our eyes? Is this believable

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rider4life02 t1_j1qfpvz wrote

Cameras an telescopes have bigger surface collecting light than pur eyes. Also these picture are stacked. That means you take a video of the target you want the picture of and a program breaks it down to frames and you layer those frames (the good ones) on each other with another program so you can get a high resolution picture like these. These are very good ones.

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sesteele13 t1_j1obo9j wrote

Screw what everyone is saying about skill level, these both look great.

I’m an amateur astrophotographer and while yes, image processing is the bulk of it, you still have to have the eye for it, know how to set your settings properly as well as knowing where to point and shoot among other things.

So bravo! I would die to take images like this. I’m sure over time I’ll get to your level! Hopefully!

Keep shooting!

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Idennis7G t1_j1o5yk5 wrote

Mind to share the second pic in high quality? It would love to use it as wallpaper!

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NotAngryAndBitter t1_j1nssot wrote

Great work! How long did it take for you to get from pic 1 to 2?

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Millcore t1_j1o4m73 wrote

What’s the difference in exposure time between these two?

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plezsetonmaface t1_j1o811g wrote

Both pics are great! Incredible progress! Looks like a heart ❤️

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Apollyon314 t1_j1oa4nl wrote

They look amazing. Whats your set up? Do you live in a city and venture out to take these? You should post , crosspost r/spaceporn as well.

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steliosmudda OP t1_j1pe7jr wrote

I have my setup in another comment, but as far as location goes, I only take these images from home under Bortle 7 skies

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ScorPieOnQq t1_j1p97ni wrote

I dropped a little tears looking at this, it is truly beauty, damn

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hulkulesenstein t1_j1o01ap wrote

Would you mind sharing your second photo file by itself?

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bear_sees_the_car t1_j1ocz9k wrote

Maybe silly question, what am i looking at?

Really pretty. Thanks for gear info, surprised it is cheaper than i thought.

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steliosmudda OP t1_j1pec2s wrote

That’s the Orion Nebula (right) and the running man nebula (left)

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AdogTh1rt3en t1_j1ohmo8 wrote

Wow talk about progress you can see! You're awesome

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WillTheWAFSack t1_j1pcfjr wrote

I can never get over how absolutely gorgeous the Orion nebula is. Everything about it makes me just so happy

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Spatza t1_j1pwc6f wrote

Damn, and I'm still fumbling with manual focus on a Nikon 3100D.

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steliosmudda OP t1_j1pz645 wrote

I did that too for a long time. A bahtinov mask will make your life a lot easier. (if you don’t already have one)

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SOTIdriver t1_j1o8jqq wrote

2nd one looks like some proper astrophotography. The first one honestly looks like some kind of matte painting or space effect from a '70s space movie, and I absolutely love it.

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Charlatangle t1_j1piiq2 wrote

Is this progress or perhaps did the nebula just get closer?

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steliosmudda OP t1_j1pnjh2 wrote

Don’t know if this is serious or not. But just in case, the nebula didn’t get closer.

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Tiny-Butterscotch149 t1_j1qsqst wrote

What is this? Where is this? Why is this? And how big is this? Asking for a friend

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steliosmudda OP t1_j1qumbq wrote

Orion Nebula. It’s located in the Orion constellation and has a diameter of about 24 light years.

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Tiny-Butterscotch149 t1_j1qvshb wrote

Wow, thats pretty neat! How many earths can you fit in a lightyear? Asking for myself

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doubleB_finisher2101 t1_j1qx5uv wrote

that's pretty impressive i wonder what it would look like once enhanced using AI

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steliosmudda OP t1_j1qy05e wrote

The second one is already AI enhanced through a deconvolution plug-in in Pixinsight. This tool doesn’t magically create any details, all the details are real. It only brings out the subtle details so we can better see them. I would never apply an AI art script to any of my images

Also, resolution has been quadrupled through an algorithm called Drizzle.

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charlesthefish t1_j1r0ll2 wrote

I've really, really wanted to pick this up as a hobby, but I know absolutely nothing about photography.

Do you have any recommendations on where to start?

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The-Short-Night t1_j1ryxh3 wrote

So, anybody know what grandmother Willow from Pocahontas is doing in outer space?

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Kid_Achiral t1_j1o0rkp wrote

Why are the stars blue in your images? Shouldn’t they be red due to the Doppler effect?

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Vapour38 t1_j1o8ean wrote

The Orion Nebula (what this is a photo of) is actually in the Milly Way, like all other Astro photos you may see (minus galaxies). This then means the Doppler effect doesn’t take place, causing the natural colour of the stars to show, which in this case is blue. If you zoom in you can find stars which are red and white

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_insomagent t1_j1nkpbs wrote

Astrophotography is sadly one of those hobbies where it’s not so much skill but how much you spend that makes the biggest differences.

I would love to be proven wrong…

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steliosmudda OP t1_j1nmw7j wrote

I would like to prove you wrong.

Astrophotography is pretty mich about skill. A beginner can take a crappy image with a the same setup that an advanced astrophotographer can take a great image with.

Because a lot of it comes down to image processing and acquisition techniques. But like 90% of it is image processing. I don’t know if you have experience in AP but processing is really hard to get right. I read three books about it and watched countless yt videos. Still I feel like I have a lot to learn

Of course the more you spend, the more you’re going to get out of your gear. It’s like that in almost every hobby. But even with modest/bad gear, you’ll get awesome results if you excel at processing. And your images will be terrible if you suck at processing. Also you’ll have to learn how to max out the performance you’ll get from the gear you bought.

I will share an example, where I processed the same data, taken with the same gear, around 5 months apart.

Some people, like Trevor Jones, have much much better gear than me but I still continue to produce better images than them. As I said, it all comes down to processing and making it the most out of the data you’ve got.

But of course, the more money you’ll spend on AP, the more you’ll get out of your investment. I only have a 6“ scope under severely light polluted skies. But if I had a 1m scope under Chile quality skies, it’d be a different story. The data would improve but on the other side: if I do better processing than them, I’m still going to produce better images than them.

Edit: link https://www.reddit.com/r/astrophotography/comments/y6ifra/processing_makes_a_world_of_difference_this_is/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

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_insomagent t1_j1nnw3o wrote

I can’t tell which is the before and which is the after on the sample you provided. Neither is objectively better, it’s just a matter of taste.

And sorry, but to be blunt Trevor Jones has many photos which I consider much better than the example you provided.

As a final note, just the mount alone for your setup costs over 1.5 grand.

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Line---- t1_j1nx5ae wrote

The fact that you think these two images are anywhere near the same quality is conclusive proof that any opinions you have on Astrophotography as whole are likely completely worthless.

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_insomagent t1_j1o4cyc wrote

I’m not talking about the images in this post. The images in this post are taken with vastly different equipment. I am referring to images OP linked in the comment above. The images in his comment are a much more subjective matter of taste. More red=better image? Really? There's no contrast in the second one. It looks blown out.

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steliosmudda OP t1_j1peyzg wrote

u/Line—— has a point. The color is closer to what it’d really look like and there are more details and faint nebulosity visible in the second image of the wizard nebula.

Note to self: Don’t post to r/space anymore

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DalisaurusSex t1_j1qk11l wrote

Keep posting and ignore the ignorant, negative folks! This post is great and I very much enjoyed seeing the comparison and progress you've made.

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steliosmudda OP t1_j1quc99 wrote

Thanks :)

I’ve found posting on r/space much less fun than posting my images to r/astronomy. I guess bigger subreddit = more people = more self declared experts (like the user who left a comment saying they „did some color grading for me“. Got a good laugh out of this one though)

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steliosmudda OP t1_j1npdn0 wrote

Doesn’t the second one look way better than the first one to you?

Trevor takes some good images but he also has darker skies than mine. Plus if you have a full res image of his and try to zoom in, you’ll realize that his images aren’t that good.

He’s very focused on social media and his images are meant to fit that. So his images look good on Instagram, but wouldn’t have success on Astrobin. Any astrophotographer will be able to tell but I guess if you have no idea how these images are actually taken then it’s a lost cause.

Edit because I didn’t see: yes my mount was expensive but the mount is the single most important piece of equipment in AP. My mount isn’t even that exotic if you’d know other astronophotographers.

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_insomagent t1_j1o7eeg wrote

> Edit because I didn’t see: yes my mount was expensive but the mount is the single most important piece of equipment in AP. My mount isn’t even that exotic if you’d know other astronophotographers.

Funny, I thought the single most important piece of equipment is the astrophotographer's skill. /s

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Pharisaeus t1_j1nvqet wrote

> 90% of it is image processing

While your work looks really nice, I somehow doubt you're writing your own processing pipelines instead of using software someone else has written for that purpose, so majority of the processing is not really "your" work (except for trying to fine-tune parameters). But I might be completely wrong, and you are developing astronomical image processing software yourself.

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Line---- t1_j1nwwpb wrote

So your saying… if you learn to play the flute, well actually you’ve done nothing, because I doubt you built that flute with your bare hands.

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Pharisaeus t1_j1nxfew wrote

A completely failed analogy, since I'm not saying someone has to build the camera with their bare hands.

Imagine you bough a flute and also a robot which is playing this flute. And you're essentially choosing the music sheets, tuning the instrument and picking the right place to play the music. This is pretty much what is happening here.

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Line---- t1_j1og6kw wrote

Analogies are usually exaggerated to prove a point. While mine isn’t 1:1, I still don’t think you are correct.

I don’t see how using someone else’s program means this image is “not their work”. He used a tool, to do a job. It takes skills to use that tool.

Yes, anyone can theoretically learn how to do things like this, but anyone can also learn how to play the flute.

Building on your adjustment to my analogy, I’d say that maybe rather than having a robot play the music you have selected, this would be more like writing the music yourself. Not something anyone can do with ease.

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TurChunkin t1_j1o5wkq wrote

Unless you actually have the ability to produce an image like this from start to finish, you're just guessing. Your attempt at the robot analogy is failed, because you *don't actually know* how to create an image like this, you're just assuming that if you spent the money, you could do it too because *it's just as easy as telling a robot to do it.*

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_insomagent t1_j1o750z wrote

I don't know why people think astrophotography processing is difficult. The hardest part of astrophotography is obtaining the money required to acquire a guided mount with minimal bearing play, decent apochromatic scope, autoguider, software for said autoguider.

Anybody can learn how to adjust curves in Photoshop or run a script that uses somebody else's algorithm to make stars look smaller. I'd love to hear a counterpoint to this.

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MineTorA t1_j1pco4l wrote

It's immediately obvious that you have no idea what goes into the processing of astrophotos. It's not just running scripts and adjusting curves. It's not worth the time writing out a "counterpoint", people who have dedicated thousands of hours have told you it's not a simple matter. If you don't believe it, give it a try, JWST data is available for free.

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_insomagent t1_j1ptjxc wrote

I have an "entry level" setup that cost me around $2000.

Your photos are great.

I saw your setup, pretty good stuff. Equipment you used, and the price points:

TS-Optics Photoline 80mm APO Triplet ($800)
QHY 163M ($1199)
SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro ($2000)
ZWO ASI 120MM ($134)
ZWO EAF ($248)
ZWO EFW ($269)
Optolong 7nm Ha, 6.5nm Oiii, 6.5nm Sii filters ($720 for a 3 piece kit)

So you spent... around $5,370 to take these stunning photos. That's not even taking into account what you spent on software, which is more than likely equal in value.

I could show you the images I captured with my $2,000 setup, but they aren't great, and of course my wife wasn't happy with how much I spent on this hobby. However, I'm not going to do that, because of course you're going to shit all over it with your $10,000 setup. I'm so frustrated with this talking point about "processing" skill, I'm going to download some raw data, and show you just how easy this shit is.

Take a look here:

https://astrobackyard.com/astrophotography-image-processing-challenge/

Without looking at the end of Trevor Jones' blog page, tell me which one is done by him and which one is me fucking around in GIMP for 30 minutes. https://imgur.com/a/bOTVx5g

When you're ready, scroll to the end of Trevor Jones' blog post and see if your guess was correct.

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Pharisaeus t1_j1o772x wrote

> because you don't actually know how to create an image like this,

I actually do. I happened to write astronomical data processing software, although for telescopes orders of magnitude bigger than what OP is using here. Anyway, OP said himself that 90% of it is image processing this is why I asked if he actually is the author of this "image processing" he's referring to. Because it's not a manual process, just as making hundreds of photos for stacking or taking calibrations is also not a manual process either - you literally buy a special robot to track the target on the sky for you.

Of course it involves spending time and having the skills to setup all of this, and clearly OP got some really nice results, I'm not denying that! But let's be clear on which parts of the process require skill and which require money.

−2

MineTorA t1_j1pda2j wrote

You honestly just sound like you're butthurt that people using software instead of writing it are getting credit. What kind of inane gatekeeping nonsense are you peddling? Processing astrophotos is an art, and the software we use are the tools. Photography is an expensive art yes, and astrophotography can be more expensive still, but you can spend ten grand on a setup and never produce more than a blur if you don't know how to use the equipment and software. Meanwhile someone with the know-how can use an unmodified DSLR with a kit lens and barn door tracker and get great results. Why do we have to "write the imaging processor"?

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Pharisaeus t1_j1pqvag wrote

> Why do we have to "write the imaging processor"?

You don't. It was OP himself who said processing is 90% of the work and skill, but in reality majority of processing is done automatically.

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sCeege t1_j1o0r2b wrote

I think that vaguely describes modern digital photography, not just Astro. Modern cameras gives us so much capabilities that it's lowering the barrier of entry (for technique) to take great photos, and better(expensive) gear can ease the setup and tolerances for mistakes. This is also true in a lot of hobbies.

I'm unsure if i can ease your sadness/bitterness that brought you to that line of thinking, but I think you should enjoy a hobby for yourself, not necessarily for comparison with others. I'm grateful to live in an Era where someone can easily order parts to assemble a rig that could take pictures that could be mistaken for one taken at an observatory.

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NeonsStyle t1_j1pa3gl wrote

This looks amazing photo but pretty raw. So I did the colour grading on it for you. Click the down arrow top right this link.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aip9xxm6YOVS87WTux_XN3ewJ1Qwy-oH/view?usp=share_link

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TheIndominusGamer420 t1_j1qe1iy wrote

Woah, you used the contrast tool!! Epic!!

Please don't force your lack of astrophotography knowledge on others by editing their work, unless they somehow want your help.

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shikuto t1_j1r5bj4 wrote

Wow, all… 12 of those pixels look nice, I guess.

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