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Astrophotography
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.
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Astrophotography refers to images of astronomical objects or phenomena exclusively.
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~~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.
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Images must be an accurate representation of a real astronomical object.
- II | Original and Amateur Content Only
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Image posts can only be images that you have captured and processed yourself, or discussion about capturing and/or processing your own images.
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Images acquired from public sources, professional observatories, or other professional services are not allowed.
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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
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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)
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Questions are welcome here for the time being.
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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
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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.
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This includes the telescope, mount, camera, accessories, and any other pieces of equipment you used to capture the image.
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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.
I last shot this thing back in 2022, decided to give it another go from darker skies. Captured on April 19th, 2026 from a Bortle 3 zone (Deerlick Astronomy Village).
Places where I host my other images:
Flickr | Pixelfed
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-290mc for guiding
Moonlite Autofocuser
Acquisition: 8 hours 30 minutes (Camera at unity gain, -15°C)
L - 68x180"
R - 34x180"
G - 34x180"
B - 34x180"
Darks- 30
Flats- 30 per filter
Capture Software:
PixInsight Preprocessing:
BatchPreProcessing
StarAlignment
Blink
ImageIntegration per channel
DrizzleIntegration (2x, Var β=1.5)
Dynamic Crop
Multiscale Gradient Correction with MARS Project data
Luminance linear:
BlurXterminator
StarXterminator to completely remove stars (extracted stars processed separately)
ArcsinhStretch + HistogramTransformation to stretch nonlinear
RGB Linear:
Channelcombination to make color image from RGB stacks
SpectrophotometricColorCalibration
BlurXTerminator
StarX to remove stars (to be used for star addition later)
HSV Repair
ArcsinhStretch + HistogramTransformation to stretch nonlinear
Slight curves saturation boost and histogram adjustments
Stars only image:
BlurXterminator for discortion correction and some mild star reduction
ArcsinhStretch + HistogramTransformation to stretch nonlinear (less aggressive stretch)
Slight curve adjustments
Nonlinear Processing
LRGBCombination to combine stretched RGB and L images
DeepSNR Noise reduction
Shitloads of curve transformations to adjust luminance, contrast, saturation, etc
More curves
NoiseXterminator for small scale chrominance noise reduction
LocalHistogramEqualization
Pixelmath to add in the stretched stars only image from earlier
NoiseXTerminator for some small scale chrominance noise reduction
Resample to 80%
DynamicCrop in on just the galaxy
Annotation
Very nice detail - well done. This one's on my list to try to capture soon...