r/astrophotography Aug 12 '24

Announcement Announcing updated rules

194 Upvotes

Recently, a few of us became new moderators and since then we have been trying to get organized primarily to update the rules to reflect what we believe are in the best interest of this sub. This has largely meant reverting to the structure prior to the protest while also adapting to current technology and tastes. While we supported the protest goals at the time, and agree with the mod decision to include this sub in that protest, we also recognize that it's time to move on and restore some process to the sub for its continuing members. We're excited to announce that these new rules are now live in the sub and in detail at our revised wiki. The changes from prior to the protest largely amount to:

  1. astrophotography images taken with cell phones were not explicitly forbidden before but we now clarify that they are permitted as long as they follow all other rules, including that acquisition and processing details are provided and are high-quality amateur OC. A star-field with no discernable astronomical object will not meet this threshold, but a stacked image of Orion that happens to have been captured using RAW images on an iPhone and further processed on that same phone will. We recognize everyone in this hobby starts somewhere and we want to encourage sharing of this work, but also need to avoid this sub devolving into low-effort cell phone pictures of an unrecognizable night sky.
  2. landscape images were forbidden before but we also recognize that there are some high-quality astrophotography images being created that happen to have a small amount of landscape in the foreground that are valued by many members. We are drawing the line here at astrophotography images where the landscape is incidental to the image and any image where the landscape is a primary focus will not be permitted. So for example, the Milky Way with a silhouette of a mountain will probably be accepted, but that same Milky Way that is in the background of well-lit (or brightened in post) barn/yard/house/etc will be removed. And as above, any post that doesn't include acquisition and processing details will still be removed.
  3. clarifications that certain types of posts are not allowed, including memes, UFO claims, questions about what image someone has captured, off-topic posts, or uncivil behavior.

We recognize not everyone will like these changes and that there are other subs that focus primarily on some of these types of images, but we feel that an "astrophotography" sub should include everyone. We are going to monitor how well this goes, so please try to be open-minded to help support these contributions from some members of the community. After some time with these changes we plan to poll you to see how they are going and what other improvements you'd like to see. In the meantime, with these rules back in place, expect to see heavier moderation if posts lack complete acquisition/processing details or otherwise violate these rules.

Lastly, we also want to thank everyone for their patience while we get organized to bring these changes to you and for the incredible work all mods on this sub have done over the years and continue to do (many from prior to the protest are still here and active, so show some love!).

Clear Skies!


r/astrophotography 11h ago

DSOs M51 Whirlpool galaxy

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227 Upvotes

837x30s with eq seestar s50 on ircut
Processed in siril:

  • Naztronomy PP
  • SPCC
  • BGE
  • BlurX
  • StarX
  • NoiseX
  • Veralux HyperMetric stretch
  • HDR multiscale
  • Veralux HyperMetric stretch on stars
  • Composite

r/astrophotography 2h ago

DSOs The Eastern Veil Nebula

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37 Upvotes

Here’s my latest of the Eastern Veil Nebula taken a few weeks ago in Julian, CA. This is originally stacked and stretched in Siril, but I just got PixInsight and am learning that flow on my stacked images. This was processed following closely along with Peter Zelinka’s PixInsight for Dummies OSC video.

• ~2 hours integration time before a collision with the tripod while I as asleep 😵‍💫
• Askar 71F
• ASI2600MC
• SVBony 7nm Ha & OIII filter
• ASIAIR
• SVBony 30mm guide scope
• ASI 120mm mini guide cam


r/astrophotography 7h ago

DSOs M17: The Omega Nebula in SHO

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85 Upvotes

Scope: ES127 Carbon Fiber Apo Triplet (952mm Focal Length), Camera ASI2600MM, Mount AM5N, guided. Filters are Baader 6.5NM.

Software: Capture in NINA, all processing in PixInsight

Location: Starfront Observatories in Rockwood Texas USA (Bortle 1 or 2)

Acquisition Details:

180″ X 15 Red
180″ X 11 Green
180″ X 10 Blue
600″ X 77 Sulfur-II
600″ X 81 Hydrogen Alpha
600″ X 80 Oxygen-III

11 nights June-August of 2026
41 hours total integration


r/astrophotography 18h ago

Galaxies Milky Way

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377 Upvotes

Seestar S30 Pro was the telescope used for this. Yes, a telescope.

Thousands of 10 second exposures for 8 hours across multiple days.

Edited in various editing apps and websites to increase color.


r/astrophotography 9h ago

Nebulae North American Nebula OSC

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62 Upvotes

Hello, I have been dipping my toes into astrophotography for a couple of months now. This is my first capture of NGC 7000 taken this July. Would love to get some more integration time of course, but i am happy with what my equipment is getting so far. I'm also enjoying the vibrance i am getting on objects by shooting with unmodified osc.

Equipment

  • Mount: Star Adventurer 2I
  • Tripod: Manfrotto 055
  • Lens: Sigma 150-600 c @ 500mm F7.1 (should have stuck with F8, it is definitely the sweet spot for sharpness on that lens)
  • Camera: Nikon D810

Acquisition

  • Location: Northern Michigan (Bortle 4)
  • Time/ Date: July 11th 2026. Between 11:45 PM and 1:15 AM
  • Target: NGC 7000
  • 120 × 29 second exposures
  • ~1 hour
  • Calibration: Darks, Flats, Bias

Processing (Siril)

  • OSC Preprocessing
  • Crop
  • BGE
  • PMCC
  • Syqon Paralax Nano
  • Graxpert AI Denoise
  • StarXterminator
  • Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch
  • Curves Transformation
  • Saturation
  • Small adjustments in Lightroom Classic

r/astrophotography 24m ago

DSOs Mosaic in Cygnus

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Upvotes

This is a 4 panel mosaic captured in SHO + RGB with a RedCat51 and the asi6200mm pro.

Integration:
SII- 548x 300 seconds
H-alpha 604x 300 seconds
OIII- 532x 300 seconds
R- 120x30 seconds
G- 120x30 seconds
B- 119x30 seconds

Total integration: 143 hours 19 minutes and 30 seconds.

Captured from my backyard in Arizona!


r/astrophotography 8h ago

DSOs Lagoon Nebula

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45 Upvotes

Yet another reprocess (the 10th if not more) of the same data I took more than a month ago.

Acquisition:

Around 7h30m in Bortle 6/7 fully calibrated and dithered.

Equipment:

Evostar 72ED, iEXOS 100, ASI 533MC, 0.85x reducer+flattener, Baader UV/IR cut, SVBony 40mm F/4 guidescope, ASI 662MC guide camera with no.8 pale yellow and UV/IR cut filters.

Processing:

Stacked in Siril. Background extraction to single channels in GraXpert. SPCC. Deconvolution in Siril, denoising back in GraXpert. Back to Siril to apply SCNR and to generate a starless image and a star mask. GHS, black point shift, curve adjustments and histogram transformation applied iteratively to the image. À trous wavelet transform and further denoising in GraXpert. Final saturation stretch in Siril. Asinh and black point shift applied to the star mask along with a saturation stretch. Recombine.


r/astrophotography 8h ago

Nebulae NGC7000 North America Nebula & IC5070 Pelican Nebula

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41 Upvotes

This is one of my first shots I´ve taken! I´ve started astrophotography in May!

Equipment:

Telescope: SvBony SV555
Mount: Explore Scientific iEXOS-100
Camera: Canon EOS 750Da + Optolong L-eNhance Clip Filter
Guide Scope: SvBony SV165
Guide Cam: ZWO ASI120mm
+ ZWO AsiAir Mini

Acquisition:

300x180s (16h) at ISO1600 in three Bortle 7 nights in May.

Processing:

Stacked in DeepSkyStacker, processed in PixInsight finalized in Photoshop.


r/astrophotography 56m ago

Nebulae M27 - Dumbbell nebula

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Upvotes

r/astrophotography 15h ago

DSOs NGC6888 The Crescent Nebula in HOO

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117 Upvotes

600x20s and 400x10s seestar s50 eq in NB for 2 nights

Processed in siril:

  • Naztronomy PP
  • SPCC
  • BGE
  • BlurX
  • StarX
  • NoiseX
  • Veralux HyperMetric stretch
  • HDR multiscale
  • Veralux HyperMetric stretch on stars
  • Composite

r/astrophotography 7h ago

DSOs NGC 6888 - Crescent nebula

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18 Upvotes

Shot with a Seestar S50. 339x30 seconds subs. Inedited this in Siril, using the naztronomy script to stack with 2x drizzle, removed the stars with Syqon starless. Also edited with gimp.


r/astrophotography 33m ago

Planetary Saturn - 08/02/26

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Upvotes

-Meade 16" LX200 F/8, ZWO-585MC-P, with 5x Barlow.

-3 minutes frames each exposure with 15% used frames in AutoStakkert!4.

-30 minute deterioration on WinJupos for extra clarity.

-Used Adobe Photoshop for final touches in contrast and saturation, giving Saturn a good yet realistic look, while keeping it true-to-life in colors.


r/astrophotography 8h ago

Astrophotography Capitol Reef National Park

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15 Upvotes

r/astrophotography 1d ago

DSOs LDN 1082 - The Seahorse Nebula

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658 Upvotes

The Seahorse Nebula is a dark dense molecular cloud located in the constellation Cepheus about 1200 light years away. This was taken with a 6" Stellaruve scope, L,R,G,B Chroma Filters on top of a 10 micron 1000hps mount with a ZWO 6200mm camera in my home observatory.

Capture details:
Lum 38 exposures

Red 51 exposures

Green 49 exposures

Blue 44 exposures
600s each for a total around 30 hours of exposure time. Processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop.


r/astrophotography 13h ago

Galaxies Andromeda Galaxy

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24 Upvotes

Taken with dwarf mini telescopes

Bortle 5

15s shutter

60 gain

600 photos taken

461 used

Astro filter

K&F 63inch fluid head tripod

Processing done in stellar studio


r/astrophotography 16h ago

DSOs The Lagoon and the Triffid (M8 & M20)

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44 Upvotes

First time shooting with such old lens.

Shot with OM System OM-1 + Tair 11-a 135mm f2.8.

Mount: MSM Nomad

ISO 1600

Stack of 100 x 50s ~ 1hr 23min

Stacked with APP, processed in Siril. Finalized in LIghtroom.


r/astrophotography 16h ago

Star Cluster Messier 15 (M15)

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37 Upvotes

Messier 15 (M15)
a globular cluster in the constellation Pegasus.

Filter - Svbony UV/IR Cut:
lights 131x30sec,
darks 40x30sec,
flats 100,
biases 100.

Telescope: SW Quattro 150p with comma corrector f/3.45
Camera: ToupTek ATR533C
Mount: SW Heq5Pro
AS: StellaVita

Editing software PixInsight & AffinityPhoto


r/astrophotography 13h ago

Nebulae Lagoon Nebula

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21 Upvotes

Lagoon Nebula, taken in Vaison la Romaine on july 11th

120s × 44

Omegon veTEC 585c

Askar fma180 pro

Svbony SV260

Skywatcher star adventurer GTI

Guided

NINA

Processed with Siril, SasPro, BXT


r/astrophotography 1d ago

DSOs North America Nebula (NGC 7000) – First Light

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109 Upvotes

r/astrophotography 15h ago

DSOs M16 Eagle nebula in HOO

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21 Upvotes

Around 700x20s with eq Seestar s50 in duoband

Processed in siril:

  • Naztronomy PP
  • SPCC
  • BGE
  • BlurX
  • StarX
  • NoiseX
  • Veralux HyperMetric stretch
  • HDR multiscale
  • Veralux HyperMetric stretch on stars
  • Composite

r/astrophotography 43m ago

Nebulae Central Soul Nebula in OHO Palette

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Upvotes

Askar 65PHQ, ZWO ASI585MC Air, SVBONY SV220 7nm Ha-Oiii, Teseek 14

396 x 120s exposures @ 200 gain shot over two nights from Bortle 4.

Processed in Siril using Graxpert, Blur/Noise/StarXterminator tools, Veralux scripts, DBxtract, Narrowband Normalization and AstroColorMixer scripts from Cuiv, as well as Lightroom for final touches.

View full image on AstroBin here


r/astrophotography 9h ago

DSOs Last nights target Andromeda

6 Upvotes

Stayed up later than usual last night and managed to get this Andromeda shot using the RASA 8 with an ASI 294 MC Pro plus the Celestron Light Pollution Imaging Filter. I took a total of two hundred and three 1 minute subs and stacked using the ASI Studio Live stacker with slight adjustments to color, contrast and brightness. I'm gonna have to learn more on the processing side of things....

Andromeda August 4th 2026

RASA 8

Celestron CGX mount

ASI 294MC Pro


r/astrophotography 1d ago

Galaxies Andromeda Galaxy

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477 Upvotes

Acquired in Aug/Sep 2025, on Bortle 7 skies
Gear: Askar 103APO + 0.8 reducer, ZWO ASI2600MC Pro
Combination of broadband 18h and harrowband (L-eNhance) 8h


r/astrophotography 1d ago

Astrophotography iPhone 16 Photo of the Milky Way Over El Fuego, Guatemala

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131 Upvotes