Nature Photography

[Devyn Nagy]

Orion from bortle 7 skies.

View attachment 4281540

Stacked in sequator, abused in photoshop in post. Dust spots.
View attachment 4281538

Cool! I’d like to get into astrophotography. What causes the ring of haze in the photo? Is it an artifact from image layering?

 

[azurbanclucker]

Cool! I’d like to get into astrophotography. What causes the ring of haze in the photo? Is it an artifact from image layering?

I don't know yet The actual haze is because of light pollution from shooting in the middle of town. I'm guessing that it's a processing artifact because all I have in the data set is lights (actual images). I need to also take some flats and darks during my sessions to include in the data processing set. I THINK that will help with the vignetting. Also took all the defaults in Sequator, so there may also be settings there to tweak.

There's so much I know that I don't know at this point. Lots to learn.

 

[mdees88]

Orion from bortle 7 skies.

View attachment 4281540

Stacked in sequator, abused in photoshop in post. Dust spots.
View attachment 4281538

Nice! In bortle 7 too. Better nebula color and detail than my first attempts ....

I've had that happen before, don't remember exactly what caused it. I do know shooting darks and flats improved the image a lot when stacking. Good chance that will help with the green. My edges are always a little distorted so I try my best to get as centered on my subject as possible because I know I'm going to crop in to remove the weird stuff. You can take one extra long exposure image (brighter/easier to see), then look at it on the back of the camera to check centering before starting the intervolemeter.

Not kidding about being a lot to learn. I havent shot a stacked astro image in over a year and I'd have to watch at least a half a dozen YT videos to remember how to polar align and use the stacking software, lol.

You actually got the flame and horsehead nebula too!

 

[mdees88]

You may already have one, but one of the most useful tools I've found for deep sky astro is a bahtinov mask. It let's you easily get perfect focus on the stars. You slip it over the lens and it causes large diffraction spikes in the stars. Then you adjust you focus until the spikes are evenly spaced out. Everytime I've eyebal focused, then slipped the mask on, it still needed some fine tuning. You just need to find one that fits over your lens or lens hood. You can also 3d print them.

This is what the stars look like with one on.

https://www.amazon.com/Astromania-Bahtinov-Mask-Focusing-Telescopes/dp/B01MEG5D8W/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_sspa?crid=EMV54VPCCIW3&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.hPqMbfT7S26oea1FMYa1NiQMg0Eeds6pS_6Rc_fTrZ3VApuKYHwOtmxLbU-dP5HOlrJbuU_KP17vP85Cjy3RJplpDyE1oYRj5igHKxTUfvz3aakWtecaR4IJ56gmAsNPuI3VfEByZeLDQJJwtjom9o_s4qCwBEF-wJV4-UR4PbODat25S96uuAJgCYcqm620GOro5k9-XUFdXlIdGd597A.gPz9L9ZHCM3MXp5xjHkdbv0DYTqBEB435FHSEpWpN2U&dib_tag=se&keywords=bahtinov+mask+camera+lens&qid=1768185321&sprefix=bahtinov+mask+ca,aps,134&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9zZWFyY2hfYXRm&psc=1

 

[azurbanclucker]

You may already have one, but one of the most useful tools I've found for deep sky astro is a bahtinov mask. It let's you easily get perfect focus on the stars. You slip it over the lens and it causes large diffraction spikes in the stars. Then you adjust you focus until the spikes are evenly spaced out. Everytime I've eyebal focused, then slipped the mask on, it still needed some fine tuning. You just need to find one that fits over your lens or lens hood. You can also 3d print them.

This is what the stars look like with one on.

View attachment 4281931

https://www.amazon.com/Astromania-Bahtinov-Mask-Focusing-Telescopes/dp/B01MEG5D8W/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_sspa?crid=EMV54VPCCIW3&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.hPqMbfT7S26oea1FMYa1NiQMg0Eeds6pS_6Rc_fTrZ3VApuKYHwOtmxLbU-dP5HOlrJbuU_KP17vP85Cjy3RJplpDyE1oYRj5igHKxTUfvz3aakWtecaR4IJ56gmAsNPuI3VfEByZeLDQJJwtjom9o_s4qCwBEF-wJV4-UR4PbODat25S96uuAJgCYcqm620GOro5k9-XUFdXlIdGd597A.gPz9L9ZHCM3MXp5xjHkdbv0DYTqBEB435FHSEpWpN2U&dib_tag=se&keywords=bahtinov+mask+camera+lens&qid=1768185321&sprefix=bahtinov+mask+ca,aps,134&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9zZWFyY2hfYXRm&psc=1

Awesome tip and a tool I'd never heard of. Thanks man!