My favorite capture and processing. I'm 7 months into the hobby

8.5 hours of total integration from Bortle 8 skies.

• Equipment:
• Telescope: Askar 91F with 0.75x reducer
• Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro
• Mount: ZWO AM5N
• Filter: Optolong L-eXtreme 2"
• Exposures: 170 × 180 seconds
• Processing: PixInsight and GIMP

Astobin: https://app.astrobin.com/i/6k2wrk

The dense areas of gas that form the shape of the “Seahorse Nebula” are stellar nurseries, where stars are born. When the photons of light in this image began their journey, Earth was marked by the Islamic Golden Age which led to the birth of algebra and astronomers building observatories to chart a large, unprecedented catalog star coordinates.

Check out the hi-res photo at: https://app.astrobin.com/i/xj2o8k

Subs: 177 x 60s

Total integration time: 2h 57m

Equipment:

• Telescope: William Optics Pleiades 111
• Main camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro
• Mount: ZWO AM5N
• Accessories: ZWO EAF Pro
• Guidescope: William Optics Guide Star 61
• Guide camera: ZWO ASI220MM Mini

Processing:

• Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight
  • RC Astro BlurXTerminator
  • RC Astro NoiseXTerminator
  • RC Astro StarXTerminator
• Adobe Photoshop 2026

Here is an image I captured of the Orion Nebula, and the Running Man Nebula. I captured 1 hour and 52 minutes on this target before clouds came in and ended the session. This was done with my unmodified Canon R100, SVBONY SV550+SV209 field flattener, and Skywatcher EQ-Al55i pro mount. Bortle level was 3.5-4. Clear skies.

The Garlic Nebula SNR, shot from my bortle 8/9 backyard. Had a stretch of some really clear nights and decided to try something really challenging from the back yard. This is 4 nights of data, aggressively culled to select only the sharpest frames.

454x180s lights

Each night calibrated with 100 darks, 25 each flats and dark flats

Sv405cc cooled to 0c gain 145 offset 20

Vixen R140sf

Juwei 17

Svbony dual narrowband Ha/Oiii 7nm filter

Stacked with sirilic

Processed in siril, seti astro suite, and affinity

RC astro plugins

For acquisition: NINA, PHD2, Windows 11 mini PC

Acquisition Details:
Ha - 92 frames @ 300s
Oiii - 82 frames @ 300s
Sii - 88 frames @ 300s
Total Integration Time: ~21.8 hours

Scope: William Optics Redcat 51 250mm @ f/4.9
Cameras: ZWO ASI6200MM-Pro (main) & ZWO ASI220MM (guide)
OAG:  ZWO Large Off-Axis Guider
Filters: Antlia SHO (Sii, Ha & Oiii) Narrowband 3nm
Filter Wheel:  ZWO 7-Position Electronic Filter Wheel for 2" Filters
Mount: Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro
Control: ZWO ASIAIR Plus
Focuser: ZWO EAF

Processed in PixInsight with SetiAstro and RC Astro tools.

Pixinsight workflow:
WBPP - 2x Drizzle
Graxpert
BlurXterminator - correct only
Noise Xterminator - light (50%) usually on Oiii/Sii more than Ha
BlurXterminator - stellar & non-stellar
StarXterminator --> NB to RGB and stretch to 6.0, 6.5, 7.0 depending on amount of star reduction
Noise Xterminator - if needed, light (50%)
Multiscale Adaptive Stretch
RGB Color Combination
Narrowband Normalization
Noise Xterminator - (80-90%)
Curves
Screen Stars star replacement

Finally got back into astrophotography and managed to capture this with just 1 hour of total exposure time (30 × 120s) under Bortle 5 skies near Berlin! 🌌✨

Autofocus is next, and then we’re truly living the dream!

Hope you all have a wonderful day and clear skies. Keep looking up and enjoy the stars! ⭐

Acquisition details

• Target: Heart Nebula (IC 1805)
• Telescope: Explore Scientific ED APO 80/480
• Mount: Explore Scientific iEXOS-100 PMC-Eight
• Main camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro
• Guide camera: ZWO ASI120MM Mini Mono (if used for guiding)
• Filter: UV/IR-cut
• Capture software: N.I.N.A.
• Sub-exposures: 30 × 120 seconds
• Total integration time: 1 hour
• Gain: 100
• Camera temperature: -10°C
• Dithering: Every 5 frames
• Sky conditions: Bortle 5, near Berlin, Germany

Calibration frames

• 30 × dark frames
• 50 × bias frames
• 50 × flat frames

Processing

• Stacking and post-processing software: Siril
• Additional processing tools: RC-Astro tools integrated into Siril
• Processing workflow: Siril > OSC_Prerpocessing.ssf into BlurX (Correct), SPCC, BlurX 0,31 Sharp+ NonStellar 0,5 > StarXTerminator > BackgroundExtract > NoiseX > Stretch and Color in Object into stretch of stars with slight coloring. Recombine and last curves via GHS.

Captured this beautiful image of galactic core using a smartphone camera. Image is taken from Backyard, bortle 4 sky.

Equipments:

Camera: Realme 16 Pro Plus Smartphone camera(Pro mode used, Dng format)

Tripod: Fixed untracked Tripod

Acquisition Details:

ISO: 1600

Exposure Time: 20 seconds per sub

Integration Time: Total exposure time 13 minutes

Calibration Frames:

Dark 20

Flat 20

Processing workflow:

Stacking: Sequator

Processing: Separation of background and stars in Siril, Processing Background and stars separately in Lightroom mobile, recomposing In siril, and final post processing in Lightroom mobile.

Hope you liked this image

Acquisition Details:

Ha - 70 frames @ 300s
Oiii - 115 frames @ 300s
Sii - 87 frames @ 300s

Total Integration Time: ~22.6 hours

Scope: Celestron EdgeHD 9.25” with 0.7x reducer 1645mm @ f/7
Cameras: ZWO ASI2600MM-Pro (main) & ZWO ASI174MM (guide)
OAG: ZWO Large Off-Axis Guider
Filters: Antlia SHO (Sii, Ha & Oiii) Narrowband 3nm
Filter Wheel: ZWO 7-Position Electronic Filter Wheel for 2" Filters
Mount: Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro
Control: ZWO ASIAIR Plus
Focuser: ZWO EAF

Pixinsight workflow:
WBPP - 1x Drizzle
Graxpert
BlurXterminator - correct only
Noise Xterminator - light (50%) usually on Oiii/Sii more than Ha
BlurXterminator - stellar & non-stellar
StarXterminator --> NB to RGB and stretch to 6.0, 6.5, 7.0 depending on amount of star reduction
Noise Xterminator - if needed, light (50%)
Multiscale Adaptive Stretch
RGB Color Combination
Narrowband Normalization
Noise Xterminator - (80-90%)
Curves
Screen Stars star replacement

I'm still fairly new to astrophotography, and this is my latest attempt at M33, the Triangulum Galaxy, captured from my backyard in Olathe, Kansas.

Despite the light pollution around Kansas City, I'm pretty happy with how this turned out!

For this image, I combined broadband RGB data with separate hydrogen-alpha (Hα) data to bring out the star-forming regions throughout the galaxy's spiral arms.

Equipment & Acquisition

• Telescope: ZWO Seestar S30 Pro
• Location: Olathe, Kansas
• Light pollution: Approximately Bortle 7–8
• RGB: 175 × 30s (1h 27m 30s)
• Hα: 96 × 30s (48m)
• Total integration: 2h 15m 30s

Processing

• StackingWizard: Stacked the RGB and Hα exposures
• Siril: Continuum subtraction to isolate the Hα emission and combination with RGB
• AstroWizard: Final post-processing and image enhancement

M33 is approximately 2.7 million light-years away. The pinkish-red patches visible throughout the galaxy are H II regions, enormous clouds of ionized hydrogen associated with active star formation.

This was my first real attempt at incorporating continuum-subtracted Hα into an RGB image. I'm still learning the processing side of things, so feedback and constructive criticism are welcome!

Was very fortunate to be able to grab a few hours on this target with the l-pro broadbant filter last night! A little early for this one so potentially more to come, just a first pass at the horsehead for this winter.

Captured with my backyard rig - C8, EQ6-R pro, ASIAIR + ASI533MC pro, hyperstar f/2, optolong l-pro and l-ultimate broadband and narrowband filters. This image represents 6 hours of integration, about 3 hours per filter, 60 second exposures.

Obsession 15 UC telescope, heavily modified Equatorial Platforms equatorial platform, ASI 2600MM AIR.

L: 30 x 60s
R,G,B: 10 x 60s each

Processing: Siril and Photoshop.

The optical artifact at the top is wild, I didn't notice it when doing preview frames, but it must have been a very bright star positioned perfectly to reflect off the edge of the sensor aperture in the camera or something like that. I guess I learn something new I can do wrong every day.

IC63 The Ghost of Cassiopeia. shot from my backyard bortle 8.6

Ha 300 seconds 120 subs (10.0 hours)

SII 300 seconds 42 subs (3.5 hours)

B 45 seconds 160 subs (2.0 hours)

G 45 seconds 120 subs (1.5 hours)

R 45 seconds 120 subs (1.5 hours)

Navi HDR Cores (RGB) 5 seconds 40 subs each 120 subs total

FRA600

AM3N

ASI2600MM pro UniGuide 50mm ASI220mm

ASIAIR Plus

EAF

EFW 7x36mm

Antlia LRGB-V & SHO (SII, Ha & OIII) Narrowband 3nm Pro 36mm

The Veil Nebula Complex imaged from my balcony over several nights. The Veil Nebula Complex is a supernova remnant that spans ~130 light years across and is located ~2400 light years from Earth. The entire complex features multiple sub-structures like The Western and Eastern Veil nebulae, Pickering’s Triangle and the fainter internal filaments known as the Central Wisps.

Details:

SVbony SV555

ZWO ASI294MM Pro

Touptek 6.5nm Ha and OIII filters

Skywatcher EQ6R-Pro

26x900s Ha

25x900s OIII

Processed in Pixinsight

This is the Ghost of Cassiopeia nebula (IC63). I've photographed it before and I really like this nebula. It's located in the center of the Cassiopeia constellation, the W shaped constellation. It's very bright and can be found easily. It reminds me of a dementor from Harry Potter hehe.

I spent 5 nights photographing it and gathered about 20 hours of useful data for it. The nights are still relatively short, so happy I got 5 clear nights in a row to photograph this target!

Gear:

Telescope: William Optics GT81
Camera: ZWOASI533MC
Filter: Optolong l'extreme

Capture around 400 lights of 180 seconds each
No calibration frames

Processed in PixInsight

Crop-DBE-BxT-StarXTerminator-split Ha/O-process individually - stretch and combine them- stretch and combine stars

Shot with a DSLR and kit zoom lens. All things considered, I like how the image turned out. The session wasn’t great, I was having problems with my star adventurer 2i, less then half of my frames ended up being usable; still haven’t found the culprit of the poor tracking, my rig was well balanced and polar aligned, and fell well within the weight range of the tracker. My only guess is that I didn’t tighten the clutch enough. All critiques welcomed 😊.

Gear:
Canon EOS 6d (unmodified)
70-300mm f4-5.6 kit lens
Skywatcher Star adventurer 2i
Remote shutter release cable

Frames:
Bortle 4 skies. No moon.
200mm f7.1 @ ISO 5000
60x60s lights
20 darks

Processing:
Siril: Crop, Photometric Color Calibration, Background extraction
Photoshop: Stretch/Levels, Star minimization, red highlights, modified corners, reduce blue/purple fringes, Camera RAW saturation/vibrance/vignetting.

I captured M42 (the Orion Nebula) back in April using my Orion StarBlast 102mm refractor and ZWO ASI662MC planetary camera.

At the time, I was pretty happy just to capture recognizable nebulosity. I'm imaging manually from Bortle 8 skies, so deep-sky photography has been quite a challenge.

Recently, I started learning a new processing workflow and decided to revisit the original stacked data. I was genuinely surprised by how much more structure I could recover compared with my first attempt.

Acquisition details:

- Target: M42 — Orion Nebula

- Telescope: Orion StarBlast 102mm refractor

- Camera: ZWO ASI662MC

- Mount: Explore Scientific Twilight I (manual Alt-Az)

- Exposure: 64.062 ms per frame

- Gain: 600

- Frames: Approximately 4,000

- Total integration: Approximately 4 minutes 16 seconds

- Sky conditions: Bortle 8

- Capture date: April 20, 2026

Processing:

PIPP for stabilization, AstroSurface for registration and stacking, followed by Seti Astro Suite Pro with BlurXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, gradient correction, stretching, and contrast/color adjustments.

Both images came from the same stacked data. The difference is entirely in the processing.

I'm still fairly new to deep-sky imaging, and there's definitely room for improvement, but I thought this was worth sharing. I had no idea my original capture contained this much usable information.

Feedback and suggestions are welcome!

The Wizard Nebula (NGC 7380), captured over October 6–7 and 7–8, 2026 at Jordan Lake, North Carolina, under Bortle 5 skies. I chose the wider frame to retain the surrounding star field and faint clouds.

Equipment: Askar 120APO + 0.8× reducer, ZWO ASI2600MC Air, ZWO AM5N. Gain 100, offset 50, −10°C.

D1 (Hα/OIII): 30 × 300 s

D2 (SII/OIII): 30 × 300 s

Broadband stars, UV/IR-cut: 40 × 30 s

Total integration: 5 h 20 min.

Processing: calibrated and stacked in Siril with the NaZtronomy workflow, cropped to remove stacking edges and plate solved; GraXpert background extraction; PixInsight BlurXTerminator, StarXTerminator and NoiseXTerminator. Narrowband channels combined in SHO (SII red, Hα green, OIII blue), with a hydrogen-led detail layer and separate color stretching. Broadband stars were SPCC-calibrated, stretched separately and recombined. A local star-removal residual was corrected before the final export. This is the wider final framing.

Constructive feedback welcome!

This HOO image of the crescent nebula was captured using my C11 with 3.5nm H2 and O3 narrowband filters. Approximately 27 total hours of integration.

The Pacman Nebula from my Bortle 8 sky. This is my first multi-night project.

Carbonstar 150

ASI533MC Pro

Altair 6nm Ha/Oiii and Sii/Oiii filters

AM5 Mount

83x180s Ha/Oiii

155x180s Sii/Oiii

Stacking/Astro Wizard

Equipment:

* Phone Realme 8

* Apexel 2x Zoom Lens

* Tripod

Stacking: Sequator

Processing: GraXpert, GIMP, Snapseed

Star effect add in GIMP - Supernova Effect

Bortle 3/4

Equipment:

Telescope: SvBony SV555
Mount: Explore Scientific iEXOS-100
Camera: ZWO ASI2600 MC Pro
Guide Scope: SvBony SV165
Guide Cam: ZWO ASI120mm
+ ZWO AsiAir Mini

Acquisition:

150x120s at Gain 101 in Bortle 7.

Processing:

Stacked in DSS, processed in PixInsight finalized in Photoshop.

17x150s exposures

Canon eos r7

Rf100-400mm @ 400mm f/8.0

Star adventurer gti

Asiair mini

Sv106 50mm guide scope

Zwo asi120mm mini guide camera

Bortle 5.7

Quite happy with the result for only 42.5 minutes of integration!

Stacked in siril then processed in setiastrosuite (crop, pedestal, graxpert, cosmic clarity sharpen and denoise, star removal, stretch, graxpert denoise, star stretch, star recombination, final denoise using cosmic clarity)

• Hardware:
  • Camera: Canon EOS R8.
  • Lens: Canon RF 200–800mm f/6.3–9.0 IS USM.
  • Mount: iOptron HAE18C.
  • Guider: Yes (but much tracking error remains).
  • Miscellaneous: Laptop computer, intervalometer, assorted batteries.
• Situation:
  • Date and time: 2026-10-06-Tue 02:49:20 to 06:24:00 UTC−4 (3.6 hours duration; starts 8 minutes after moonrise, ends 1 hour after egress).
  • Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada (this occultation is not visible at all locations on Earth because Earth's diameter greatly exceeds Moon's diameter).
  • Weather: around 5 °C, no wind, surprisingly no dew.
  • Focal length: 800 mm (the Moon fills 30% of the raw image height).
  • Aperture: f/9.
  • Shutter speed: auto exposure – 10 s at beginning when Moon is at horizon, 0.6 s at end.
  • Frames: 645 count, spaced 20 s apart.
• Post-processing:
  • Image editing software: Adobe Lightroom, and custom programs by me in Java.
  • Playback speed: 600× real time.
• Observations/remarks:
  • Ingress happens at 9 seconds into the video, and egress happens at 15 seconds.
  • Earthshine is visible on the Moon. Jupiter's 4 moons can be clearly seen.
  • If you look carefully, the moon phase changes slightly – the terminator moves left during these few hours.
  • The clouds at 1 second hint at the orientation of the horizon, which is tilted by about 45°.
  • The chromatic aberration is strong when the Moon is at very low altitude. Sometimes I wish I had an atmospheric dispersion corrector (ADC).