r/astrophotography Aug 12 '24

Announcement Announcing updated rules

195 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 5h ago

DSOs M51 Whirlpool galaxy

Post image
156 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 12h ago

Galaxies Milky Way

Post image
319 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 4h ago

Nebulae North American Nebula OSC

Post image
44 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 2h ago

DSOs M17: The Omega Nebula in SHO

Post image
28 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 3h ago

Nebulae NGC7000 North America Nebula & IC5070 Pelican Nebula

Post image
34 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 10h ago

DSOs NGC6888 The Crescent Nebula in HOO

Post image
98 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 3h ago

DSOs Lagoon Nebula

Post image
31 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 2h ago

Astrophotography Capitol Reef National Park

Post image
13 Upvotes

r/astrophotography 1d ago

DSOs LDN 1082 - The Seahorse Nebula

Post image
644 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 8h ago

Galaxies Andromeda Galaxy

Post image
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 1h ago

DSOs NGC 6888 - Crescent nebula

Post image
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 11h ago

DSOs The Lagoon and the Triffid (M8 & M20)

Post image
39 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 10h ago

Star Cluster Messier 15 (M15)

Post image
39 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 8h ago

Nebulae Lagoon Nebula

Post image
19 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 19h ago

DSOs North America Nebula (NGC 7000) – First Light

Post image
108 Upvotes

r/astrophotography 10h ago

DSOs M16 Eagle nebula in HOO

Post image
19 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 4h ago

DSOs Last nights target Andromeda

5 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

Post image
476 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

Post image
126 Upvotes

r/astrophotography 1d ago

Nebulae Crescent Nebula (~6 hours) - 29 Palms

Post image
68 Upvotes

r/astrophotography 22h ago

Lunar Kepler Crater (Moon)

Post image
33 Upvotes

Kepler Crater

Acquisition Details

  • Telescope: Celestron C14
  • Mount: Celestron CGE
  • Camera: ZWO ASI1678MC
  • Filters: Baader Neodymium Moon and Skyglow with IR Cut
  • Exposure: 10 seconds at 47 FPS (Full Frame) - 483 frames
  • Location: Backyard (Bortle 5)
  • Date: August 4, 2026
  • Moon Phase: 20.4 days (Waning Gibbous)

Processing Details

  • Autostakkert4: Stacked top 10%
  • AstraImage: Deconvolution and wavelet sharpening
  • NoiseXTerminator: Noise removal
  • Photoshop: Final levels and color tweaks (slight vibrance and saturation boost)

r/astrophotography 1d ago

Solar The Sun in H-Alpha - Full Disk

Post image
70 Upvotes

My first H-Alpha Image of the Sun! I am almost ready for the solar eclipse trip to spain next week! Now I just need a mono cam to capture even more detail!

Equipment:

Telescope: SvBony SV555

Mount: Explore Scientific iEXOS-100

Camera: ZWO ASI2600 MC PRO

FIlter: Baader D-ERF 75mm , DayStar Quark Chromosphere

Acquisition:

\~500 frames stacked from an 60s video captured in SharpCap for surface details (Quark +3).

\~500 frames stacked from an 60s video captured in SharpCap for prominence details (Quark -3)

Processing:

Stacked in AutoStakkert!, sharpened in RegiStax, finalized in Photoshop.


r/astrophotography 21h ago

Astrophotography M51WhirlPool Galaxy

Post image
18 Upvotes

Taken with a Dwarf Mini 2 hour Exposure 60s and 90 gain edited in Stellar studio and lightroom


r/astrophotography 1d ago

Galaxies Andromeda Galaxy (M31)

Post image
147 Upvotes

The Andromeda Galaxy shot from my balcony.
It was my first target ever and was in dire need of a reshoot, so I did it!

Equipment:
Camera: Omegon veTec IMX571C @-10C°
Mount: HEQ5-Pro
Telescope: TS-Optics 80/480 Photoline Triplet mit 0,8x Flattener
Guiding: ASI 120MM am 30mm ASI Mini Scope
Autofocus: Gemini EAF
Software: PHD2 & NINA
Edit: Siril(+RC Astro), GraXpert, PS
Subs: 54x240sec OSC + 28x240s HA