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.
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WR-134 is the purple looking star in the middle. Don't think the purple color itself is 'natural' but I thought it looked neat and decided to keep it like that. The nebulosity in this image is false color (although the HOO palette is kinda close to true color), and the stars themselves are RGB true color. Even though I was able to get some of the entire Oiii shell around WR134, I decided not to push it too much in processing. At some point I'll shoot it again from darker skies. Captured over a bunch of nights in November 2025 from a Bortle 9 zone.
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: 28 hours 20 minutes (Camera at unity gain, -15°C)
Ha - 51x600"
Oiii - 113x600"
R - 32x60"
G - 30x60"
B - 30x60"
Darks- 30
Flats- 30 per filter
Capture Software:
PixInsight Preprocessing:
BatchPreProcessing
StarAlignment
Blink
ImageIntegration per channel
DrizzleIntegration (2x, Var β=1.5)
Dynamic Crop
Narrowband linear:
MultiscaleGradientCorrection using MARS Project data
BlurXterminator
StarXterminator to completely remove stars (extracted stars processed separately)
STF applied via HistogramTransformation to stretch nonlinear
RGB Linear:
Channelcombination to make color image from RGB stacks
MultiscaleGradientCorrection
SpectrophotometricColorCalibration
BlurX (correct only mode)
HSV Repair
StarX to extract a stars only image
ArcsinhStretch + HistogramTransformation to stretch nonlinear
Slight curves saturation boost
Nonlinear Processing
PixelMath to combine stretched Ha and Oiii images into a color image (HOO --> RGB)
Shitloads of curve transformations to adjust luminance, contrast, saturation, etc
DeepSNR Noise reduction
ColorSaturation adjustments (with Oiii mask)
More curves
LocalHistogramTransformation
Even more curves
NoiseXTerminator for some small scale chrominance noise reduction
Guess what more curves its the best tool in pixinsight 10/10
Pixelmath to add in the stretched stars only image from earlier
Resample to 70%
Annotation