lefty7283

you gotta step up those numbers

I totally didn't procrastinate processing this thing, and it's just pure coincidence that I finally took a stab at it in October...

In hindsight, this really could've used another night of data (particularly the L), but I only had one clear night at the dark site. I was just happy to get out of the light pollution and shoot a dark nebula for once! Captured on August 17th, 2025 from a bortle 3 zone (deerlick astronomy village).

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: 7 hours 21 minutes (Camera at -15°C), half unity gain

• L - 56x180"

• R - 30x180"

• G - 30x180"

• B - 31x180"

• Darks- 30

• Flats- 30 per filter

Capture Software:

• Captured using N.I.N.A. and PHD2 for guiding and dithering.

PixInsight Preprocessing:

• BatchPreProcessing

• StarAlignment

• Blink

• ImageIntegration per channel

• DrizzleIntegration (2x, Var β=1.5)

For the L channel I did 3 stacks each with 1/3rd of the data, then combined them to an RGB image (was still grayscale) to use deepSNR noise reduction. after this it was properly converted to mono

• Dynamic Crop

• MultiscaleGradientCorrection

  First time trying out the MARS thing in pixinsight. It seems to work very well

Luminance Linear:

• BlurXterminator

• Stars removed with starx

• ArcsinhStretch + HistogramTransformation to stretch nonlinear

RGB Linear:

• ChannelCombination to combine monochrome R G and B images in to single color image

• MultiscaleGradient Correction

• SpectrophotometricColorCalibration

• BlurXterminator (correct stars only)

• HSV Repair

• Extracted stars with starXterminator, to be used later for independent starless processing

• ArcsinhStretch + HistogramTransformation to stretch nonlinear

• Slight saturation curve boost

** Stars only processing:**

• ArcsinhStretch + HistogramTransformation to stretch nonlinear

• Slight SCNR to remove greens and magentas

• Curves to boost saturation

Nonlinear Processing:

• LRGBCombination to combine stretched RGB and L images

• DeepSNR Noise reduction

• Several rounds of curve adjustments for lightness, contrast, saturation, color balance, with various masks

• LocalHistogramEqualization

• More curves

• Pixelmath to add in the stretched RGB stars only image from earlier

  This basically re-linearizes the two images, adds them together, and then stretches them back to before. More info on it here)

  mtf(.005,

  mtf(.995,Stars)+

  mtf(.995,Starless))

• BlurX to sharpen the stars a little

• Even more curves

• Slight SCNR

• Resample to 70%

• Tighter crop in on just the nebula

• Annotation

What equipment/settings/processing did you use for this image?

Yep! It helps people give good feedback on images, and can help serve as a guide for newer people to the hobby

Can you include acquisition info?

Are you moving the mount in just one axis? Or doing both RA and DEC movements at the same time? You might also want to dither more frequently, especially with how many 30” subs you can get in a half hour. Even that amount of walking noise will add up

Although this comm is for original content only, this post will stay up since it’s gotten a lot of traction (and is a pretty badass pic)

Pretty good for a phone! I’m guessing it’s doing some kind of stacking process? I think there would be some streaking with a single 4 min exposure, but your stars look nice and sharp

Opossums have 13 nipples

What equipment/settings did you use?

Head empty no thoughts