u/AstroFanM31

Ran the DWARF 3 on NGC 6946 last night, timed for the 4th of July since the name fit the date.

NGC 6946 is about 25 million light years away and has produced ten observed supernovae since 1917, about ten times the rate seen in the Milky Way. For decades it held the record for most supernovae observed in any single galaxy.

Americas 250th is milestone, and this weekend is worth marking. What struck me while processing this image is the scale astrophotography reveals every time. The light on my sensor left NGC 6946 about 25.2 million years ago. Two timelines in the same frame. One measured in generations, one measured in geologic time.

Four hours is not enough integration for this target. NGC 6946 sits close to the galactic plane, and dust in our own galaxy dims it by roughly a full magnitude beyond its catalog value of 9.6. The moon also rose partway through my session, which cost contrast on a broadband target. I kept shooting anyway to hit the July 4 date. 4 hours 20 minutes captured, 4 hours 8 minutes made the final stack, 60 second subs at gain 50.

This is a first pass, not a finished result. A longer session under a moonless night would pull out more spiral structure than what I got here.

Hi All. The International Space Station will pass near Polaris tonight. I’m tempted to interrupt my runs on the Squid and try to capture the ISS. Targeting and tracking HD 7505 should provide 5 sec of transit. My question is which capture approach to take. 4K video which would yield 30 frames per sec or a burst of 1/15 of a sec, but which gain? I’m leanign towards the video… Anyone successfully done this and what were your settings?

A few people have asked through my site how to get a good first result out of the DWARF 3, so I put together a start to finish walkthrough for setting one up for the first time. It is all based on my own experience imaging from a Bortle 6 backyard.

The short version is that the first night depends more on setup than on the target. Three things carry most of it: a level tripod, polar alignment tightened to 1 degree or less, and dark frames that match your lights in exposure, gain, and temperature. Get those right and the DWARF handles the rest. EQ mode is mandatory now for subs of 30 seconds or longer, so that alignment is not optional.

Settings change with the target. M101 and other galaxies run shorter subs with the Astro filter. Nebulae want 60 second subs, gain around 80 to 90, and a duo band filter for the emission ones. The setup routine stays the same. Only the exposure changes.

On expectations: the first stack is a measurement, not a finished photo. You watch the target build on screen over the hour, structure first and faint detail later. An hour is a solid start. A few hours is where the dim stuff comes in.

Full guide with the step order and example images: https://dwarfastro.com/dwarf-3-getting-started/

Happy to answer questions.

Seventeen hours and thirty three minutes on OU4 and it is a non detection, which I think is worth posting. There is a faint teal smudge near the center of my starless frame that looked like oxygen, so I tested it before believing it.

The diffuse OIII measures about 0.2 sigma above the sky background, which is just noise. Two features cross three sigma, but they sit exactly on stars, so they are star removal residuals. The red and the oxygen proxy track at 0.90 in the stretched export, so most of the blue is hydrogen crossing channels, not independent oxygen. To rule out a false positive I rebuilt the significance map, removed the hydrogen correlated part with a cubic fit, smoothed, and scaled everything to sigma above the sky measured in the corners. The smudge does not survive.

Acquisition:

DWARF 3, 35mm aperture, f/4.3, Duo-Band filter, 17h33m total integration, Bortle 6.

Processing:

Stacked in Stellar Studio, analysis on the exported image. I know the export is the weak link, an eight bit stretched file is the worst case for faint signal, so the next pass is the linear stack in Siril.

I know the gear is the limit here. This is the wrong aperture and filter combination for OU4. What did it take those of you who have landed it, aperture, filter, and hours?

Full writeup and the significance maps: https://dwarfastro.com/2026/06/23/seventeen-hours-on-the-squid-nebula-ou4-and-the-blue-i-wanted-to-see/

I put seventeen hours and thirty three minutes of Duo-Band on OU4 from a Bortle 6 yard and wanted the faint teal smudge near the center of my starless frame to be the oxygen. Before calling it, I measured it.

The diffuse OIII where the Squid should be sits around 0.2 sigma above the sky noise, which is the noise floor. Two spots did clear three sigma, but they land exactly on stars, so they are star removal residuals, not nebula. In the stretched export the red and the oxygen proxy also track at 0.90, which means most of the blue is hydrogen crossing channels rather than real oxygen.

None of that is a knock on the DWARF 3. It does a remarkable amount for its size. OU4 is just one of the hardest targets there is, and a 35mm aperture on a Duo-Band is the wrong tool for it. The next pass is the linear stack in Siril instead of the vendor export, which should measure the floor more honestly.

Has anyone here gotten OU4 on a DWARF, and how many hours did it take you? Curious whether anyone has pulled even a hint of the oxygen.

Full write up here: https://dwarfastro.com/2026/06/23/seventeen-hours-on-the-squid-nebula-ou4-and-the-blue-i-wanted-to-see/

This one sat in my archive for almost four months. I shot the Leo Triplet on the night of February 14th, ran it through Stellar Studio and Snapseed within a few days, looked at it, and filed it under good but not done. Then galaxy season got busy. M101 pulled six hours, M106 got fifteen and a half, M51 ended up spread across three sessions. The Triplet got its one night and a note to come back to it.

My first try at this target was 8 minutes 30 seconds in Alt-Az mode last August. The arms were a smudge and NGC 5195 barely registered. This is the same 35mm aperture at 8h 14m.

Two sessions went into the stack. April 12 ran 429 subs with 392 accepted, 6h 32m. June 3 added 1h 40m under the best conditions I have had with this scope: stable sensor temp with matching darks and a clean polar alignment, which produced a noticeably smoother background than the April data. All 60s subs at gain 50, Astro filter, EQ mode, Bortle 6 backyard in Massachusetts. Stacked in Stellar Studio, finished in Snapseed on my phone.

I know what a 35mm lens can and cannot resolve, so I am not claiming this competes with a proper rig. If anyone sees where the processing falls short I would genuinely like to hear it.

I thought my DWARF 3 had captured a UFO over M13. Woke up to this after a perfect session, 561 frames, near zenith, good polar alignment. Those dark horizontal bands looked too deliberate to be noise. My brain went straight to classified satellite (…stop it…), then hardware failure, then something I couldn’t explain.

Ran it again the next night. Same bands, slightly repositioned. So not random.

DwarfLab support tracked it down fast. One dark calibration frame at 24°C had light in it, probably a car going past during the dark capture sequence. That file was being subtracted from every stack all night.

Removed the file, restacked in Megastack. Gone.

Sue at DwarfLab was great, responded quickly, asked for the right data, found it. Worth saying that out loud. Their support is outstanding.

Full before and after on the blog if anyone’s had something similar.

https://dwarfastro.com/2026/06/05/dwarf-3-bad-dark-frame-m13-hercules-cluster/

Hope this helps others.

Clear skies,

AK

I started my summer capture challenge last night, the squid nebula. As a warm up, while waiting for the main target to rise above 45 degrees, I decided to take another run at M51. I managed perfect polar alignment and to my delight the sensor temp stayed at 90F throughout the session, matching my darks perfectly. You can see the result in the image. 60s gain 50 and only 1h 40 min and that background is very smooth. No further edits in Stellar Studio other than standard denoise and star correction. Dwarf 3, Bortle 6, June 3rd 2026. What’s next? Running a megastack to combine this with my existing 6.5h set of M51.

Clear skies,
AK

I spent more time than I'd like to admit zooming into my DWARF 3 images and feeling like something was off. The targets were there. The images looked great at normal size. But zoom in and things looked softer than I expected.

What helped was understanding what the DWARF 3 is actually designed to do. It's a wide-field instrument. Short focal length, broad sky coverage, built for Andromeda, Orion, the Rosette, galaxy fields. That's its strength.

The tradeoff is that small details - a galaxy arm, a dust lane, a tiny background galaxy - may only land on a handful of pixels. When you zoom in, there may not be much more detail to reveal. That's not a flaw. That's physics.

I wrote a full breakdown of why DWARF 3 images look soft when zoomed in - link in the comments if useful.

Nine months into this hobby with the Dwarf3, these are my favorite shots by far. Love this scope.

M81 is 37h mega stack at 60s gain 50. Pinwheel is 12h and Andromeda (one of my first) is 4h at 30s gain 40. Can’t wait to run that one again on 60s gain 50 targeting 30+ hours.

I’m sharing my learnings on https://dwarfastro.com for those interested.

Clear skies,
AK

This galaxy season, I used the DWARF 3 smart telescope to capture six very different deep-sky targets (60s Gain 50 and 10h+ per image minimum)

M63 Sunflower Galaxy
M101 Pinwheel Galaxy
M51 Whirlpool Galaxy
M106
Markarian’s Chain
M81 Bode’s Galaxy

Each one taught me something different.

M51 is a great target because you can see the interaction between the Whirlpool Galaxy and its companion.

M101 was more of a patience test. It is large and face-on, but faint, so the signal really needs time to build.

M63 was more subtle. The Sunflower Galaxy does not jump out immediately, but the structure starts to appear with longer integration and careful processing.

M106 surprised me. It is not always the first galaxy people think of, but it is a very rewarding target with a strong core and nice structure.

Markarian’s Chain is probably the best “scale” image of the group. What looks like a field of small smudges is actually a field of galaxies.

M81 has become one of my favorite long-integration targets with the DWARF 3. It rewards more time, better stacking, and careful processing.

What I like about this project is that it shows what a small smart telescope can do when you move beyond quick captures and give the data time to build. These are not observatory-level images, of course, but from a compact setup under ordinary suburban skies, I think the DWARF 3 continues to surprise me.

For me, galaxy imaging is becoming less about a single final image and more about the process: collecting faint light, learning what longer integration does, improving the processing, and seeing how much structure can be pulled out of a small-aperture system.

Small telescope. Big universe.

Happy to share capture settings or processing notes if helpful. I’m still learning how far the DWARF 3 can be pushed on galaxy season targets. More details on https://dwarfastro.com

This galaxy season, I used the DWARF 3 smart telescope to capture six very different deep-sky targets (60s Gain 50 and 10h+ per image minimum)

M63 Sunflower Galaxy
M101 Pinwheel Galaxy
M51 Whirlpool Galaxy
M106
Markarian’s Chain
M81 Bode’s Galaxy

Each one taught me something different.

M51 is a great target because you can see the interaction between the Whirlpool Galaxy and its companion.

M101 was more of a patience test. It is large and face-on, but faint, so the signal really needs time to build.

M63 was more subtle. The Sunflower Galaxy does not jump out immediately, but the structure starts to appear with longer integration and careful processing.

M106 surprised me. It is not always the first galaxy people think of, but it is a very rewarding target with a strong core and nice structure.

Markarian’s Chain is probably the best “scale” image of the group. What looks like a field of small smudges is actually a field of galaxies.

M81 has become one of my favorite long-integration targets with the DWARF 3. It rewards more time, better stacking, and careful processing.

What I like about this project is that it shows what a small smart telescope can do when you move beyond quick captures and give the data time to build. These are not observatory-level images, of course, but from a compact setup under ordinary suburban skies, I think the DWARF 3 continues to surprise me.

For me, galaxy imaging is becoming less about a single final image and more about the process: collecting faint light, learning what longer integration does, improving the processing, and seeing how much structure can be pulled out of a small-aperture system.

Small telescope. Big universe.

Happy to share capture settings or processing notes if helpful. I’m still learning how far the DWARF 3 can be pushed on galaxy season targets. More details on https://dwarfastro.com

Learning and getting there it seems.

For all those of you who have tried FITS Studio, I just dropped another update - v5.16.

Improved the stretch code, added stretch warning indicators if one goes too aggressive, and added a post stretch image enhance set of features including Curves editor. Learned a lot in the process.

Still feel I'm too aggressive on the stretch, second image is a Snapseed edit from Stellar Studio for comparison. It's been a great learning tool for me. Hope it is for others as well.

Check it out on https://dwarfastro.com

General process I use is the following:

1. Load stacked linear fits

2. Background extraction (linear tab) - place the grid and remove LP

3. Stretch (I use a few Asinh stretches, followed by several GHS) - view is dynamic

4. Final tweaks in Enhance tab

Clear skies,

AK

First test of the Dwarf 3's Star Trail Mode. 720 × 30s, 6 hours total.

DwarfLab recently added a dedicated Star Trail Mode to the app and I finally had the opportunity to try it. Point the wide-angle lens north, tap the mode, walk away. The app stacks frames additively in real time as they come in. No post-session stacking required. This is 720 frames at 30 seconds each, six hours total.

A few things worth noting in the image:

At six hours, each star traces exactly 90 degrees, one quarter of a full circle. Earth takes 23 hours 56 minutes for a full rotation so the math works out cleanly. You can verify the arc length geometrically in the image.

Polaris is not perfectly centered on the north celestial pole. It sits about 0.7 degrees off, which is why it draws a small arc near center rather than holding a fixed point.

The color in the trails is real astrophysics, not a processing artifact. Star color maps directly to surface temperature. Hotter stars go blue-white, cooler stars go orange-red. It does not come through strongly in the raw stack output but a saturation push in Snapseed pulled it out cleanly.

The two diagonal lines are satellites or aircraft. Star Trail Mode does not reject frames so anything that crossed the field during a single exposure stays in the final image.

More details in my full write up on the session here: https://dwarfastro.com/2026/05/04/dwarf-3-star-trail-mode-720-frames/

Clear Skies,
AK