u/Corgi_underground

Seestar S30 Pro, hybrid alt/az and EQ, 182x20/229x30/44x60 (3:39:10hrs). Stacked/processed in Siril, masked in Affinity, final touches done in Lightroom mobile tif>fit>PNG>JPG

This was one of the first objects I captured and decided to add 60sec exposures and reprocess now that I know a lot more than I used to eight months ago.

M101 is a giant spiral galaxy 21-25million LY away spanning 170,000LY across (Milky way is 100k across) and is estimated to have a trillion stars. It's unique pattern is caused by nearby galaxies pulling on its arms.

Figured I would finish this up since all projects are on hiatus for NGC7331 and it's cloudy outside.

Veil Nebula is a supernova remnant of a star that exploded between 10k-20k years ago, 2,400ly away from Earth. Scientists are unsure where the neutron star that was left behind after a red giant (20x solar mass) core collapse. It is suspected it was "kicked" from the veil's location during the collapse.

Captured with my S30P, EQ, narrowband, 265x30sec, 81x60sec frames in mosaic mode. Bortle 6.

203x60, culled ~30 images, processed in Siril, edited in Affinity, cropped to a smaller size and small touches in Lightroom mobile. Hopefully I can get enough integration time before she dips too low on the horizon to hit 10hrs to get that faint nebula to really show up.

542*30sec, EQ, B6 skies. I uploaded the wrong file earlier because I wasn't paying attention. Still the same story of two months of dealing with rain, fog, smoke, and clouds to give enough data to have a decent photo of Andromeda, our closest large body neighbor.

Obviously certain objects have different integration and exposure times. Elephant, Iria and North American were EQ. The rest were in Alt-Az

All processed with Siril, AstroWizard and Photoshop.

I was hoping to lose at least a little more weight and let my beard grow out more (thanks to the barber who didn't listen) before I asked the council but....it's time isn't it.

Used my Seestar S30 pro to capture this.

Wanted to give it a second go since the first was muddied. Same total frames to start but used Blink, Browse, Filter, and Sort to get rid of bad frames. Siril with SyQon and Veralux scripts, color enhancement in Photoshop.

First session with the MSM EQ wedge

60/60sec frames

Only gripe I really have is I think the Veralux sharpening went all little too aggressive might try graxpert next time.

360x20

Alt-az

Stacked and processed in Siril and a little tweaking in Photoshop.

700x20sec

Alt-Az (just got my EQ wedge today!)

Bortle 5-6 skies

Post in Siril (workflow second pic)

Little clean-up of the stars in Photoshop

Biggest challenge with these was, of course, clear skies always lining up with the moon cycle, M101 being close to zenith, and Alt-Az requiring so many frames to really get good data.

Just wanted to show how much more you can improve from a stack with the Seestar app, Seestar Lightroom mobile and Siril workflow and Photoshop.

Yes, there is a learning curve (and you better believe I'm still learning) but the end result is worth it.

Image is M13 30sec, 105 frames, Bortle class 5

I wanted to test this for myself and for others to see the difference.

Controls:Atmospheric conditions(within 2%), elevation within 100ft of the two sites I shot from, moon glow (both night moon was below the horizon), both on alt-az, same target (M101), same time of night, shot within a week of each other, no editing.

Variables:

Picture one: 30sec exposures, 1hr integration, Bortle 4

Picture two: 20sec exposures, 2hrs integration, Bortle 6

You can see here that integration time is going to play a huge role in detail on the target you're shooting, however that higher bortle level is also going to introduce false coloring and noise to your data which will make editing a longer process for you.

You can also infer that if I were to get two hours of integration on my first picture the SNR would still be significantly lower than picture 2 and I would have more detail/data to work with in post processing.

For those who has been doing this for a while...you know. This is for newer people into the hobby and to test the S30 Pro in its data collecting capabilities.

So both photos are of M101, same parameters, same software etc. Which is more visually appealing to you all?

Left is me. 20+ year old tattoo. So it's not the full tattoo but there are six main bodies representing 6 guys that were killed overseas during my deployments.

I went through a CPTSD program where I learned how to "let go". I'm wanting to get it covered with an astronomy tattoo in the future so it's not a constant reminder of the bad events and choose to remember the good. I have another on my shoulder area, similar design, but that was a I'm 18 and want a tattoo.

I'm wondering how feasible it is to get an old tattoos covered up with something with the design concept on the right. I really want to avoid laser treatment before.