r/astrophotography

This was taken from the Kagga Kamma Remote Observatory and is a small section of a larger 21-panel mosaic that I did in collaboration with my friends Dave and Chris. I recommend checking out the better resolution image on Astrobin: https://app.astrobin.com/i/pdxs0b

Some additional info on my website: https://www.naztronomy.com/gallery/image/900/vela_supernova_subsection_filaments

This is actually a mosaic itself, sections of 5 different panels totaling about 30 hours of data (if my math is correct). We wanted to get more data but due but Vela is setting faster and faster and the weather in the winter has been getting poorer. Hope to retry next year in mono!

Here is the equipment list:

- Telescope: Askar SQA85
- Camera: QHYCCD QHY268 Pro C
- Mount: Proxisky UMi 20S
- Filter: Antlia ALP-T Dual Band 5nm 2"
- Software: NINA, PixInsight, Siril (mosaic processed using my OSC PP script)

I've been going back and forth on the color, I think I want to do the whole 21 panel mosaic a little differently but wanted to show off this section of Vela. 

If anyone's interested, I interviewed the observatory owners here: https://youtu.be/xgea5UQlhY4

Experimenting with a method I'm developing myself (although I suspect others have done something similar) combining both OSC from one setup and mono from another setup. It's a bit complicated to explain, but I can try if some want to know.

Data:

Both were taken on a Iexos 100 mount

All subs were 30 seconds, calibrated

 

Mono: Askar 300FRA Pro, MiniCam8 Mono

H - 81 subs

S - 151 subs

O - 152 subs

 

OSC:  AT60ED, Playerone Saturn, Antlia Triband

1304 subs

Stars were from the OSC subs only.

 

All from Bortle 8/9

 

Edited with Siril, GraXpert, SAS Pro, Affinity, and Rawtherapee.

Edited close-up of IC 1396B The Elephant Trunk. 47/180 second subs captured 5/30/26

Telescope: Askar V, 80mm

Camera: ZWO ASI6200MC PRO

Filter: IDAS NB12

Mount: Sky-Watcher EQ8-R Pro

Guiding: ZWO ASIAIR Plus

Processed in GraXpert, PixInsight and Topaz Gigapixel for upscaling

Hello,

This was my first serious project since i started astrophotography a few years ago. I've come upon this nebula on the internet and found it really insteresting and decided it would be my next target. Acquisicion took around 1 year and with a lot of hickups along the way. Managed to process around 34 hours of data, and this is the result.

Equipment:
Redcat 51;
Toutptek ATR2600c;
HEQ5- Pro belt modded;
Orion 50mm guide scope;
asi 120mm mini
Melee Quieter 3Q mini PC

Software:
NINA;
PHD2;
Sharpcap;
Pixinsight;
Photoshop

Acquisition:
Around 430 (300s) light frames, gain 100, offset 50, -10ºC, dithered.

Pre-Processing:
Blink and subframeselector and wbpp.

Processing:
GraXpert, Astrometry solution, SPCC, blurXterminator, starXterminator;
starless: noiseXterminator, GHS, masks and curves teaks.
stars: GHS.
Recombine, some more curves.

Photoshop:
Watermark, resample.

I really liked the final result, looks great on a A3+ Canon Platinum paper.
More stuff on Astrobin or Instagram.

Clear skies, all!

Taken with an Askar 80PHQ, 0.76x reducer, asi2600MC with L-enhance filter for close to 28 hours in Bortle 7 skies.

Everything done in Pixinsight. My main steps are WBPP, SPCC, BlurX, Graxpert, Statistical stretch, Starnet++, histogram- and curves transformation.

At the end I use Pixelmath to set the median value to 20 to get the background across my images relatively consistent. It's a bit lighter than most photos but I send them out to be printed later and this way the prints don't turn out too dark.

As an aside, I made a stack when I had around 10 hours of data and the difference is pretty small!

Acquisition Details

Camera: Nikon D3400

Lens: 35mm

Aperture: f/2.8

ISO: 800

Subexposure time: 30 seconds

Total subexposures: 695

Total integration time: ~5h 47m

Tracking: Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer 2i

Light pollution: Bortle 6–7

Capture Dates

13 February 2026

17 February 2026

18 February 2026

Calibration

Dark frames (captured per night)

Flat frames (captured per night)

Bias frames (reused master bias)

Processing Summary

Stacked in DeepSkyStacker

RBF background extraction and denoising in GraXpert

SPCC color calibration in Siril

Further processing in PixInsight:

Histogram stretching

Star separation

Separate processing of starless and stars layers

Curves adjustments (contrast and color balance)

Local Histogram Equalization on nebula

MorphologicalTransformation and curves adjustments for star reduction

Recombined stars and starless image

Captured with Canon EOS R10 + RF200-800 set at 800 mm (APS-C so equivalent 1280 mm).
Hand-tracked single shot, 1/400s, f/9, ISO-1600. My body was leaning on my car so this can count for "improved hand tracking".

Highest elevation was ±60° at my location, although i can not provide the exact elevation of this picture.

The image is cropped since at this exposure no star is visible.

No processing at all. Not necessary.

DWARF 3 | Megastack | 1.300 x 30sec | Gain 60 | Bortle 5 | Stellar Studio | Siril | Photoshop

This is my first attempt at stacking images of t'sun, captured on the 4th.

I am using the Raspberry Pi 5, with the HQ Camera, and a 100mm f3.5 c-mount lens.

First processing is through Siril as PIPP wouldn't recognise the images otherwise. Then into PIPP, then AutoStakkert, then Photopea for minor adjustments. There are ~700 images @ 0.001 seconds. Baader Solar Film.

I ticked the Sharpen box in Autostakkert, and I think that may be what is causing all the weirdness around the edges. It could also be the drift or something, I'm not really sure. It has taken me a week or two of trying different options to get it to this!

I was pretty pleased with the sun spots, but tbh idk if I did a good job, might delete later.

Images captured using my 3D Printed MountOne GOTO System.

I was out early on the morning of July 4th trying to chase the aurora when I saw distant lightning out near Pittsburg, PA (roughly 100 miles north of me) and while setting up my camera I saw a sprite on the live view on my Nikon Z8. After setting up an intervalometer I was able to capture two frames with sprites- this being the better of the two.

Settings:
- 3 Second Exposure
- f/2.2
- ISO 3200
- 20mm focal length

Shot on Seestar S30 Pro from Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Shot over 4 nights with near full moon and bortle 9

It was definitely a challange with all the clouds the past couple of days but I think the result speaks for itself!

Stacked in Siril

Edited using Siril and GraXpert

Shot July 4, 2026 with Nikon Z8 and Takahashi TSA-120 telescope with Vernonscope Dakin 2.4x barlow on ZWO AM5 mount. 820 frames at ISO 64 1/40s pre-processed in Photoshop, exported to TIFF, aligned in PIPP, and stacked in AutoStakkert 4. Post processed and sharpened in Photoshop. All photos taken by me, Adam Jackson, a Houston, Texas based astrophotographer.

This is a 10’s single exposure image of the Milky Way Core. No AI used.

iPhone 17 Pro

Native Camera App (ProRaw Mode)

24mm 1x sensor 48MP (Untracked Tripod)

ISO 3200 | 10.0’s | f1.78

Processed in RawTherapee (Raw decoding), Siril (Stretching & Pre-processing), GIMP (color calibration & tweaks.)

Taken on 24th April 2026 under Bortle 2 skies.

My first serious attempt at editing with Siril and Graxpert. Already had experience with Gimp.

The data is a 2x mosaic with the Seestar s50 in alt az mode. 63 minutes of 10 second exposures.

Processed stacked fit from seestar in graxpert for background and denoise, siril for stretch, color and detials, graxpert again to extract background and noise caused by siril, Gimp for color, curves, contrast and Lightroom Mobile free for the maximum details.

Taken with a Dwarflab Mini on the South Island of New Zealand with 100 10 second exposures. The photos were edited in the Dwarflab app.

Omega Centauri (ω Cen, NGC 5139, or Caldwell 80) is a globular cluster in the constellation of Centaurus that was first identified as a non-stellar object by Edmond Halley in 1677. Located at a distance of 17,090 light-years (5,240 parsecs), it is the largest known globular cluster in the Milky Way at a diameter of roughly 150 light-years.^([10]) It is estimated to contain approximately 10 million stars, with a total mass of 4 million solar masses,^([11]) making it the most massive known globular cluster in the Milky Way. (Taken from Wikipedia)

Full details here: https://www.instagram.com/kasrak_film/
An image of Messier 51 (The Whirlpool Galaxy) that has taken me 5 years to capture, starting from April 2021 in Buckinghamshire, then Wilshire and finally Norfolk in England, using the same telescope and camera, all under bortle 5 skies. I played with two sets of filters: Optolong L-Pro and Antlia RGB Triband filter.
Overall, I managed to gather about 22 hours of data over 5 years. Stacking and adding them up together, has led to this image of Messier 51.

22 hours worth of 5-minute subs.
Telescope: TS-Optics 130APO Refractor @ f/7
Camera: ZWO ASI6200MC Pro
Filters: Optolong LP-Pro and Antlia RGB Triband
Tracking mounts: Skywatcher EQ6-r and ZWO AM5N
Power distribution: Pegasus PowerBox Advance
Calibration and procession: PixInsight & Adobe Photoshop

Long-time lurker, first real post. Hoping the mods give me a pass for self-promo because I think this community is exactly who I need to hear from.

After years of doing astro the conventional way — Windows laptops on the balcony that kept crashing, dedicated cameras with driver problems, endless cable management — I decided to find out whether modern iPhones could actually do live-stacking natively. Turns out they can, more or less. So I spent the past year building it.

AstroStackerPro: real-time live stacking entirely on-device, up to ~600 frames per session, IMU-based derotation using the gyroscope for untracked long integrations, on-board editor with denoise (AI, on-device), sharpen, light-pollution removal, and exports to FITS for those of you who want to take the stack into PixInsight or Siril.

Privacy: 100% on-device, no cloud, no analytics, no account.

Requirements: iPhone 11 or later, recent iOS.

Public TestFlight beta is open. One-person project, v1.0.1, definitely rough in places, and I am genuinely at the stage where real users finding the things I missed is more valuable than gold to me. So please be hard on it.

Honest caveat: for certain targets (deep sky, high magnification) you'll still want a tripod, a star tracker, or a dedicated iPhone telephoto — but I'm actively pushing to minimize the extra gear needed.

Best channel for detailed feedback is email at astrostackerpro@icloud.com, I reply individually.

🛰 https://testflight.apple.com/join/aYaV63UV

🌌 https://astrostackerpro.com

Clear skies.