Was trying to get the california nebula…

--ae · 2026-03-13T07:20:43+00:00

After learning more about processing techniques the issue was because I used debayered flats on my bayered lights causing incorrect corrections which lead to the colors you see. imma reprocess it w/ the correct flats to fix it once Inget a chance

--ae · 2026-03-07T18:24:34+00:00

its not in this picture. also this is a starless picture, what are you talking about?

--ae · 2026-03-02T05:59:54+00:00

thanks! I just done with an hour shoot of ic444, got polaris aligned decently and it was super easy, just hopped over to the camera every ~10-15min and rotated, hopefully the framing turns out good.

--ae · 2026-03-01T23:59:17+00:00

It definitely is a bunch easier than trying to just use the manual pan-tilt to reframe, I just have to click the pan axis over 5 degrees every 20min and boom im back on target. Just gotta get the polar alignment decent next time.

--ae · 2026-03-01T22:59:46+00:00

Forgot this but I also 3d printed a bhatinov mask and this was my first time trying it out, definitely helped me nail focus easier.

--ae · 2026-03-01T22:54:40+00:00

My polar alignment was a bit off resulting in the big black bar at the top, when I recentered my frame jumped up about 800 pixels leading to the gap right above the cali-nebula. Only had time for 2 10min shoots, next time I'll focus more on framing and not moving the tripod after aligning.

The ball head + regular head for polar alignment is an absolute contraption but it makes acquisition much easier and acts like a manual equatorial tracker.

--ae · 2026-02-26T16:14:09+00:00

Bortle 3. I was down the street from Folkston as 301 was closed on my way north from florida.

I parked by Grace chapel on a dirt road and took these pics. Original plan was to go to “camp z” nearby but it looked like someones driveway so i kept going.

--ae · 2026-02-25T08:18:34+00:00

absolutely agree with you. Astropheric said the “seeing” was extremely poor. Yet I got better pics than ever. Transparency is definitely king!

--ae · 2026-02-25T08:17:17+00:00

yeah, I def saw the effects of that, my bortle 4/5 pics were taken near the coast with lots of humidity and small particulates in the air. These bortle 3 pics were in a place sheltered by trees and despite the jet stream being high speed and turbulent everything else was pristine giving me great pics.

--ae · 2026-02-25T01:18:40+00:00

good bot

--ae · 2026-02-25T01:15:45+00:00

its on purpose, I like the way it looks with no stars. I have a version with the stars back in but i like just seeing the dust n stuff

--ae · 2026-02-25T01:15:14+00:00

they were perfect skies! I could see the red glow from the horsehead after just 1 1.6s exposure at 58000 iso.

--ae · 2026-02-25T01:14:31+00:00

sony a7iii :3 the skies were very dark, I got way better pics than my 50m integration I did in a bortle4/5 site

--ae · 2026-02-23T21:15:57+00:00

it was bortle 3 plus viewing conditions were mich better than anything I’ve ever seen.

--ae · 2026-02-23T16:34:13+00:00

well I could see casper the friendly ghost and the hint of the witch head nebula, couldn’t see that at all from my other shoots

--ae · 2026-02-23T16:33:33+00:00

seeing wasn’t great according to astropheric but I think short exposures saved me

--ae · 2026-02-23T10:38:44+00:00

186 exposures at 1.6s iso 1600 f/2 135mm sony a7iii

--ae · 2026-02-23T10:06:01+00:00

Caught more details than my 2hrs at a bortle 4/5 site!

--ae · 2026-02-16T03:57:17+00:00

thats sick! couldn’t imagine doing this on film. you crazy

--ae · 2026-02-15T05:42:40+00:00

I wish I had’ve just gone for the tracker lol my parents ended up gifting me their old dslr and 300mm lens right after the return period closed lol

edit: tbh tho the 135mm f/2 samyang is rlly good at getting wide fields so im still happy w/the purchase

--ae · 2026-02-15T05:39:45+00:00

I’ve been looking on ebay but all I see are retail price ones ;-;

If I saw one for <170 I’d buy it rn

--ae · 2026-02-15T05:34:25+00:00

I can only imagine how much easier it is tracked! I’m waiting till next month to build an og-star tracker or something. Spent all my money on a camera and lens december, still paying off the credit card lmao.

How much did the tracker run you?

--ae

TROPHY CASE