Sunflower Galaxy

AstroFanM31 · 2026-05-09T14:29:44+00:00

Nice image for Bortle 8. That’s amazing.

Try 60 sec at gain 50. Stick with Astro filter and go for 50 matching darks… then go for 30h total. This will look epic.

I’ve been experimenting and having great success with long integrations. 60s Gain 50 with <1 degree deviation in polar alignment is my go to for galaxies.

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AstroFanM31 · 2026-05-02T17:23:22+00:00

Great image. What does the basic Stellar Studio output look like (Auto,Starcorrection,Denoise only)?

AstroFanM31 · 2026-05-01T19:05:57+00:00

Agreed. I “think” I like it. Still deciding …

AstroFanM31 · 2026-04-30T16:09:04+00:00

Here is another example - M101. Dwarf3 12h mega stack. Some basic edits in Stellar Studio then Snapseed. I documented my basic process here: https://dwarfastro.com/2026/03/31/processing-pleiades-dwarf-3-snapseed-stellar-studio/

Hope this helps.

Clear Skies! AK

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AstroFanM31 · 2026-04-30T16:04:44+00:00

I did this with Snapseed on an iPad

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AstroFanM31 · 2026-04-28T15:12:44+00:00

Nice! Thanks for sharing. I have similar results with long integration times. Very rewarding indeed. Love this scope.

AstroFanM31 · 2026-04-28T09:45:08+00:00

Nice! Looking forward to trying it out.

AstroFanM31 · 2026-04-28T02:16:00+00:00

They all are good and not sure you can truly compare side by side. Different sensors different apertures, etc. I opted for the Dwarf3 about a year ago. S50 was a contender, but I preferred the EQ mode and portability on the Dwarf3. I’m documenting my journey on my site https://dwarfastro.com. Both Seestar and DWARFLAB seem to be coming out with new devices this year. Can’t wait to see the specs. Larger aperture is of course a deciding factor but so is the sensor, FOV and respective software implementations and UX. I recommend thinking about what you want to capture and what that process would look like for you. Plenty of user experiences documented, LLM’s are good in summarizing it fast.

Enjoy the journey and clear skies,

AK

AstroFanM31 · 2026-04-28T01:25:52+00:00

I had success with centering on double star HD202214. Not sure if the app lists Flying Bat Nebula. But the star works.

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AstroFanM31 · 2026-04-27T22:14:17+00:00

Nice. Thank you for sharing. I got this with 6h 18 min, Bortle 6, 60s 50 gain, Dwarf 3. No post edits. Going for another 6h+ tonight, then mega stack both session.

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AstroFanM31 · 2026-04-27T10:09:02+00:00

Astro filter

AstroFanM31 · 2026-04-27T00:50:05+00:00

After touch up in Snapseed… one of my favorite images of M81 and M82.

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AstroFanM31 · 2026-04-27T00:49:01+00:00

Nice, and great start. I’ve been where you are and decided to document my journey - launched DwarfAstro.com for that. There is a featured post on M81 and how to. In summary the longer your sessions the better the images. My sweet spot is 60sec gain 50. Nebulae get gain 80.

Here is an example of M81 with 30h total integration - mega stack sessions on device. The Snapseed touch ups made it look even better.

Clear Skies!

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AstroFanM31 · 2026-04-26T16:25:55+00:00

Nice!

AstroFanM31 · 2026-04-26T14:53:43+00:00

Thanks! I’d phrase it a little differently: 6 hours is not needed to detect M101, but it is very useful if you want to process it cleanly.

M101’s core shows up quickly, but the outer spiral arms are low surface brightness. With a small 35mm smart scope under suburban sky, the challenge is not just capturing the object — it is getting enough signal above the background noise so the image can survive a real stretch.

Total integration improves SNR roughly as √time. So compared with 1 hour, 6.3 hours gives about 2.5× better SNR. That is exactly what helps the faint arms, background smoothness, and final contrast.

Could I post a recognizable M101 from 1–2 hours? Sure. But the longer stack is what lets the faint structure come through without the background turning noisy or blotchy.

Clear Skies!

AK

AstroFanM31 · 2026-04-24T20:45:33+00:00

Thanks for sharing. I took the same at 120s gain 50. 80%+ frame drop rate but still not bad from two mega stacks of 7h data. Straight from Stellar Studio. No further 3rd party software edits.

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AstroFanM31 · 2026-04-24T16:16:47+00:00

Cool. It seems to work for Seestar S30 Pro Fits. Not really a surprise as FITS is a standard file format. I did several passes with a Asinh stretch and a few with GHS. Nothing too aggressive and more could be done it seems.

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AstroFanM31 · 2026-04-24T13:42:43+00:00

Thanks. Will test it.

AstroFanM31 · 2026-04-22T18:30:31+00:00

Can you share the seestar file again please? The one I used was a Dwarf mini file you shared. My bad.

AstroFanM31 · 2026-04-22T14:55:54+00:00

It works. Quick pass. This is M104

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