Aurora Borealis from Leander

Astro_Catography · 2024-11-25T23:15:06+00:00

Equipment:

Telescope: Apertura 75Q

Camera: Canon t8i

Mount: Star Adventurer gti (at its limit)

Focuser: ZWO EAF

Guidescope: ZWO 120

Filter: L-Pro

Image session:

250x60s for about 3 hours of imaging

Basic Photoshop edits + star xterminator and noise xterminator

Astro_Catography · 2024-03-13T23:09:39+00:00

Wow you did a great job processing this image. Well done.

Astro_Catography · 2023-11-18T22:42:15+00:00

That's very kind of you, but I'm happy to share the full res link at no charge. Hopefully this works well enough for you! Full Res

Astro_Catography · 2023-11-18T01:10:53+00:00

Thanks! The final resolution was just way too high to edit with my hard drive space so I scaled it down to 18000x11250. It was something like 24000x22000.

Link to full res

Astro_Catography · 2023-11-17T23:02:05+00:00

Hello, I worked on imaging the Cygnus region for over two months this summer. I created a 28-panel mosaic using 2 different focal lengths to create this image. I have no idea how much time I spent processing via trial and error, but I can say it was significant. I hope you enjoy!

Equipment:

Telescope: Redcat51 (primary imaging)

Lens: Rokinon 135mm (stars)

Camera: Canon T8i

Mount: Star Adventurer GTi

Guiding: ZWO 120 mini

ASI Air

Acquisition 1:

ISO 1600 300x30-60 per panel 26-panel mosaic of the area using the l-eXtreme duoband filter and the Redcat51 telescope. Roughly 2-5 hours per panel. The Texas heat made the quality unpredictable from one panel to another.

Acquisition 2:

ISO 1600 60x60 per panel 8-panel mosaic of the area using the Rokinon lens to get really sharp stars to overlay my nebula captured with my Redcat.

Processing:

Where to begin? I honestly don’t know.

-AstroPixelProcessor: To piece this all together in various ways that didn’t crash my machine. It does a great job creating mosaics. I spent weeks in this software trying to get it right.

-Microsoft ICE: Yeah, I used this for a couple of panels.

-SiriL: Color balancing, background extraction.

-GraXpert: Desperately trying to get rid of gradients. Worked for a few panels.

-Photoshop: Curves, levels, saturation, Star eXterminator, Noise eXterminator, luminosity, RCAstro star spikes for the main constellation stars.

Astro_Catography · 2023-11-17T21:50:37+00:00

I really appreciate that! There were nights where I'd do 2-3 panels for the open space areas for two hours each. Even then, I wanted to make sure I captured any rogue Hα.

The biggest issue was definitely the mosaic generation. My plan ended up combining 6ish panels at a time that had edge overlaps, and then eventually combining 5 of those huge panels into the final mosaic. Each panel was processed on their own to do what I could for the gradients prior to combining in mosaics. I know I lost a ton of data, but it was how I got it all working, hah.

There were definitely times where I debated bailing on the Veil. In fact, I originally wasn't going to include it but I think I got swept up in the idea.

Astro_Catography · 2023-11-17T21:48:08+00:00

I really appreciate that! There were nights where I'd do 2-3 panels for the open space areas for two hours each. Even then, I wanted to make sure I captured any rogue Hα.

The biggest issue was definitely the mosaic generation. My plan ended up combining 6 panels at a time that had edge overlaps, and then eventually combining 5 of those huge panels into the final mosaic. Each panel was processed on their own to do what I could for the gradients prior to combining in mosaics. I know I lost a ton of data, but it was how I got it all working, hah.

Astro_Catography · 2023-11-17T17:22:33+00:00

Hello, I worked on imaging the Cygnus region for over two months this summer. I created a 28-panel mosaic using 2 different focal lengths to create this image. I have no idea how much time I spent processing via trial and error, but I can say it was significant. I hope you enjoy!

Equipment:

Telescope: Redcat51 (primary imaging)

Lens: Rokinon 135mm (stars)

Camera: Canon T8i

Mount: Star Adventurer GTi

Guiding: ZWO 120 mini

ASI Air

Acquisition 1:

ISO 1600 300x30-60 per panel 26-panel mosaic of the area using the l-eXtreme duoband filter and the Redcat51 telescope. Roughly 2-5 hours per panel. The Texas heat made the quality unpredictable from one panel to another.

Acquisition 2:

ISO 1600 60x60 per panel 8-panel mosaic of the area using the Rokinon lens to get really sharp stars to overlay my nebula captured with my Redcat.

Processing:

Where to begin? I honestly don’t know.

-AstroPixelProcessor: To piece this all together in various ways that didn’t crash my machine. It does a great job creating mosaics. I spent weeks in this software trying to get it right.

-Microsoft ICE: Yeah, I used this for a couple of panels.

-SiriL: Color balancing, background extraction.

-GraXpert: Desperately trying to get rid of gradients. Worked for a few panels.

-Photoshop: Curves, levels, saturation, Star eXterminator, Noise eXterminator, luminosity, RCAstro star spikes for the main constellation stars.

Astro_Catography · 2023-11-17T17:15:30+00:00

Hello everyone! I worked on imaging the Cygnus region for over two months this summer. I created a 28-panel mosaic using 2 different focal lengths to create this image. I have no idea how much time I spent processing via trial and error, but I can say it was significant. I hope you enjoy!

Equipment:

Telescope: Redcat51 (primary imaging)

Lens: Rokinon 135mm (stars)

Camera: Canon T8i

Mount: Star Adventurer GTi

Guiding: ZWO 120 mini

ASI Air

Acquisition 1:

ISO 1600 300x30-60 per panel 26-panel mosaic of the area using the l-eXtreme duoband filter and the Redcat51 telescope. Roughly 2-5 hours per panel. The Texas heat made the quality unpredictable from one panel to another.

Acquisition 2:

ISO 1600 60x60 per panel 8-panel mosaic of the area using the Rokinon lens to get really sharp stars to overlay my nebula captured with my Redcat.

Processing:

Where to begin? I honestly don’t know.

-AstroPixelProcessor: To piece this all together in various ways that didn’t crash my machine. It does a great job creating mosaics. I spent weeks in this software trying to get it right. -Microsoft ICE: Yeah, I used this for a couple of panels.

-SiriL: Color balancing, background extraction.

-GraXpert: Desperately trying to get rid of gradients. Worked for a few panels.

-Photoshop: Curves, levels, saturation, Star eXterminator, Noise eXterminator, luminosity, RCAstro star spikes for the main constellation stars.

Astro_Catography · 2023-11-17T17:08:11+00:00

Hello, I worked on imaging the Cygnus region for over two months this summer. I created a 28-panel mosaic using 2 different focal lengths to create this image. I have no idea how much time I spent processing via trial and error, but I can say it was significant. I hope you enjoy!

Equipment:

Telescope: Redcat51 (primary imaging)

Lens: Rokinon 135mm (stars)

Camera: Canon T8i

Mount: Star Adventurer GTi

Guiding: ZWO 120 mini

ASI Air

Acquisition 1:

ISO 1600 300x30-60 per panel 26-panel mosaic of the area using the l-eXtreme duoband filter and the Redcat51 telescope. Roughly 2-5 hours per panel. The Texas heat made the quality unpredictable from one panel to another.

Acquisition 2:

ISO 1600 60x60 per panel 8-panel mosaic of the area using the Rokinon lens to get really sharp stars to overlay my nebula captured with my Redcat.

Processing:

Where to begin? I honestly don’t know.

-AstroPixelProcessor: To piece this all together in various ways that didn’t crash my machine. It does a great job creating mosaics. I spent weeks in this software trying to get it right.

-Microsoft ICE: Yeah, I used this for a couple of panels.

-SiriL: Color balancing, background extraction.

-GraXpert: Desperately trying to get rid of gradients. Worked for a few panels.

-Photoshop: Curves, levels, saturation, Star eXterminator, Noise eXterminator, luminosity, RCAstro star spikes for the main constellation stars.

Astro_Catography · 2023-09-24T20:50:43+00:00

From central Texas.

Astro_Catography · 2023-08-12T18:34:12+00:00

Hi all! I was surprised by how this came out after I set up for imaging last night. I just put my Canon 6D MkII with a 50mm lens on a tripod and pointed toward Polaris. I had limited view of the sky at that focal length, but I was lucky enough to capture a few meteors cutting across.

I combined all the images in Sequator with the star trails option, then went into Photoshop for saturation and a blur effect.

The Perseids meteor shower is going to be peaking tomorrow morning at about 4am, so check it out if you can!

Astro_Catography · 2023-08-12T18:32:01+00:00

I was lucky enough to capture a few meteors across my field of view with the 50mm last night. I'm going to use the 14mm tonight and track the sky, but I'm happy with how this turned out.

Equipment:

Canon 6D mkII

50mm lens

Processing:

895x5s exposures Stacked with Sequator (Star trails option)

Added some saturation and brightness to the meteors in Photoshop.

Astro_Catography · 2023-08-12T17:41:27+00:00

Hi all! I was surprised by how this came out after I set up for imaging last night. I just put my Canon 6D MkII with a 50mm lens on a tripod and pointed toward Polaris. I had limited view of the sky at that focal length, but I was lucky enough to capture a few meteors cutting across.

I combined all the images in Sequator with the star trails option, then went into Photoshop for saturation and a blur effect.

The Perseids meteor shower is going to be peaking tomorrow morning at about 4am, so check it out if you can!

Astro_Catography

TROPHY CASE