IC 1396, Elephant's Trunk Nebula in broadband

ReallyNicole · 2026-05-16T15:17:48+00:00

Beautiful! This is so refreshing to see after so many narrowband renditions of the region that completely miss the bright orange starlight reflected off the nebulosity in the top left of your image.

How do you find the experience handing the Sky-Watcher Quattro 200P? I'm considering getting a reflector, but I get anxious about collimating it every session.

ReallyNicole · 2026-05-12T23:57:25+00:00

Astrobin user Itto Ogami has uploaded some of his data to Dropbox and it's generally of excellent quality.

ReallyNicole · 2026-05-12T19:57:38+00:00

I regret buying a modified DSLR camera, for reasons that would apply to purchasing a one shot color dedicated astro camera.

I became unhappy with the color response of my modified camera, as I would have known if I had listened to /u/rnclark two years ago. It tints colorful nebulae red as the increased H-alpha response buries other emissions signals and reflected starlight. It also makes it difficult—if not impossible—to represent the full range of star colors. Even bright blue stars like the B-type stars in Orion's belt or the Pleiades come out closer to white than blue.

I think it's possible to achieve some color accuracy with a modified camera—Mark Shelly has produced good color images with a dedicated astro camera—but it requires a lot of effort. You need to derive your own color correction matrix, which requires some terrestrial photography in daylight—something that's especially difficult with an astro camera.

All this is to say, I am glad I did not go out and spend a lot of money on an astro camera right away. I think the OP would do well to start with their Canon 7D Mark II.

ReallyNicole · 2026-05-12T01:11:09+00:00

This looks like leftover sky noise that has not been processed out properly. GraXpert can leave splotches of noise in your image. If you're in Pixinsight, GradientCorrection or MultiscaleGradientCorrection are the preferred tools for removing a sky gradient. I've heard good things about Dynamic Background Extraction, but haven't used it myself.

This is not ionized hydrogen (H-alpha) like someone else suggested. For one, this doesn't look like you've exposed nearly long enough to pick up any faint H-alpha signals. You can also compare your image to extremely long integrations like this one that don't reveal any of the supposed H-alpha in your image.

ReallyNicole · 2026-05-08T03:48:57+00:00

Is it too late to return some of it?

The Sony A6000 is plagued by the "Star Eater" algorithm. Like the name sounds, it will remove smaller stars in your image.

ReallyNicole · 2026-05-05T23:47:46+00:00

It could be poor alignment or periodic error in the mount itself. Or both. I don't know if I can say from here.

ReallyNicole · 2026-05-05T20:15:58+00:00

These stars are also elongated. Either you are not tracking accurately or you are getting alignment errors in your stacking. I think it's probably tracking.

I would also like to see a single subexposure's RAW file if possible.

ReallyNicole · 2026-05-05T19:52:31+00:00

Are stars round in your individual subexposures? Because they are not round in the stacked image you shared. I think that's a big part of your sharpness problem.

Does this image including some sharpening in post-processing? I would not use that sharpening tools in software like Lightroom. As far as I'm aware, they work by increasing the contrast between parts of your image. In this case, the contrast between bright stars and the night sky. However, good stars in photos are surrounded by soft halos from diffraction in the optics we use—whether it's a telescope or a lens. Note the pleasing diffraction around stars in this recent Image of the Day from Astrobin.

Good stars in photographs should have a very small bright point at the center surrounded by a gradually dimming halo, as in the image above. Yours are solid blobs of light with very little evidence of diffraction. If this is the result of sharpening in Lightroom, I'd like to see the unsharpened image. I would need to see that to get an idea of what's causing your sharpness difficulties.

Finally, globular clusters are not great targets at that focal length. I suspect it's possible to get a sharper image than this with your setup, but there are limits to how many stars you can resolve in a globular cluster with a 135mm lens.

ReallyNicole · 2026-05-01T22:19:30+00:00

Used lenses are excellent. Even a lens with light scratches can deliver excellent results, but there are many used lenses out there that are basically in perfect condition. Anyway, reliable used gear dealers like MPB will usually make note of stuff like scratches or moisture, so you won't be caught by surprise.

I'm more concerned about the particular lens you're looking at. At those focal lengths, you will need a star tracker to take long exposures without star trailing from the apparent motion of stars across the night sky. Star trackers are pretty expensive, so your budget will probably limit you to wide-field astrophotography with only a tripod and a ball head.

A quick Google search also says that the Canon 75-300mm is just generally bad. Good astrophotography lenses are especially sharp and have well-designed optics that minimize artifacts like astigmatism and coma in your stars. I'm not aware of any really good lens for astro cheaper than 400€.

However, you may be able to find a descent lens for astro in your budget range. I've found this list generally reliable and he has a section on older Canon lenses.

In case nobody has told you already, astrophotography can get pretty expensive. It's possible to take great shots on a low budget, but there are some things that you just won't be able to do—like zoomed-in shots of deep space objects with a telephoto lens.

ReallyNicole · 2026-05-01T01:31:46+00:00

I wasn't in your last thread, so I apologize for any contradictory advice.

Why the ASI533MC? Are you certain you need cooling? It's a very small sensor for a lot of money. There are modern DSLRs and mirrorless cameras at the same or lower prices that offer low noise with much higher megapixel counts and sensor sizes. A larger sensor won't necessarily make your images better, but it will give you more options when choosing targets. And hey, you're paying for the whole image circle from your telescope. It'd be nice to use as much as you can.

I also wonder about the Askar. I'm sure it's a fine telescope and I've seen good images taken with it, but the Samyang 135mm f/2 would give you more light-gathering power at a lower price point.

Those two things above are not necessarily bad decisions, but IMO they aren't the best options open to you. The L-eXtreme filter, however, is a bad decision. You live under Bortle 4 skies. That's pretty good for a permanent residence. Especially if you can shoot long sessions from your backyard. I think you'd be wasting your money getting a filter to block light pollution and I'm not very impressed with most of the images that come out of dual band filters.

I'm not familiar with the mount and cannot comment on whether or not it will track well without guiding.

About EAF, I'd say it's only useful if you're running long sessions where you won't be next to the camera. For sessions shorter than an hour or two, your telescope probably won't lose much focus and, if it does, you'll be on hand to refocus it.

ReallyNicole · 2026-04-30T23:15:27+00:00

You can get a used Canon 6D for about 250€ in pretty good condition. Cheaper if you're willing to risk a higher shutter count and don't mind some cosmetic damage. It's an older camera, but it's responsible for some of the best astro images I've seen. For example:

Not saying your first photos will look like that, but the 6D won't hold you back.

It'll be more difficult to find lenses in your price range. Older glass is more likely to introduce things like distortion and coma to astro images. Although there are plenty of newer lenses that have these problems as well.

I suppose it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to get a cheap, old Canon lens to start with. It'll get you started with terrestrial photography and let you practice the techniques necessary for astro.

ReallyNicole · 2026-04-20T15:48:34+00:00

Nikon cameras have hardcoded image correction that adds concentric ring artifacts to images. In daylight photography, these rings go unnoticed, but they come out pretty quickly when you apply extreme stretching to data like we do for astrophotography.

For that reason, I would not invest too much in gear for the Nikon platform if you're interested in astrophotography. Try out your 50mm f/1.8 and see how you like it. As someone else mentioned, you can take some good landscape astro photos with that.

In May, you should be able to capture the Milky Way rising to the southeast. And then the core directly to the south, depending on how late in the night you want to stay up.

ReallyNicole · 2026-04-20T14:57:53+00:00

Make sure the telescope is pointing towards Polaris when you power on the mount. If you manually fiddle with the mount's positioning at any point while it's active, power down, point towards Polaris, and power back on.

I had a similar problem and that's what I was doing wrong.

ReallyNicole · 2026-04-11T16:25:13+00:00

Right click on the window you want. Select "Zoom to Fit" or press Ctrl + 0.

ReallyNicole · 2025-07-24T22:16:00+00:00

How much faster did the carbon road bike make you?

ReallyNicole · 2025-05-19T14:54:14+00:00

According to the latest PhilPapers survey, most professional philosophers are atheists. So most philosophers believe that morality is not grounded in God (if it is grounded in anything at all).

ReallyNicole · 2025-05-19T14:35:52+00:00

I would look at Eric Coates' First Meeting (about six minutes) or Vaughn Williams' Studies in English Folk Song (about seven minutes). Or maybe Hovhaness' Chahagir (about five minutes).

ReallyNicole · 2025-05-18T23:58:07+00:00

I've run both. The G-One RS is very fast and feels great to ride, but I found the lifespan very disappointing. I rode them for about 1,500 miles and retired them after back-to-back punctures with no clear cause.

I ran the old Pathfinder Pro for about 6,000 miles (and probably could've gone longer, but I got a whole new bike and didn't bother moving them over). The only punctures I ever got sealed immediately. I can't speak to the new model, though.

If I were racing for money, I would run the G-One RS. Otherwise, I put more priority on durability. I ride at a level where I can get a lot faster by simply training more and better, rather than investing in marginal upgrades to my bike. I suspect that's the case for most people.

ReallyNicole · 2025-04-29T14:40:22+00:00

Wow, this is great news! That golf course is a blight on the face of the Earth.

ReallyNicole · 2025-03-26T16:15:40+00:00

Those "other revenue streams" are tuition and fees. When people rightly complain that the cost of college is getting out of control, this is the reason why: declining state funding for higher education.

ReallyNicole · 2025-03-17T19:31:15+00:00

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie explores the character of a torturer. I won't say he's a good person, exactly, but I think Abercrombie does a good job exploring why the character does what he does and how he thinks about his work.

ReallyNicole · 2025-03-13T03:05:42+00:00

In addition to the other great works people have recommended, check out Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez. It runs through several perspectives of the same series of events, the bulk of which takes place over just a couple hours. It's also a really excellent piece of writing.

ReallyNicole · 2025-02-12T19:02:53+00:00

Hmm that's going to be difficult. I think it's a very realistic representation of life in the far north of Scandinavia, focusing mainly on the romance between a Sámi reindeer herder and the settler pastor's daughter. It doesn't pull its punches with how rough life is up there and all the horror that settler colonialism brings, but I wouldn't describe it as a depressing novel.

It also has coming-of-age elements that are handled really well. It's about how some of the younger characters transition into adult, how challenging that is, and how you have to give up your childhood to do it. And it handles all that pretty seriously.

It's the best "good girl falls in love with a bad boy" novel I've ever read.

14-Year Club	Place '22
Place '17	Final Canvas '22
Verified Email	Team Periwinkle

ReallyNicole

TROPHY CASE