Our Beautiful Universe - Photos and Videos

[Drakkith]

You'll get no help from me. I know just enough to use my software and that's it.

 

[Oldman too]

I know just enough to use my software and that's it.

I'm working on reaching that level myself, I figured, since I don't have my own equipment that I would take advantage of the free imaging files for JWST (and maybe some others) on MAST to see what happens. Free data, free software and lots of time, what a combination. By the way, just out of curiosity, what software do you prefer for processing?
Cheers, Scott

 

[Drakkith]

By the way, just out of curiosity, what software do you prefer for processing?

I use Maxim DL that I bought a while back, but it's a premium software, not free.

 

[collinsmark]

Processing:

For planetary work I use Autostakkert!, and for now, still use RegiStax only for its wavelet sharpening, and often incorporating WinJUPOS for de-rotation of planets. All of them are free. I might be able to help with those, maybe.

For deep-sky work I almost exclusively use PixInsight, which is about the opposite of free. I'm not sure how much help I could be here -- after a year of using it consistently, I'm still learning it. Best I could do is probably point to some YouTube video of somebody doing a better job with it than myself. It's very, very powerful though.

Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) I'll use as a last resort sometimes to get rid of bad dust motes that stuck around even after flat-frame calibration. This is a last resort though, hopefully I don't have to use this. It's completely free software, btw.

I'll often use Topaz Labs Denoise AI and/or Sharpen AI, for both planetary and deep-sky, toward the very end of processing, as a near-final step. These software packages are not free, and they're pretty limited on what they do (denoise and sharpen are pretty much it). But they do what they intend to do exceptionally well. You don't need help using these. The interface is very straightforward with little to no learning curve.

 

[DennisN]

They also recommended using DeepSkyStacker along with the Liberator to take the edge off the learning curve for newbies (That would be me). I would appreciate any tips, advice or comments as I try and figure this stuff out.

For deep sky stacking (i.e. stars etc, not planets) I've only used the two free software DeepSkyStacker and Sequator (Sequator is comparatively quite easy to use).

For DeepSkyStacker, here is (1) an online manual, (2) FAQ and (3) Tutorials.

For Sequator, here is (1) a quick start, (2) an online manual and (3) a Q&A.

If you've never used a star stacking software before, I would suggest to watch a video where someone demonstrates using it. Below I post a good one by Forrest Tanaka where he demonstrates stacking with DeepSkyStacker at 6:57 and onwards (but the entire video is good). He's also got more videos here.

Astrophotography without a star tracker (Forrest Tanaka)


From watching others and doing some stuff myself, I would roughly say there are usually three basic steps involved (but these steps can involve quite many substeps and technical details, depending on what is being done):

1. Aquiring images (i.e. photographing if you are using your own photos).
2. Stacking multiple images into one final image.
3. Postprocessing the final image (e.g. stretching levels, color correction/edits, additional noise reduction etc).

If you are stacking photos you haven't taken yourself, step 1 obviously just becomes downloading the photos from somewhere.

Also, below I post a longer, very good video by Nico Carver (more videos here), where he describes the entire process (including all the 3 steps (and substeps) I mentioned above).

1. The first hour of the video describes the preparations and capture of images.
2. At 1:02:36 and onwards, he demonstrates stacking with DeepSkyStacker.
3. And at 1:14:13 and onwards he demonstrates postprocessing in Photoshop.

Orion Nebula WITHOUT a Star Tracker or Telescope, Start to Finish, DSLR Astrophotography (Nico Carver)


Enjoy, and good luck!

 

[Oldman too]

If you are stacking photos you haven't taken yourself, step 1 obviously just becomes downloading the photos from somewhere.

I've got a plan for that. I really appreciate the feedback, very useful info for me!

 

[Andy Resnick]

They also recommended using DeepSkyStacker along with the Liberator to take the edge off the learning curve for newbies (That would be me). I would appreciate any tips, advice or comments as I try and figure this stuff out.
Thanks, Scott

When I started astrophotography, I learned using Deep Sky Stacker and Lynkeos, because they were (are?) free. After a few years, as I learned more and got better, I ran up against the limitations of that software and switched to Astro Pixel Processor (not free), which I am still mastering.

I try to avoid post-processing as in my hands, the results often look worse than before. So far I have not used APP for planetary stacking, but I have used it for a comet.

 

[DennisN]

Recently it was a so-called supermoon (which means the Moon is about at its closest to the Earth).
Funny thing is I didn't know about it, but I was out taking shots of it anyway.

(I've recently started a long-term project: my plan is to take stacks of the Moon when different percentages (i.e. 0-100%) of the area is illuminated in order to create an animation which shows the changing phases of the Moon. I hope it will be completed someday in the future. )

Anyway, here's the "supermoon":

(Lens used: Tokina 400mm RMC f/5.6, stack of 25 of the best of 254 photos, stacked with Autostakkert)

 

[collinsmark]

M16, the Eagle Nebula (also called the Star Queen Nebula), imaged from my back patio in June 2022.The Eagle Nebula is roughly 7000 light-years away (sources differ), and can be seen (from Earth) in the constellation Serpens.

From what I can gather, M16 is called the "Eagle Nebula" due to the dark area up top that resembles the dark silhouette of a giant eagle, majestically swooping down, with calculated precision, about to cleanly nipp off a pointed, outstretched finger presenting itself.

It's also called the "Star Queen Nebula" presumably because star queens can metaphorically do the same thing.

Speaking of that finger-hand-like structure, you may find it familiar. This was the target of what is one of the most iconic space images of all time, taken from Hubble Space Telescope (HST) data and processed by Jeff Hester ad Paul Scowen from Arizona State University, back in 1995, called the "Pillars of Creation." Yes, it's the same thing shown here, part of M16, the Eagle Nebula.

A crop of full image above image, showing my version of The Pillars (of Creation).

Equipment:
Meade 10" LX200-ACF fork-mounted on an equatorial wedge.
Starlight Instruments FeatherTouch Crayford focuser modified for electronic focusing.
ZWO M68 OAG with ASI174MM-mini guide camera.
Baader 3.5/4 nm Ultra-Narrowband filter set (for slower scopes).
ZWO ASI6200MM-Pro main camera.

Software:
Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy (N.I.N.A.)
PHD2 Guiding
PixInsight
Topaz Labs Denoise AI
Topaz Labs Sharpen AI

The Eagle Nebula's coordinates are about 14 deg south of the celestial equator. This makes it a bit more susceptible to seeing conditions and tracking/guiding errors by my telescope located in San Diego. There were also some minor issues with field curvature and probably sensor tilt. I tried to mitigate these issues with some deconvolution in post-processing with limited success. 'Room for improvement, I suppose. In the end though, I think it turned out OK. I'm pretty happy with the image for a first attempt at the Eagle Nebula.

Integration:
Bortle Class 7 (maybe 8) skies
All subframes binned 3×3
SII: 43 × 10 min = 7.17 hrs
Hα: 56 × 10 min = 9.33 hrs
Oiii: 37 × 10 min = 6.17 hrs
Total integration time: 22.67 hours

 

[DennisN]

M16, the Eagle Nebula (also called the Star Queen Nebula), imaged from my back patio in June 2022.The Eagle Nebula is roughly 7000 light-years away (sources differ), and can be seen (from Earth) in the constellation Serpens.

Lovely colors and lovely details!

 

[Devin-M]

I was poking through some of the raw James Webb Telescope data and found a couple interesting photos, one showing part of Jupiter and another showing what appears to be a reflection of the main mirror:

https://stpubdata-jwst.stsci.edu/co...01001/jw01022001001_03101_00001_nrca1_cal.jpg

Jupiter Rings (bottom left):
https://stpubdata-jwst.stsci.edu/co.../jw01022-o103_t001_nircam_clear-f212n_i2d.jpg

https://stpubdata-jwst.stsci.edu/co.../jw01022-o011_t001_nircam_clear-f356w_i2d.jpg

https://stpubdata-jwst.stsci.edu/co.../jw01022-o002_t001_nircam_clear-f212n_i2d.jpg

https://stpubdata-jwst.stsci.edu/co...01/jw01022001001_03101_00001_nrcalong_cal.jpg

https://stpubdata-jwst.stsci.edu/co.../jw01022-o011_t001_nircam_clear-f140m_i2d.jpg

https://stpubdata-jwst.stsci.edu/co.../jw01022-o001_t001_nircam_clear-f212n_i2d.jpg

 

[berkeman]

https://stpubdata-jwst.stsci.edu/co...01/jw01022001001_03101_00001_nrcalong_cal.jpg

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/my-god-its-full-of-stars

 

[Devin-M]

A lot of those dots are sensor noise... you can see the dots in front of the planet for example.

When I run it through the photoshop dust & scratches filter (radius:4 threshold: 32) I get this:

before:

https://stpubdata-jwst.stsci.edu/co...01/jw01022001001_03101_00001_nrcalong_cal.jpg

 

[Devin-M]

cleaned up from JWST raw data - 2120nm narrowband - (sensor noise removal w/ dust & scratches filter - radius: 4, threshold:32 - in photoshop):

https://stpubdata-jwst.stsci.edu/co.../jw01022-o001_t001_nircam_clear-f212n_i2d.jpg

100% crops (cleaned up):

 

[Devin-M]

I converted a 32bit FITS file from the JWST telescope to 32bit TIF using SiriL (free) on MacOSX, and then histogram stretched the image in Adobe Lightroom...

Center of NGC 698 - Phantom Galaxy

100% Crop - Distant galaxies visible behind the Phantom Galaxy near the core

600% Crop

 

[Devin-M]

James Webb NGC 7469 - Processed from FITS file:

100% crop of the core:

 

[Devin-M]

This image has been widely released in the news:

But using a 32bit FITS file with Adobe Lightroom, I was able to pull a lot more dynamic range out of a single exposure such that the central band & great red spot of Jupiter aren't over-exposed and the ring system isn't under-exposed...

...which leads me to believe there may be a lot more dynamic range in the released images than some people may realize...

 

[Devin-M]

Einstein Cross?
(original image: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/...livers-deepest-infrared-image-of-universe-yet - just below and to the left of the brightest star in the original image)

 

[Devin-M]

It took a huge amount of effort, but I was able to create a color image from James Webb data, 1st by downloading (3) 32bit grayscale FITS files from the MAST archive (the 3 files totaled 2.2 GB):
https://mast.stsci.edu/portal/Mashup/Clients/Mast/Portal.html

Next these were converted to 32 bit TIF files using SiriL on MacOSX

Then I had to histogram stretch each of the files using Adobe Lightroom

After that, the 3 grayscale TIF images were imported into Adobe Photoshop in order to align them, and then the shortest wavelength filter was pasted into the blue channel, the mid wavelength filter to the green channel, and the longest wavelength filter was pasted into the red channel.

Next I imported that file back into Adobe Lightroom to adjust the color temperature of the overall image.

Final Step was to reduce the file size for web publishing and make a 100 percent crop, both of these steps in Adobe Photoshop... voila:

100% Crop:

Before Colorization:

 

[Devin-M]

I colorized this one of NGC 7320 myself from JWST MIRI data ( https://mast.stsci.edu/portal/Mashup/Clients/Mast/Portal.html ) using the F770W filter as blue, the F1000W data as green, and the F1500W data as red... SiriL on MacOSX was used for FITS file to TIF file conversion, and a combination of Adobe Photoshop & Lightroom for compositing the RGB channels and histogram stretching.

Visible Light Hubble Image:

 

[Devin-M]

Here's the histogram stretched grayscale images from the 3 different bands...

F770W:

F1000W:

F1500W:

Composite:

 

[Devin-M]

I made this bi-color one of the core of NGC 628 "Phantom Galaxy" from JWST MIRI Instrument FITs files from the MAST Portal: ( https://mast.stsci.edu/portal/Mashup/Clients/Mast/Portal.html )

Files Used:
1552s (26min!) single exposure through F1130W filter
1609s (26min!) single exposure through F2100W filter

Full Sensor:

100% Crop:

FITS Files:

Visible light image of the same object:

 

[DennisN]

I made this bi-color one of the core of NGC 628 "Phantom Galaxy" from JWST MIRI Instrument FITs files from the MAST Portal

Very nice!

 

[Oldman too]

Some images just beg to be posted, no matter what their source. https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/zeta-ophiuchi-a-star-with-a-complicated-past is one example of such an image.

And a couple of detail screen shots.

 

[bruha]

Hello, here is again some sunspots from saturday.-original and highlighted...

 

[Andy Resnick]

Veil Nebula in Cygnus @ 400/4, full frame, 13 hour integration time, stacked in AstroPixel Processor

The nebula is easier to see when the stars are removed:

Definitely pleased with how this has been coming along, this has been a challenge since I combined images taken since 2014 (!), well before I standardized the photography part of the process. 200% crops give you an idea of the image quality (no noise reduction has been applied... yet):

Sheesh... 8 years to create this image?!

 

[Andy Resnick]

Also in the constellation Cygnus- the North American Nebula and Pelican Nebula- another image I have been working on for several years, so far I have acquired 15.5 hours:

This one is (approximately) a 2 x 3 mosaic of full frame images using my 400mm lens. What makes this (and another mosaic in Cygnus, covering the Crescent nebula (NGC 6888), Butterfly nebula (IC 1318), and Tulip nebula (Sh2-101)) tricky to assemble is controlling and correcting lens vignetting/falloff, which is significant at the f/# I image at.

 

[Andy Resnick]

No new pics, just some (new) news: it finally happened.

I filled up my external hard drive w/ just astrophotographs: 8 TB (!). And just before we leave for vacation... What do y'all use for 'archival' storage?

The story of my 2nd exterrnal hard drive (14 TB, for the same price...) is interesting to think about- I placed the order (Amazon) and the drive appeared at my doorstep 5.5 hours later- less time than it would take me to get it myself. Something sort-of wondrous and vaguely disturbing at the same time...

 

[DennisN]

What do y'all use for 'archival' storage?

I also use extra hard drives. It's the most cost-effective way for large amounts of data (at least that I know of; I did a calculation comparing DVDs, Bluray disks and hard drives some years ago).

My disks are pretty small. I've got two 3 TB disks and two external 6 TB disks. I keep at least two copies of data on different disks (data: e.g. photos and other things I consider important).

 

[bruha]

Hello, I attach Saturn (lower right) and Jupiter from last Saturday (at full Moon night) , orig. and Gimp adjusted.
Lot of succes

 

[collinsmark]

Saturn, 2022-08-16 06:38.5 UT. Imaged from my back patio in San Diego. It was couple of days after Saturn's opposition.

I think it came out pretty well. But honestly, I was holding out for a little better. The weather and weather forecasts played me like a fiddle.

My telescope's declination motor encoder had been broken, keeping from imaging Saturn on its opposition day proper. But I replaced the encoder, right around the night of opposition! (Details in an upcoming thread of its own.) After that it was just a matter of waiting for a night of good seeing around midnight*, as Saturn crossed the meridian.

*(That's 1 o'clock midnight now; not 12 o'clock. Midnight used to occur at 12 AM. But in the US, since the adoption of Daylight Saving Time [and now all year long], midnight and noon now occur at 1 AM and 1 PM respectively, on average within your local time zone. As an amateur astronomer, I'm a little peeved that 12 AM no longer represents roughly the middle of the night anymore, and 12 PM no longer represents the middle of day. By getting rid of the switching between daylight saving and standard time we had a chance to fix this. But we chose the wrong one!)

Anyway, back to Saturn. Saturn was less than a day after opposition, and I had just fixed my telescope. The forecast was amazing. "Excellent" seeing, zero cloud cover, and perfect transparency, every night at midnight for days! This was confirmed by three separate sources that displayed atmospheric "seeing" in their forecasts.
But every night it was the same story: The night started out totally clear with average to above average seeing. But then at about 11 PM (about 2 hours before midnight), the clouds rolled in and the sky turned to complete overcast. Then, almost after-the-fact, the forecasts would update showing clouds for the night, but only for that night.

This repeated every night for days on end. I felt like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football as Lucy Van Pelt pulls it out from under me at the last moment. And I fell for the trick every time.

So this image is what I ended up with. It was captured over an hour before Saturn crossed the meridian for that night. Seeing was OK, maybe above average, but not "excellent." In short, it's not perfect, but it's the best I could get.

Equipment:
Meade 10" LX200-ACF fork-mounted atop an equatorial wedge
Explore Scientific 3x Focal Extender
ZWO Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector (ADC)
Astronomik RGB filter set
ZWO ASI290MM camera

Software:
FireCapture (for acquisition)
AutoStakkert! (for lucky-imaging processing)
RegiStax (for initial wavelet sharpening)
PixInsight (for RGB alignment, constrast & saturation adjustments)
(I considered using WinJUPOS for de-rotation, but decided against it in the end.)

Integration:
Exposure time for individual frames was set to between 10-12 milliseconds. Nine, 3-minute, uncompressed videos were taken, three videos for each color filter, alternating between RGB filters. That's 27 minutes total.
In the lucky imaging stacking, 70% of frames were kept.
In other words, the final image is a composite of around 100,000 individual images, each stretched and warped a little in an attempt to undue the deleterious effects of atmospheric seeing.

 

[DennisN]

Saturn, 2022-08-16 06:38.5 UT. Imaged from my back patio in San Diego. It was couple of days after Saturn's opposition.

Beautiful!

This repeated every night for days on end. I felt like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football as Lucy Van Pelt pulls it out from under me at the last moment. And I fell for the trick every time.

We are at the cruel mercy of the heavens.

the final image is a composite of around 100,000 individual images

That's pretty wild!

 

[Maarten Havinga]

We are at the cruel mercy of the heavens.

To the contrary, would it have been as satisfying if the 1st night it all succeeded and that's it? Or would you call that cheap? Now you've achieved something which you know to be difficult. And worth the effort! :-)

This training in persisting on getting to know the truth, getting a right image and all, is essential in how people like the JWST team made their grand telescope.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Just got back from vacation at a Bottle 2-ish 3-ish site (home is Bortle 7 or 8) and we got lucky- 2 moonless and clear nights. Each night I had about an hour or so of good seeing (no haze, etc) and took about 1600 photos with my 105mm lens- I didn't have a tracking mount, so... yeah. I'm crunching those for a while, but I also took some images with my 15/2.8 and already put this together:

(75 5-s subs)

At 100%, it's not great- coma becomes distracting in the corners- but here's a 100% crop of the North America Nebula (NGC 7000): Deneb is the bright star.

Naked-eye viewing of the milky was was amazing, viewing through 8x42 binoculars was spectacular, really special occasion.

 

[DennisN]

Andromeda - unguided and "blind" as a bat

I've been waiting for a while to have a go at a deep sky object with my system camera, and a couple of nights ago I succeeded for the first time!

(previously I had just tried shooting the Pleiades with my smartphone in front of a cheap telescope two years ago).

I was tired of sitting still in the current heatwave, so I checked with Stellarium and saw that Andromeda was going to be way high up in the sky, and that I might be able to have a go at the Pleiades.

So I rode my bicycle in the warm night down to the beach and set up the gear.
The site was only Bortle 7 so I was very uncertain how it would go, but since Andromeda was very high up I wanted to give it a try.

I couldn't see the galaxy with my eyes, but I knew roughly where it should be, and I also used a smartphone app (SkEye) as an extra live guiding aid. I started taking test shots of the area, moving the camera slightly around between each shot.

And suddenly... I saw a small glowing orb with a dim spooky cloud around it on one of the photos.
"That has to be Andromeda!" I thought. It was a fantastic feeling.

So I attached the intervalometer to the camera and started shooting, re-centering on the orb after each 50th-100th photo (ca).

And here's the result after stacking and post-processing:

Camera and lens: Sony A6000, Chinon 135mm f/2.8 set at f/4
Settings: ISO 3200, 2s exposure, 404 light frames (2s x 404 = 13.5 min integration)
Software used: Sequator, Photoshop, Lightroom (fringe removal)

I also made a picture with labels to share with my friends:

I had another go at Andromeda with a different lens, a Tokina 200mm, and here's the result:

Note: Maybe I was a little too aggressive with the noise reduction here, the image seems to be a bit soft
Camera and lens: Sony A6000, Tokina 200mm f/3.5 set at f/5.6
Settings: ISO 3200, 1.6s exposure, 664 light frames (1.6s x 664 = 17.7 min integration)
Software used: Sequator, Photoshop, Lightroom (fringe removal)

And I also shot the Pleiades (which I could barely see with my own eyes), and this time I tried using my Sony zoom lens (Why? Because I felt like it ).
Anyway, here's the result:

Camera and lens: Sony A6000, Sony 55-210mm set at 210mm, f/7.1
Settings: ISO 2000, 1s exposure, 413 light frames (1s x 413 = 6.9 min integration)
Software used: Sequator, Photoshop, Lightroom (fringe removal)

While I was shooting Andromeda the second time I noticed the Moon was rising nicely to the left of me, so I paused the shoot and aimed at the Moon instead for a while:

Lens: Tokina 200mm f/3.5 set at f/5.6, two photos with different exposure times

I was very pleased with the night, and it was very exciting to process the photos and see the results!
Actually, I was extremely happy. It was a dream come true.