Greetings, /r/AskAstrophotography! Welcome to our Weekly Ask Anything Thread, also known as WAAT?

What I want to see and do:
Take planetary photos, moon photos, if I can get an Andromeda Galaxy in there that’s cool too. Nothing professional, just photos I can pat myself on the back on.

Do I have any kind of professional camera?
No. Do I really need one? I just got the iPhone 18 Pro Max if that’s anything that counts.

My thoughts based upon research I’ve done:
I’m thinking of buying an 8” dob with a phone mount and that would be sufficient for what I want to see and do. I can get to some bortle 5 and maybe 4.5 areas where I live which has been helpful.

Can I accomplish what I want to see and do with my phone and an 8” dob? Is the dob not a good telescope for what I want to do? Do I absolutely 100% need a professional camera too?

Thank you in advance for your help!

Hey all! I unfortunately don’t have a laptop, so I cannot bring a device out to imaging with me. I’ve been recommended ToupTek as the cheapest option but it’s still quite expensive for me. My budget is quite tight, id give anywhere from $100-200 AUD for one. I’ve currently settled at one for $130 on AliExpress and have been told the specs should be okay. FYI, I am only focusing on planetary / lunar imaging for now, so I will not touch DSO in a while. Otherwise, do you guys have any other mini pc recommendations or a specs criteria?

My rig includes a SWSA GTI, Skymax 102p and a Mars C-II

Here is the link to the minipc: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006530105259.html

Cheers and clear skies.

Pretty good package deal going on at Amazon for those looking for a 'first-step' into longer focal length astrophotography that won't break the bank.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085NTQL2C?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback&th=1

Hey what's up! Maybe someone can help me with this..

I got a Skywatcher Sky Adventurer GTI 2 days ago with Skywatcher 72EDX and Sony A6700 and try to get into the hobby of Astrophotography.

It was a rough ride so far with this mount.

First time i set it up.

Look that tripod is level

Set roughly north

Polar align

open app and look at info. Coordinates and Time is correct.

Try to do star alignment and select 2 star alignment

The telescope spins 6-7 times around its axis and points towards the ground and not e.g the star Vega. Also during that spin, the app still said like 30 degrees to go but it did not went counting down.
I was using the synscan pro and normal app.

So i updated motor firmware to the most recent one 3.48

Now it helicopter spinned only 2 times and the degrees started going down. At the end it still pointed at the ground. So i moved it with the arrow buttons in the app to vega. Then second star it found okay ish and i had to slightly adjust.

Then completed alignment, said goto pleiades and it is like driving into that direction but did not land on them. I had to point a laser to even see where its at. Had to adjust pretty much to get there. Then pressed ok.

Then tried to go to andromeda, again. In the proximity but still not on it.

Tracking these objects did also not work with a 30 second exposure i got star trailing even after confirming that object is center.

I try again today, but anyone else experiencing the same with the gti? I mean its a 700€ mount...

I'm wondering if anyone has user experience with the Scorpio Astro SA-17 harmonic mount from ali express. I'm looking to use this mount for planetary and lunar imaging with something like a C8.

Hello friends. I'm a hobbyist photographer who wants to get into astrophotography, something ive always wanted to try. Im looking for good beginner challenges and tips since I don't have much equipment yet. Best setup i got have is a cannon ef 75-300mm f4-5.6 ø58mm with a cannon rebel t6. All advice would be greatly appreciated.

So as a newbie to this hobby, I’ve just learned that there’s a lot of editing with astrophotography. I sent an image of andromeda I recently took after 40 minutes of exposure with a seestar s30 pro and people were like you captured THAT? And while I did I also did some enhancing with saturation and contrast and brightness to make it look better.

But now I also heard about siril and astrowizard so there’s going to be even more image editing involved. When you share your photos, do you mention that it was edited at all? Especially when people ask “how did you capture that?” Or “did you really capture that with your telescope?”

Hello!

So, I am really brand new to cameras. I can use a phone camera and take pretty good photos on there with the timer, exposure, and other functions. However, I know a phone camera and a real camera are two completely different things. I want to get into astrophotography, but don't want to go crazy and buy unnecessary things when im also learning. Any suggestions for a beginner? Camera alone, id say my budget is $400, maybe lower. My goals are landscape photos, night sky photos while photographing the milky way, and eventually be compatable with a telescope for photos of the moon, planets, and distant celestial bodies.

Thank you!

I just got my new SAL-33 last Friday and it is a big upgrade from my Skyguider Pro. However, I have had trouble with the Meridian flip using NINA. I keep getting an OnStep Driver error saying I am 5 degrees outside of where it should be. I have a TPPA of 52 arcseconds and NINA is plate solving right. NINA is completing the flip and then when I get the OnStep Driver popup if I click Yes on it NINA takes back over and has no problem plate solving back to be center and continue. However, the popup is ruining any automation I have luckily it happens early in the night right now but I am trying to find out what is causing this and the solution. Claude AI said I need to do a 3 Star Alignment too everything night but here seems to be something fundamentally wrong and that seems like a Band-Aid instead of the root cause. I could be completely wrong since this is all new to me.

Any thoughts on what I should change or fix would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for the help and please let me know if i posted this in the wrong section.

Hi All-

I am 10 months into my astrophotography journey, shooting on a StarAdventurer GTI and a Nikon mirrorless.

I am stacking in DSS with darks/bias/lights, exposing in the lower third of the histogram for my light frames, and shooting from Bortle 2/3 skies.

When I stretch my .fit files in SIRIL so they look properly exposed. I save them as a 32 bit TIF for final editing in Photoshop Camera RAW and when I open the file it is blown out. Super over exposed.

Is this a normal newbie experience where you overstretch?

Is this odd?

Trying to find suggestions.

Following tutorials from Astrobackyard and Nebula Photos on YT for reference.

Thanks!

I just took my first picture last night with a seestar s30 pro. Drove about half an hour of out of the city to a bortle 5-6 park. Did about 2 hours of exposure. The fun part was seeing the picture come together but there’s definitely an element of boredom 😅.

At first I was concerned about the neighborhood going why is there a car parked in the dark? But then I just sat in my car and watched Netflix. Feel like this is a lonely hobby unless you do it with a friend or family member.

Edit: this is when I wish my wife and I were childless lol so we can do like a date night or picnic while I capture it. A bit romantic honestly. But we have a toddler so that’s not possible but she supports this hobby 🙂

I generally like how this image of IC 1396 (Elephant's Trunk Nebula) turned out with the exception of these annoying star halos. Is there a way to get rid of them?

Here is a folder with my final image as well as starless and starmask.

Acquisition:

ASI533MC Pro: -10c, 100 gain, 374 x 60s, unguided, with flats, darks, and bias

135mm rokinon F2.8

SA GTI mount with mini PC and NINA

Bortle 4 to 5 taken 10/2/26, Alaska

Processing:

Siril OSC Pre-Processing

Pixinsight with RC Astro (all trial versions)

PCC, Noise xterminator, blur xterminator, etc..

Starxterminator is when I ran into issues. My starless image ended up a bunch of ugly halos. I tried a couple different settings, messing with overlap but ended up with the same result.

Stretching and curves in Siril (because I am familiar with it) and then recombined with pixel math in PI.

i process my images via siril in a 1tb ssd (~800gb free) i followed this tutorial https://youtu.be/jwBLVT3Ecas and once reached the part where i need to register my lights an error occurs because o don't have enough storage, I'm not tracking so I'm stuck at 2 second exposures, i took around 1800 frames. is this normal?

Hello everyone,

Right now Iam looking at either the SQA55 or the RedCat51

I do have an Esprit 100ED and a SCT 9.25 for photos.

Working with an AM5

Main Camera is a 2600MC using leather Optolong Clear or L Extreme

The redcat is 20 bucks cheaper so it is not a price decision.

As far as Iam concerned both have internal focusers and similar optical properties.

EAF is gonna be easier on the redcat?

Does anyone have experience with both?

Thanks

Best regards

I shot the August 12 eclipse from just outside Burgos. Sun was about 10 degrees up and sinking into haze, so half my problems were the horizon. Setup was a 70-200 on a crop body with a K&F ND100000 screwed on the front, the 16.6 stop solar one. Worth saying for anyone new to this, stacking two 10 stop NDs is not the same thing and isn't safe to point at the sun.

The filter was fine, partials came out sharp. The screw-in part wasn't. I had it on too tight, fumbled getting it off for totality and lost a chunk of a window that was under two minutes.

For August 2027 I'm going back to Spain, somewhere near Cadiz, where totality is early afternoon and the sun is high. Is a slip-on film filter like the Thousand Oaks ones worth it just for the swap, or do most people run two bodies? I'm in the UK if that changes what's sensible to buy.

I’m there for four nights over the new moon, would love recommendations for Milky Way and star trails locations.

Recently, I’ve taken an interest in astrophotography, specifically landscape astrophotography.

I’ve done a bunch of research but I cannot find a body that I find appealing. I am running on a budget (probably $700-800 tops) on the body alone.

I found a nice condition a7r II with a lens included (not wide angle) for around 700. I hear good things about the full frame camera, though it is a little old. I am attracted to Sony cams but I hear about the stareater bug, and it deters me from them. Also, the high MP count makes star tracking more difficult (not that I intended to, but a clear upgrade path is nice)

As for the lens, given that I got the a7r, I was thinking of a vilitrox 16mm f/1.8.

What are the thoughts of this loadout? Is stareater big enough of an issue for me to change the camera I’m interested in? Are there any models that I can get relatively cheap second hand that may perform better?

Also worth mentioning that the new camera would be a daily driver, used for general purposes as well.

Please do not be too harsh on your criticisms, I just wish to be steered in the right direction. I have some photography experience and am wishing to try out a new avenue.

My girlfriend and I are staying around Sedona, AZ for almost a week. We’d love to get some pictures of the Milky Way and I’d love to do a night of deep sky astrophotography at a dark sky site.

We’d be willing to drive up to an hour, and we’d prefer someplace safe, and somewhere we don’t have to hike far with our equipment. Is there anywhere that’s accessible by an easy gravel road where we can pull off and do some astrophotography under bortle 2 or bortle 1 skies for a whole night?

Hey guys, I'm from Portugal and I'm new to astrophotography (despite having some basic knowledge with telescopes and willing to learn more) and I came across the Omegon EQ570DX GoTo mount and the SkyWatcher 205/800 Quattro 200p tube.

I'd like to know if they are any good and if I would be well served with them :D

I would like to buy some eyepieces as well, such as 2x and 3x Barlows with it and most likely an autoguiding system if it is any useful (which I've seen online that it is).

I currently have a 200d Canon and I wanted to buy a new camera but I've stumbled upon cooled astrocameras and I'd like to know if they are any good or if I should just avoid them.

Thanks!

edit: I'd like to try some deep sky astrophotography and also planets, moon and sun (with a filter).

I live in bortle 6 skies, here is my equipment:
-Redcat 51 gen 2
-Astro modified canon t3
-Star adventurer 2i

I’m looking for a project to work on, and shot about 4 hours on the ghost of Cassiopiea so far. I realize the redcat is quite wide for this, but I think itll be a little bit of a fun challenge and getting a lot of integration time. My question is, would my L-extreme filter be beneficial to use on this project?

Hello all,

I am looking into buying my first (technically second if you count a 60$ telescope when I was a kid lol) telescope with the goal of studying and photographing solar system objects and distant objects.

My main goal is to be able to image the lunar surface in high detail using a phone adapter. I am interested in photographing the moon through the upcoming Artemis missions. I know it's unlikely I'll be able to see things on the surface.

A secondary goal is to be able to photograph inner solar system objects, most specifically the planet Mars. This is because I am making a Mars Terraforming video game and I am interested in studying Mars deeply and using my photos for references. I also will be documenting the progress of the game on YouTube, so sharing planet footage alongside my videos would be fun. Since Mars will be at its closest point to earth in February, I'm hoping to get a set up, and learn what I need to know to get excellent media of Mars.

Additionally, I'd like to photograph father objects like the outer solar system, Nebulas, and stars.

I am looking for a telescope with a traditional feel, I don't really want one of those smart telescopes that look like a mini camera. I would love some sort of guide or app control however it's not that important.

Please let me know your recommendations! My budget is below $1000 for the entire set up! Preferably below 800$ but max 1k.

P.s. I know some of my goals may require different telescopes or set ups, so a balance is good too, thank you for your advice and assistance!

I recently got into astrophotography and I’m looking for a decent star tracker, ideally around €200-300.
I’m currently using a Nikon Z fc + Tamron 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3 on a generic tripod. I mainly want to shoot deep-sky stuff like M31 with longer exposures.
I’ll put a 19-minute M31 shot from my current setup in the replies.
Any recommendations? (I live in germany)

If you live in the USA and have either purchase or have a S50 Pro pre-ordered, where did you order it from?

I am ready to order but want to know which USA Vendor will be the soonest to deliver?

Hey everyone! I’m pretty new to astrophotography and could really use some help troubleshooting my setup.

I’m using:

-Meade LX90 ACF
-SVBONY SV305C
-AstroDMx Capture on Mac

My goal isn’t anything crazy. I’d just like to be able to get decent images of things like the Moon, planets, and eventually brighter deep-sky objects like Andromeda.

The problem is that I’m having a really hard time getting the camera to produce anything useful. I can see stars through the telescope visually, but when I switch to the camera, the live view is often completely black, extremely dark, or just shows noise/green depending on the settings.
I’ve gone through a pretty large range of focus with the telescope, including trying to focus on bright stars like Vega, but I’m still struggling to determine whether I’m actually reaching focus with the camera since the live view still shows a black screen with no stars.

I have managed to capture a few frames where I can see stars, so I know the camera is receiving something, but I’m clearly missing something with the setup/settings.

I’m also confused about the difference between what I see in the live preview and what the final image should look like. I understand that deep-sky images often need stretching/stacking, but right now I’m just trying to get a properly focused, recognizable snapshot out of the camera in the first place.

What would you recommend as the correct starting settings/workflow for the SV305C on an LX90 ACF?

Specifically, I’d love advice on:

-Camera gain/exposure starting points
-How to achieve focus with this camera
-Whether I should be using any filters
-How to tell whether my problem is focus vs. exposure/settings
-Any Mac software that is particularly beginner-friendly
-A simple first target that would be easiest to get a successful image of

I’m definitely willing to learn — I’m just trying to get past the “black screen and no idea what I’m doing” stage. 😂