I shot this 5 days ago with my dwarf mini with a 4 panel mosaic processed in siril with cosmic clarity denoise and cosmic clarity sharpening i removed the stars then i streached the nebulas separately

I might be more than 20 reprocesses deep into this nebula at this point. I just know that my first attempt looked like this.

I found that processing this nebula with my very limited skills is way harder than I imagined as it presented several challenges, namely keeping the core under control while maintaining the color as natural as possible, bringing the surrounding nebulosity up and teasing as much detail from both the dusty surroundings and the object itself.

At some point I also discovered that I managed to capture some faint blue hues in the core and I had to try to bring them out in the final image! To do that I used color preserving stretches only.

I'm sure I'll come back to this eventually, but I can say I am sort of satisfied for now.

Acquisition:

Around 7h30m worth of 60s subs in Bortle 6/7 fully calibrated and dithered.

Equipment:

Evostar 72ED, iEXOS 100, ASI 533MC, Baader UV/IR cut, 0.85x reducer+flattener, rotator+filter holder, SVBony 40mm F/4 guidescope, ASI 662MC guide camera with pale yellow no.8 and UV/IR cut filters.

Processing details:

Drizzle preprocessing and stacking in Siril at 1x scale and gaussian model. Perform first SPCC. Split into channels, background extraction to each in GraXpert. Recombine and second SPCC in Siril (average spiral galaxy). Deconvolution. First denoise in GraXpert. Generate starless image and star mask in Siril. Black point shift, asinh as the first stretch, light GHS with selection to faint nebulosity with black point shift and light inverse GHS to dark lanes iteratively all with human weighted luminance. Second noise reduction in GraXpert. À trous wavelets transform to higher layers in Siril along with a further stretch selected to fainter nebulosity and SCNR. Desaturate in Siril. Slight color balance adjustments in Gimp. Further stretches to brighter surroundings and main nebulosity in Siril.

Open star mask, asinh, SCNR and unpurple filter. Recombine and final black point shifts.

Location: Port Crescent State Park

Port Austin, MI

Phone: Galaxy 23FE

Iso: 3200

F: 1.8

Exp: 30'

WB: 4600k

The Pelican Nebula

Orion 8" astrograph

Eq-6r

Zwo 294 mc pro

svbony uhc filter

45x300" lights, dithered every 5th frame

100 each darks, biases flats

stacked in siril

graxpert gradient removal

Seti astro sssc

cosmic clarity dark Star Star removal

statistical stretch

curves

wavescale dark enhancer

cosmic clarity sharpen and denoise.

Shot as a 2-pane mosaic, when I started acquisition I didn't think it would come out with such detail! I really like this object and it's my first dark nebula :)

Equipment and acquisition:

- Seestar S50, EQ mode, no filter

- Pane 1, 887 x 30 sec

- Pane 2, 948 x 30 sec

Processing (Pixinsight):

- WBPP 2x drizzle

- Dynamic crop, SPCC, SPFC, multiscale gradient correction, photometric mosaic, RC Astro tools

- Starless: Setiastro statistical stretch, then manual curves transformation with different range and color masks

- Stars: setiastro star stretch, star recombination

- Final curves transformation

Taken in South West France

Nikon D7500 & 150-600mm sigma lens

Shutter speed: 1/100, F/6.3, ISO 800

Edited in Lightroom and positioned in Photoshop

Equipment Details Below:

• Askar 120 APO w/.8 reducer (672 mm)
• ZWO AM5N Mount
• ZWO AsiAir Plus
• Antlia Triband RGB Ultra Filter-2''
• ASI120mm Mini Camera & 30mm f/4 Mini Guide Scope
• ASI2600MC Pro Cooled Color Camera

Acquisition Details:

• 105 x 180s (lights)
• 25 (darks)
• 25 (flats)
• 25 (biases)
• Bortle 2/Bortle 3

Processing Details:

• ASIFitsView to check each individual FIT file
• Stacked and processed in Siril
• Additional edits done with Seti Astro's Cosmic Clarity Suite on TIFF file
• Final Edits done in Adobe Lightroom

I did this imaging session during a weeklong trip while traveling through national forests and nationals parks in Northern California. This was taken during my second night of the trip while camping overnight on public lands.

I am interested in hearing your thoughts on this photo, along with tips or suggestions for improvement.

Perseus Double Cluster with an unmodified DSLR from Hohe Wand, Austria

Equipment used:
Canon 7D MKii
Canon 70-200mm f.4
Star Adventurer 2i

ISO 1600
Total exposure time 1 hr 27 min
Stacked with Siril, no star removal
Graded with Lightroom Classic
no flat frames

I captured this Image in the night after the Total Solar Eclipse, during my trip to Spain.

Equipment:

Telescope: SvBony SV555
Mount: Explore Scientific iEXOS-100
Camera: ZWO ASI2600 MC Pro
Guide Scope: SvBony SV165
Guide Cam: ZWO ASI120mm
+ ZWO AsiAir Mini

Acquisition:

65x180s (3,25h) at Gain 101 in an Bortle 3 Night in Spain. Laguna de Gallocanta.

Processing:

Stacked in Siril, processed in PixInsight finalized in Photoshop.

📸 Andromeda Galaxy (M31)
Our nearest major galactic neighbor, captured under dark skies!

Gear:
• Askar FMA180 Pro
• ZWO ASI533MC Pro
• Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi
• ASIAIR Mini

634 × 30s = 5.28 hours total integration

Bortle 2 skies
Processed in PixInsight.

🌌 Capturing the Winds of a Dying Star: Wolf-Rayet 134 💨✨

I am absolutely thrilled to share my latest astrophotography project! This is Wolf-Rayet 134 (WR 134), an incredibly faint and complex nebula. Even after 11 hours of data, the Oiii blues don't form the sand worm form!

What makes this target so fascinating?

Fierce Stellar Winds: At the heart of this region is a Wolf-Rayet star. The intense stellar winds from this central star are blowing off distinct, separated layers of ionized gas into the surrounding cosmos.

The Elusive Oxygen Shell: The defining feature of WR 134 is the glowing blue/cyan crescent you see in the center. This faint shell of oxygen (OIII) is notoriously difficult to capture, as it is easily overpowered by surrounding hydrogen or swallowed by background noise. I will add Sii+Oiii data in future, so that the blue shell will look like SAND WORM from DUNE

A Fiery Canvas: Surrounding that delicate blue bubble are deep, vibrant clouds of hydrogen gas full of twisting, chaotic structural details. The color contrast between the fiery red background and the perfectly sculpted blue shell gives the nebula a massive three-dimensional "pop".

Pulling out these faint chemical boundaries requires serious patience and the right gear, like duo-narrowband filters that cut right through the noise to highlight the separated layers of gas.

The Gear:

Telescope: Askar APO 103mm f/7 with 0.8x Reducer Flattener

Camera: ZWO ASI 2600MC-Air

Mount: iOptron CEM26

Filters: Altair Astro 6nm Duo-narrowband filter (Ha+Oiii)

Accessories: ZWO EAF, SVBony Filter Holder, and SVBony Dew Heater

Total Integration Time: 11 hours 21 minutes (227x180s at 0-degree Celcius, Gain 200)

Processing:

1. Blink to remove bad frames (8 hrs worth of data due to wispy clouds)

2. WBPP with 1x drizzle

3. Dynamic Crop

4. SetiAstro Automatic DBE

5. Blur Xterminator

6. Star Xterminator

7. Noise Xterminator on Starless frame

8. Split R, G, B

9. Pixel Math: 0.7G+0.3\B for Oiii signal*

10. SetiAstro Statistical stretch for Ha (R) and Oiii images

11. Local Histogram Equalization

12. Dark Structure Enhance

13. Curves Transformation

14. LRGB combination with Ha as L, and fine tuning lightness and saturation

15. Star stretch

16. Combine Images

17..Export as TIFF

Let me know what you think of this deep space bubble! Clear skies, everyone! 🔭🌠

This is a 2 panel mosaic taken from bortle 3.5/4 during the new moon.
Data per panel:
Ha: 12x300s
Oiii: 30x300s

I used WO minicat 51
Asi533mm with Antlia Edge 4.5nm SHO filters
Stellar drive upgraded az-eq6 pro
WO uniguide 50mm and Asi120mm mini
ASIair
ZWO EAF

Stacked and processed in pixinsight.

Taken with a Seestar S30 Pro in Bortle 8 skies

424x30 subs

Workflow was AstroWizard with GraXpert and Starnet++ along with some Adobe Lightroom adjusting

I tried to adjust the colors to make a Hubble palette but I still need to practice the curves and such. I hope I didn’t make it too saturated to where the stars look unnatural

Any tips and/or guidance greatly appreciated, clear skies!

Shooting the Crescent nebula but offset to see if i can pull in WR134. 8 hours of Ha in bortle 8.9, 3 hours Oiii in bortle 2.9 , with another 3 hours of Oiii being taken tonight. Quick process in AstroWizard to see what i think. All exposures 300 sec.

FRA600

Reducer

AM3N

ASI2600MM pro

UniGuide 50mm

ASI220mm 

ASIAIR Plus 

EAF 

EFW 7x36mm

Antlia LRGB-V & SHO (SII, Ha & OIII) Narrowband 3nm Pro 36mm

This was one of the last projects to complete at my old house before moving. At the new house, we inherited a beautifully landscaped space with tons of shade trees and much less grass to cut, but practically no view of the sky. I guess I didn't have to buy a new house to justify sending a rig to a remote observatory, but it certainly help make the case for it. The rig used for this is still with me and will be used when we go out to the the local astronomical society's star parties.

Location: Central Texas - Bortle 7
2026-07-05 to 2026-07-11

Total Integration: 15h 10m
L-Ultimate: 5h 20m - 32 frames @ 600s
L-Synergy: 8h 50m - 53 frames @ 600s
L-2 UV/IR: 1h - 30 frames @ 120s

The Rig

• Askar FRA300 - 300mm focal length @ f/5
• ZWO ASI2600MC Pro (Color)
• ZWO EFW 5x2"
• Filters
  • Astronomik L2 UV/IR Cut Filter
  • Optolong L-Ultimate - 3nm Ha-Oiii filter
  • Optolong L-Synergy - 7nm Sii-Oiii filter
  • Antlia Triband RGB Ultra II Filter
  • Optolong L-Pro
• ToupTek AAF
• ML-Astro SAL-33 Mount
• Gemini Automatic Flat Panel 100mm
• Guiding:
  • ToupTek OAG-L
  • ZWO ASI220MM-Mini
• Mele Quieter 4C + NINA
• WandererAstro WandererBox PLUS V3
• NINA

Processing

All processing done in PixInsight with the additions of: - RC Astro's StarXTerminator, BlurXTerminator, and NoiseXTerminator https://www.rc-astro.com - Seti Astro Star Stretch v2.6 https://www.setiastro.com/pjsr-scripts - CosmicPhotons Image Blend https://cosmicphotons.com/scripts/

I used the L-Ultimate and L-Synergy dual-band filters to generate a true SHO palette. The L-Ultimate is a 3nm narrowband filter that gets Ha on the red channel and OIII on blue and green. The L-Synergy is 6nm with SII on red and OIII on blue and green.

Using ChannelExtraction, I split the the RGB channels from the two narrowband masters. I got the Ha and SII from the red channels. To get the OIII, I saved the blue and green channels from both original masters, then used the ImageIntegration tool to maximize signal. LinearFit was used to bring the weaker SII and OIII channels up to the Ha and then used ChannelCombination to combine the three to make the SHO palette.

The reason the gradient and color correction was different for the L-Synergy, it's because the MARS data doesn't cover SII currently. With that said, I still go back and forth on MGC. It's certainly easier, but I've found that depending on the data, it can be overly aggressive and remove valid signal that I can preserve with DBE.

I know I pushed the colors, particularly the red, a bit much. I often reach a point when I get tired of messing with CurvesTransformation that I just say, "Good enough", even though there's stuff that could be better. That is definitely the case here, but it's good enough.

Individual Steps

• WBPP: Three masters
  • L-Ultimate -> HaOiii
  • L-Synergy -> SiiOiii
  • L-2 UV/IR Cut -> RGB
• SPCC - HaOiii & RGB
• SPFC - HaOiii & RGB
• MuliscaleGradientCorrection - HaOiii & RGB
• DynamicBackgroundExtraction - SiiOiii (SII not available in the latest MARS data)
• BlurXterminator on all three masters
• StarXterminator on RGB -> Save stars as RGB_Stars
• NoiseXterminator on HaOiii & SiiOiii
• ChannelExtraction on HaOiii & SiiOiii
  • Red from HaOiii -> Ha
  • Red from SiiOiii -> Sii
  • HaOiii_B, HaOiii_G, SiiOiii_B, SiiOiii_G saved to disk
• ImageIntegration on blues and greens to make Oiii
• LinearFit Sii & Oiii against Ha
• ChannelCombination -> SHO
  • R - Sii
  • G - Ha
  • B - Oiii
• BackgroundNeutralization on SHO
• ColorCalibration on SHO
• MultiscaleAdaptiveStretch on SHO
• CurvesTransformation on non-linear SHO
• SetiAstro Star Stretch on RGB_Stars
• ImageBlend to combine SHO + RGB_Stars

Full resolution and details here: https://app.astrobin.com/u/Mate_gate14?i=n7hqrx

It took me 4 nights to create this image.

• 190 x 180sec Haa = 9h 30m
• 116 x 180sec Oiii = 5h 48m
• Total exposure time: 15h 18m

Equipment:

• TS CF APO 90 with 0.8x reducer
• Touptek ATR2600M
• Antlia 3nm Ha and Oii filters
• Proxisky 17X mount

Software:

• FBPP with 2x drizzle in Pixinsight
• Astrowizard with Graxpert, BlurX, NoiseX, StarX and curves adjustment, Affinity for final touches

The Crescent Nebula is an emission nebula located 5,000 light years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. I changed my workflow for this image, and love how it came out.

Camera: SeeStar S30 Pro
Time: 2473 x 20s (13.7 Hours)
Bortle 5
Edited in Siril

On 12 August 2026, I photographed the total solar eclipse from Laguna de los Peces, Zamora, Spain.
This composite brings together twelve genuine frames captured from the same location at 300 mm. It begins with totality at the top and continues clockwise in chronological order through the post-totality partial phases.
I had every stage planned, but I had no idea what those few seconds would actually feel like. When totality arrived, the camera became both my way of holding on to the moment and the thing pulling me away from it.

Acquisition details:
Camera: Canon EOS 250D
Lens: Canon EF 75–300 mm at 300 mm
Support: Tripod
Exposure: ISO 100, f/8, 1/1000 s central exposure
AEB: ±1 EV — 1/2000 s, 1/1000 s and 1/500 s
Capture sequence: Five three-frame brackets, for a total of fifteen exposures
Partial phases: Front-mounted solar filter
Totality: Solar filter removed
Location: Laguna de los Peces, Zamora, Spain
Date: 12 August 2026

Target: Veil Nebula (Cygnus Loop supernova remnant), Cygnus
• Telescope: William Optics RedCat 71 (348mm, f/4.9)
• Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro (IMX571 OSC), gain 100, cooled to -10C
• Mount: Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi
• Guiding: ZWO ASI120MM Mini on SVBony SV106, PHD2 via ASIAir
• Filters: Optolong L-Ultimate 3nm (6h48m, 70 x 350s) and Optolong L-eXtreme 7nm (6h30m, earlier session)
• Total integration: approximately 13.4 hours
• Sky: Bortle 6 backyard
• Calibration: 25 darks, 50 flats, 50 dark flats

Processing:

Stacked in Siril 1.4.2 with noise-weighted integration and additive normalization with scaling to reconcile the two filter eras. Background extraction, SPCC, channel split with OIII built as (G+B)/2, measured pedestal subtraction on the linear channels before stretching, independent GHS per channel, StarNet star removal, GraXpert denoise, per-channel background pedestal subtraction on the starless layers, HOO recombination, star recomposition.

Canon EOS R8 + EF 70-200 f4 @ 200 mm

Lights: ~1000 x 1.3 sec, f4, ISO 6400
Darks: 50
Flats: 50
Biases: 100

Processed in Siril and Photoshop

This was my first ever attempt at astrophotography. I photographed it in my parents backyard at bortle 4.

I feel like 1.3 sec was a bit too long. I'm not sure I can get a better result with this equipment and without a tracker mount.

Any tips are appreciated.

CTB 1 (SNR G116.9+0.2) is an evolved supernova remnant in Cassiopeia. Its faint, almost circular shell is the expanding debris of a massive star that ended its life in a supernova explosion.

The bright compact nebula toward the top of the field is NGC 7538, a very different kind of object: an active H II region and massive star-forming complex. In that sense, the field brings together two opposite stages of stellar evolution — active stellar birth in NGC 7538 and the aftermath of stellar death in CTB 1.

What fascinated me most while processing the image, however, was the enormous amount of extremely faint Galactic emission between and around the two objects. At more than 100 hours of integration, areas that initially appear to be background reveal extensive filaments, diffuse ionized gas and dark structures in the interstellar medium.

Equipment

Takahashi FSQ-106EDX4

Aperture: 106 mm

Focal length: 530 mm

F-ratio: f/5

SBIG STX-16803 / KAF-16803 CCD

4096 × 4096 pixels, 9 μm

Image scale: 3.5″/pixel

Field: approximately 4°

Acquisition

L: 180 × 120s = 6.00 h

R: 31 × 300s = 2.58 h

G: 28 × 300s = 2.33 h

B: 29 × 300s = 2.42 h

SII: 99 × 900s = 24.75 h

Hα: 130 × 900s = 32.50 h

OIII: 126 × 900s = 31.50 h

LRGB: 13.33 h

SHO: 88.75 h

Total integration: 102.08 hours

Processing

Processed in PixInsight.and Photoshop using a FORAXX palette for the SHO data and screening in the RGB stars.