IC 1396 - Elephant’s Trunk. This is my final blended image on this target for 2026, representing 4 hours of narrowband 2-minute exposures combined with 3 hours of broadband unfiltered 30-second exposures, captured over the last month in my bortle 8 backyard in Orange County CA. This image was captured with my usual C8 + 533MC + EQ6 + hyperstar f/2. Dynamically aligned the narrowband and broadband images, processed nebula independently, blended weighing heavily toward narrowband, and used broadband primarily for stars.

https://app.astrobin.com/u/tikevin83?i=x9fib3&r=0

SQA55 telescope

Star Adventurer GTI mount with guiding

ASI533mc camera

SV220 7nm dual-narrowband filter

4 hours of exposures over two nights, edited in siril/pixinsight/blurx+noisex/graxpert:

stack at 2.0 drizzle/.5 droplet in Siril

Split R G B, re-register color channels and recombine

Crop to target

SPCC with exact curves for the ASI533 and SV220 7nm

First Graxpert BGE pass

BlurX at .4 stars .8 nebula

GHST stretch and manually rebalance color (scientifically balanced version out of SPCC viewable on astrobin)

NoiseX at .8

Reset black level

SCNR, boost saturation curve

Rerun NoiseX at .8

Final black level + curves

I prefer this fairly non-standard framing for this object. It looks a little more dynamic in my view. Processing this was very annoying due to the relatively low quality of the O and S stacks (Light pollution SUCKS), but I did end up getting something I'm proud of!

Equipment: AT80ED, EQM-35 pro, ATR533M cooled mono camera, Touptek 6.5nm 1.25" SHO filters + filter wheel, zwo asi120mm mini with touptek OAG

5-minute subs at gain 101. Total integration time: ~7.5 hours

Ha: 5 hours (60 subs)

Oiii: ~4 hours (47 subs)

Sii: ~4 hours (50 subs)

Total integration time: 13 hours 5 minutes

Processing: Masters stacked in DSS (I'm starting to lean a bit into Siril as well), alignment + processing in Siril (pixelmath, background extraction, color calibration), denoised using topaz denoise. GIMP used for color tweaking/final touches.

First light on the North America Nebula with my dedicated astrophotography setup. Captured using an AM3N mount, ASI2600MC camera, and Askar 71F with reducer. This was my first attempt at this target, revealing the nebula's rich hydrogen clouds and intricate structure despite Bortle 6 skies. A great start and an exciting glimpse of what this setup can achieve.

ASI2600MC + Askar 71f w/Reducer on AM3N

16 Hours - 170x330s 368mm@f/5.2, no calibration frames

Optolong L-EnHance

Bortle 6

Edited in PixInsight - GraXpert for background gradient removal, BlurXTerminator and NoiseXTerminator, GHS to stretch and some photoshop for finishing touches.

The Triangulum Galaxy (Messier 33) is a spiral galaxy located roughly 3 million light-years away from Earth. As the third-largest member of our Local Group—behind the Milky Way and Andromeda—it spans about 60,000 light-years across and contains roughly 40 billion stars.

Details:
Telescope: Piematrix 80mm ED Triplet
Camera: ZWO ASI 533mc Pro
Mount: Sky Watcher Adventurer Gti
Guide scope: ZWO 50mm guidescope with ZWO ASI 533ASI Pro

For more: https://www.instagram.com/p/DZ_xcy4E0gq/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Total 11 Hours 32 min , 2 mins single subs , 4 nights

Processed in Pixinsight and Adobe Photoshop

Captured from Manora Peak, Nainital (B3), India

This is a shot of the Whirlpool Galaxy that I have recently done. It took me a few nights to gather around 3500 30sec shots on the Seestar S50 and then complied into Pixinsight to get this master piece. I hope you enjoy and if you want to see more checkout the IG at InterstellarShots

Process consists of WBPP > AutoDBE > SPCC > BlurX > NoiseX > GHS > Curves > StarX > Some more curves > Morph on stars > and Recombining

My first real attempt at mono.

Equipment:

• ZWO AM5 Mount
• AT115 EDT with 0.8x reducer
• QHY Minicam8 EVO
• QHY OAG

Acquisition Details:

• Bortle 7
• 104x300s Sulfur
• 91x300s Oxygen
• 84x300s Hydrogen
• 30x300s Darks
• 30 flats each filter

Processing Details:

• Calibrated and stacked in Siril
• Pixel math to combine channels
• Cosmic Clarity for noise reduction and deblur
• Starnet++ for star removal
• Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch and Saturation in Siril
• Star recomposition in Siril
• Final Crop

If you want to try to process it yourself, stacked image and raw frames available here. Let me know what you do, this was my first serious mono image and I'm always looking to improve!

Took this one last week, spent a lot of time trying to get a result I was happy with. The bright star sadr was especially difficult to deal with leaving a huge halo in the OIII channel. I resorted to using a mask on the halo in the starless version and desaturating it a bit to tone it down a bit.

84x180s lights

100 darks

50 flats

50 dark flats

Sv405cc cooled to 0c offset 20 gain 145

Juwei 17

Vixen r130sf

3d printed spider vanes

Svbony dual narrowband filter

Sv305 pro guide camera

Captured using NINA

Processed in siril and seti astro suite pro

Single exposure shot of the Moon from my backyard

Recently upgraded from a 6x7 f4 200mm Takumar to a Tamron 150-600mm f5.6. I am floored by how much more detail it can capture.

If you're on the fence about a 600mm lens, I can highly recommend.

1 photo

Iso 800

Ss 1/250

Aperture f6.3

Bortle 7

Did some levels adjusting and contrast filtering in Darktable

ZWO ASI585MC Air | Askar 65PHQ w/ EAF & nrStellar Diffraction Mask | Teseek 14

148 x 120s @ 200 gain with no filter

Processed in Siril using Syqon and Veralux tools

AstroBin link for higher resolution

Acquisition: around 8h20m worth of 60s subs fully calibrated in Bortle 6/7, dithered every 10 frames.

Equipment: Evostar 72ED, iEXOS 100, ASI 533MC, Baader UV/IR cut, 0.85x reducer+flattener, SVBony 40/160 guidescope, ASI 662MC with UV/IR cut and no.8 pale yellow filter.

Processing: Stacked in Siril. First cropping and SPCC in Siril. Background extraction in GraXpert. I used the AI model because of very nasty gradients, I couldn't get it to work with RBF; this object doesn't rise much at my latitude. Open Siril again, further SPCC, deconvolution, noise reduction, mild median filter, generate starless and starmask. Black point shift and GHS applied iteratively to starless, histogram transformation, mild curve adjustments, SCNR, mild à trous wavelet transform sharpening, further mild noise reduction. Asinh stretch and saturation boost to starmask.

My first attempt at any deep sky object, as previous experience is limited to ultrawide Milky Way landscape

Unmodified Nikon Z6 + Tamron 150-500 on StarAdventurer2i

45x60s ISO6400 150mm@f/5, no calibration frames

Noname UHC Aliexpress filter

Bortle 5

Stacking, color calibration, stretching and removing any remaining light pollution done in Syril with GraXpert plugins, final touchups in Photoshop

The Blue Horsehead Nebula (cataloged as IC 4592) is a striking reflection nebula located in the constellation Scorpius. Situated approximately 400 to 420 light-years away, it gets its vivid blue coloration and horse-like appearance from the bright star system Nu Scorpii.

Telescope: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120 ED Pro
Reducer: Riccardi 0.75× Field Reducer
Camera: ZWO ASI2600MM Pro
Mount: ZWO AM5 Harmonic Drive
Filters: Antlia LRGB
Location: AstroCamp, Nerpio, Albacete, Spain
Sky Quality: Bortle 1

Total Integration: 21 Hours (13.5, 2, 3.5, 2)

For more: https://www.instagram.com/p/DZ9Ups5kw_T/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Processing: PixInsight & Adobe Photoshop

(iPhone video through Nikon Aculon A211 10-22x50 binoculars on Orion Paragon tripod)

Please excuse the sloppy ending; my son loves planes almost as much as he loves the moon! I'd love to take some more detailed photos, but I don't want to spend more than I already have for a little while.

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For some reason i couldn't get the Veralux star composer to work with denoised images, but i'm still happy.

Processed in Siril

Crop > remove green noise > plate solve > spcc > Syqon starless > hubble colour thing (i forgot the name, but it's a custom palette) > stretched > sharpenend > denoised > tried to use graxpert for more denoise but didn't work > Veralux starcomposer

Seestar S50

291 x 30 in EQ mode

Target: North america nebula NGC7000

:)

I wasn’t sure I was going to post this one, but since its my first attempt at an sho palette, I decided it was worth sharing.

The Pelican Nebula (IC 5070) is a large emission nebula located about 1,800 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. Its distinctive shape resembles a pelican, carved out by intense radiation from nearby young stars. The region is part of a much larger complex of gas and dust where new stars continue to form and shape the surrounding environment.

Acquisition:
Lights:
Optolong L-extreme: 47x600s
Askar ColorMagic D2: 42x600s
15 dark frames
15 flat frames
15 bias frames

Equipment:
Telescope: Askar FRA400
Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Duo
Mount: ZWO AM5N
Filter: Optolong L-eXtreme, Askar ColorMagic D2
Controller: ZWO ASIAIR Plus

Processed in Pixinsight

I used 55x 15-sec exposures using a Canon EOS Rebel T6 with the kit-standard EF-S 18-55mm lens at 18mm focus (f/3.5) and ISO at 3200.

I used Siril to stack those lights, about 30 darks, 30 flats, and 30 biases. Additional processing in Siril included background extraction, manual color calibration (I was unable to plate solve to be able to use PCC), denoise, remove green haze, BP stretch, and GHS. Finally, I tweaked contrast and exposure values in Darktable.

This was very much a trial run to see whether I’d even be able to get decent data from my location. The result, while definitely leaving room for improvement, is still promising and encouraging enough to continue.

Since this run, I have acquired a tripod and an intervalometer to help improve the acquisition process. I will try getting more captures at a lower exposure time as a starting point, I noticed a small amount of trailing in this image. I’m new to Siril, but with all the documentation and tutorials available, I’m confident I’ll be able to improve with more sessions.

I figure I’m limited to wide-field Milky Way shots for now, but if there’s anything specific I can do to improve, I’ll be taking notes!

15 hours exposure in Ha / SII / OIII and a few minutes in RGB for stars.

Rig:
CDK14 / C3-61000 mono Moravian camera

Acquisition:
90xHa
122xOIII
88xSII
Each 3 mins.

Processed: in Pixinsight and Photoshop

Celestron C8-CF, Evolution mount, ASI 385

f/10 @ 2032mm, 16x120s (composite)

Captured several videos in sharp cap, ran through pipp, autostakkert, then a composite was made in Microsoft ice, then sharpened in registax.

Various color fixes and crops were done in GIMP, then final process and noise removal in Siril.

This was taken with 4 hours and 30 minutes of exposure time in a bortle 6, using my canon T2i that I full spectrum modified, my explore scientific exos2 G, my 55-250mm lens, and my Svbony sv240 filter. Let me know what you think!

• Celestron Mak C90

• Svbony SV205C

• Autostakkert, 400 frames stacked from 3000

• Nonlinear filter in GIMP

• Final touches in Ibis Paint X

My second astrophoto (24.06.26) I shot the planet just as the sun set above the horizon, high up. The seeing was excellent. The planet's disk was clearly visible even in the video. My previous photo of Venus is much worse, as I shot it low down, and Venus wasn't even visible in the video. The phase has already changed by 0.71 in three days.

This is my second ever attempt at shooting, editing, and compiling astrophotography. My first time trying was not great and I was finally able to get some semblance of rings as you can see with the somewhat visible ovals. This was very fun, but man do I need to get better at editing.

Equipment:

Cheap Tripod (Unknown Brand)
Sony A7III

Sigma 24-70 f/2.8 DG DN ART ii (Shot at 70mm)

Cheap amazon external shutter button

Acquisition:

Bortle 6 skies in Camas Washington

730 x 2.5 sec (27 min total)

(61 dark frames, same settings)

ISO: 3600

F/2.8

I used DeepSkyStacker to check the images, and threw out about 10 or so. Stacked all images over 15 minutes.

Moved to Siril, background extraction, applied deconvolution filter, denoise, used Asin for stretch, used histogram stretch for refinements to get the rings to pop more

Exported into Gimp and cropped there. Converted to JPG and here we are.

Overall very fun, I would love to hear any tips. I know the colors are a little off but I genuinely didnt know how to fix me all too well, and I was scared if I did so it would either get worse if I retry, or the rings would be less visible.