Astrophotos

Notes:

'Stacking' can be thought of as laying many exposures of a single object on top of each other and compressing them down into one image by taking the average value (brightness and colour) of each pixel. While individual exposures are noisy and contain little detail of faint deep sky objects, a stacked image can reveal an astounding level of colour and structure. This is because during the averaging process, noise is cancelled out since it is essentially random across exposures, while details persist since they are common in every exposure, even if very faint. I use the free software Deep Sky Stacker (DSS) to do this.

'Editing' one of these images does not involve adding or removing elements - instead it refers to improving the visibility, colour, contrast, etc. of existing details. For example, for an image of a nebula, making the background darker, the faint nebulosity brighter, and improving saturation.

Lights are exposures of the object itself; darks are exposures taken with the same settings but with the lens covered, used to reduce image noise; flats are taken with the lens covered with a uniformly lit field to capture and correct for the vignetting caused by the optical train; biases are taken with the shortest possible exposure to capture and correct for 'hot pixels' and pattern (not-so-random) noise.

The base NexStar 6SE mount is an altitude-azimuth mount, which has mediocre tracking and suffers from field rotation. Thus images captured using the CEM25P, an equatorial mount, benefit from longer exposures and are generally better (this is how I convince myself it was worth the upgrade).

You can click the image below to cycle through: a single exposure; a stacked image; and a final edited image.

Single Exposure

This is a compilation of most of the astrophotography I've done over the years. You can click on each image to open a high-resolution version.

Bright red Moon during a lunar eclipse, near the moment of greatest eclipse.

Object: Moon during lunar eclipse
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Equipment: Nikon Z50
Date: Nov 8 2022
Details: Single exposure (I forgot the settings), light editing in Photoshop

The Milky Way stretching across the sky over the Lake of Two Rivers campground in Algonquin Park.

Object: Milky Way Galaxy
Location: Lake of Two Rivers, Algonquin Park, Ontario
Equipment: Nikon D3100
Date: Jul 1 2022
Details: Single exposure, 18mm, 30 sec, f/3.5, ISO 3200, edited in Photoshop

The Whirlpool Galaxy along with three faint, distant background galaxies.

Object: Messier 51, Whirlpool Galaxy
Location: Brampton, Ontario
Equipment: iOptron CEM25P, Celestron NexStar 6SE OTA, Celestron f/6.3 Reducer, Nikon D3100
Date: May 17-30 2021
Details: Best 80% of 632 × 30 sec lights (4h 13min) at ISO 3200, 20 flats, 20 darks, 20 bias, stacked in DSS, edited in Photoshop

Object: Messier 13, Hercules Globular Cluster
Location: Brampton, Ontario
Equipment: iOptron CEM25P, Celestron NexStar 6SE OTA, Celestron f/6.3 Reducer, Nikon D3100
Date: May 10-11 2021
Details: 260 × 30 sec lights (2h 10min) at ISO 1600, 20 flats, 20 darks, 20 bias, stacked in DSS, edited in Photoshop

Object: Messier 13, Hercules Globular Cluster
Location: Brampton, Ontario
Equipment: Celestron NexStar 6SE, Celestron f/6.3 Reducer, Nikon D3100
Date: Aug 19-20 2020
Details: 336 × 20 sec lights (1h 52min) at ISO 3200, 25 flats, 25 darks, 25 bias, stacked in DSS, edited in Photoshop

The Milky Way stretching over Mono Cliffs Park (annotated).

Annotated version of next image

The Milky Way stretching over Mono Cliffs Park.

Object: Milky Way Galaxy
Location: Mono Cliffs Provincial Park, Ontario
Equipment: Nikon D3100
Date: Aug 11-12 2020
Details: 25 × 30 sec lights (12.5 minutes), 18mm, f/3.5, ISO 3200, edited in Photoshop

Object: Messier 42, Orion Nebula
Location: Brampton, Ontario
Equipment: Celestron NexStar 6SE, Celestron f/6.3 Reducer, Nikon D3100
Date: Mar 17 2020
Details: 28 × 20 sec lights (9.3min) at ISO 1600, 25 flats, 25 darks, 25 bias, stacked in DSS, edited in Photoshop

Object: Messier 13, Hercules Globular Cluster
Location: Brampton, Ontario
Equipment: Celestron NexStar 6SE, Nikon D3100
Date: Oct 10 2019
Details: 45 × 30 sec lights (22.5min) at ISO 1600, 15 flats, 15 darks, 15 bias, stacked in DSS, edited in Photoshop

Object: Messier 42, Orion Nebula
Location: Brampton, Ontario
Equipment: Celestron NexStar 6SE, Nikon D3100
Date: Dec 26-27 2018
Details: 33 × 15 sec lights (8.3min) at ISO 1600, 10 flats, 10 darks, 10 bias, stacked in DSS, edited in Lightroom