Photography

equipment
zwo am5 mount to track the stars
asker v telescop
astro modded sony a6300 camera. basically the ir filter is replaced by clear class to make shooting nebulas easier
asair plus. a small device to control the shooting
I also have a guide scope and guide camera which is used to correct for tracking errors

the asair connects to my ipad to run the shoot


planning

I use teh website telescopius.com to decide the object to shoot. it shows me what in the sky at any time,how far it is from the moon,how high it is,rise and set times and size of the object .

once my scope is set up i align it to the celestial pole (think if a line drawn from south to north pole and continueing to infinity. its near the north star and once teh scope is aligned it only has to rotate on one axis to track the stars. this allows the longer exposures

Once ive picked the object i program it into the asair and it slews the scope to the correct location. O ise a technique called plate solving to make sure its pointed in the right place. basically it takes a picture of the sky and compares it with know photos so it can verify the location. I then tell eth asair how many exposures i want and how long each one will be (usially 5 minute exposures but that can change for some things like andromeda,and the orion nebula

after staking the exposures i take a series of calibration photos called flat frames. these are just the camera taking a shot if a white screen . this is used to basically remove dust stops etc from the images.


processing.

i import the exposures and the calibration shots into software called pixinsight. this will stack all the exposures into one image.
then the real processing begins.
first i remove the background and work to remove and gradiants caused by light pollution.
next i basically sharpen the image and then color correct it to what are known colors of that area. then i run a noise removal program.


after all this i still have an image tha basically is all black but the data is there. i then use a process called stretching which basically brings out the object while leaving the background dark. its a non linear process and there are many ways to go about it.

after stretching its into photoshop for final edits.



Ive always been into space/astronomy but living in cities visual work is hard especially with my shitty eyesight. I tries astrophotography in th efilm days but it was a real failure. its only in the past 5-10years thats its become easier. It was during covid that i finally bought real astrophotography equipment and off i went down the rabbit hole. Im considering sending one of my scopes to a remote observatory in a dark sky location. I would still operate it over the internet. its in the planning stage as is building some kind of permanant structure in my yard to keep my scope out all the time.