I totally didn't procrastinate processing this thing, and it's just pure coincidence that I finally took a stab at it in October...
In hindsight, this really could've used another night of data (particularly the L), but I only had one clear night at the dark site. I was just happy to get out of the light pollution and shoot a dark nebula for once! Captured on August 17th, 2025 from a bortle 3 zone (deerlick astronomy village).
Acquisition: 7 hours 21 minutes (Camera at -15°C), half unity gain
L - 56x180"
R - 30x180"
G - 30x180"
B - 31x180"
Darks- 30
Flats- 30 per filter
Capture Software:
Captured using N.I.N.A. and PHD2 for guiding and dithering.
PixInsight Preprocessing:
BatchPreProcessing
StarAlignment
Blink
ImageIntegration per channel
DrizzleIntegration (2x, Var β=1.5)
For the L channel I did 3 stacks each with 1/3rd of the data, then combined them to an RGB image (was still grayscale) to use deepSNR noise reduction. after this it was properly converted to mono
Are you moving the mount in just one axis? Or doing both RA and DEC movements at the same time? You might also want to dither more frequently, especially with how many 30” subs you can get in a half hour. Even that amount of walking noise will add up
Pretty good for a phone! I’m guessing it’s doing some kind of stacking process? I think there would be some streaking with a single 4 min exposure, but your stars look nice and sharp
Another pic from my recent dark site trip! Decided to shoot something bright and in true color LRGB. If I had stayed another night and gotten more data I probably would've pushed the image more to get more background details, but overall I like this darker look on the image. Last time I shot this nebula was in 2022 using the false color OSH palette). Captured on July 26th, 2025 from a bortle 3 zone (deerlick astronomy village).
Acquisition: 4 hours 2 minutes (Camera at -15°C), half unity gain
L - 49x120"
R - 267x120"
G - 23x120"
B - 23x120"
Darks- 30
Flats- 30 per filter
Capture Software:
Captured using N.I.N.A. and PHD2 for guiding and dithering.
PixInsight Preprocessing:
BatchPreProcessing
StarAlignment
Blink
ImageIntegration per channel
DrizzleIntegration (2x, Var β=1.5)
Dynamic Crop
DynamicBackgroundExtraction
duplicated each image and removed stars via StarXterminator. Ran DBE with a shitload of points to generate background model. model subtracted from original pic using the following PixelMath (math courtesy of /u/jimmythechicken1)
$T * med(model) / model
Luminance Linear:
Blur and noisexterminator
Stars removed with starx
ArcsinhStretch + HistogramTransformation to stretch nonlinear
RGB Linear:
ChannelCombination to combine monochrome R G and B images in to single color image
After months of clouds and rain, I had a clear night and went out to a dark site! I shot this a few years back in narrowband which helped show the faint outer shell, but this time I decided to photograph it in true color LRGB. Captured on July 26th, 2025 from a bortle 3 zone (deerlick astronomy village).
Acquisition: 2 hours 50 minutes (Camera at -15°C), halfunity gain
L - 31x120"
R - 19x120"
G - 18x120"
B - 17x120"
Darks- 30
Flats- 30 per filter
Capture Software:
Captured using N.I.N.A. and PHD2 for guiding and dithering.
PixInsight Preprocessing:
BatchPreProcessing
StarAlignment
Blink
ImageIntegration per channel
DrizzleIntegration (2x, Var β=1.5)
Dynamic Crop
DynamicBackgroundExtraction
duplicated each image and removed stars via StarXterminator. Ran DBE with a shitload of points to generate background model. model subtracted from original pic using the following PixelMath (math courtesy of /u/jimmythechicken1)
$T * med(model) / model
Luminance Linear:
Blur and noisexterminator
ArcsinhStretch + HistogramTransformation to stretch nonlinear
RGB Linear:
ChannelCombination to combine monochrome R G and B images in to single color image
SpectrophotometricColorCalibration
BlurXterminator (correct stars only)
HSV Repair
ArcsinhStretch + HistogramTransformation to stretch nonlinear
Slight saturation curve boost
Nonlinear Processing:
LRGBCombination to combine stretched RGB and L images
NoiseX again (more for chrominance noise)
LocalHistogramEqualization
Several rounds of curve adjustments for lightness, contrast, saturation, color balance, with various masks
What equipment/processing did you use?