Practice Makes Perfect
Astrophotography One Year In
Covid 19 changed all of us in some way. For some photographers, this allowed us an opportunity to photograph empty cities; for others, they were able to point their cameras upward from the safety of their backyards. I was lucky to have done both, especially in July 2020, when comet Neowise flew by. My interest in Astrophotography grew significantly (as did the general public).
After Neowise, I was introduced to Astrophotography, known as deep-sky objects, via Angus Wong of Nocturne Astro. While I have always had interests in shooting the milky way via the many trips I’ve taken with my photography group throughout California, this was the first time I started learning about image-stacking and star-tracking.
A big part of learning to create astrophotographic images (as opposed to seeing them visually) is mastering three technical challenges. However, without patience, practice, and the mentality to test to failure, no one can get any images out of this hobby. And as the title suggests, practice makes perfect. But by no means do I think my photos are perfect, just incremental steps that everyone must take before creating something decent.
Challenge 1: The Imaging Gear. I jumped into the hobby without buying a new camera. Instead, I just used the camera (Mirrorless Nikon Z6) I already own. It just needs to be able able to take long exposures in the dark and sometimes cold environments. The Nikon Z6 isn’t particularly good for Astro, as the screen cannot articulate, and the sensor has a filter designed to filter out unwanted IR reds while shooting daytime photos. The night sky, however, is full of Hydrogen-alpha, which is a faint red. If I had to buy one, I would get a used full spectrum or Ha modified camera off of Cloudynights Classifieds (many astrophotographers upgrade their gear and sell off old ones). Modified cameras allow more sensitivity in the red spectrum. I did invest in an intervalometer for one min+ exposure. For colder nights, your lens fogs up as moisture can no longer be held in the air and deposits the water on surfaces. For that, a dew heater is used to keep the front element of your lens just warm enough from fogging up with dew. I started with my telephoto camera lens.
Five months into the hobby, I finally acquired my first telescope, the compact but highly capable William Optics Spacecat 51 (250mm f4.9). Why not continue to use my telephoto lens, you ask? The vixen plate is there to help you balance your scope on your mount properly (for longer tracks). The fine focusing dials allow you to do fine adjustments to your focus and lock it need be so your focus doesn’t drift and ruin your night. The glass is often optically sharp wide open (camera lenses are generally sharpest 2–4 stops lower than its max aperture). Telescopes add many quality of life improvements that makes Astrophptograhy more enjoyable as you will be spending hours to image one thing.
Takeaway 1: My advice for someone new, don’t get GAS. There is no perfect camera or perfect scope. You’ll go broke looking for it, and you’ll never know what you’re capable of with what you have.
Challenge 2: Star Tracker. At the time of writing this article, I own two trackers. I started small with the Skywatcher Star Adventurer Pro (SAP) bought used off of Cloudynights Classifieds. It’s a portable mount best used when on the road in sites with less light pollution. It can balance some telephoto lenses and telescopes. It is basically all manual. You learn to align the mount to Polaris. And then, from there, you have to find the targets you want to image manually.
I outgrew my Star Adventurer Pro pretty quickly because it only has an 11lb payload limit, and my telephoto lens and camera were nearing capacity. I did upgrade to an EQ-6r Pro (also bought used via Cloudynights Classifieds), which has a 33lb load limit, but it was a painful process of learning how to use it to its full capacity. This includes connecting a laptop to the mount and camera(s), learning to guide (to correct tracking mistakes) using a guide scope/camera, and getting used to NINA acquisition software (to control the camera and mount). NINA is great because it can control my mount to automatically goto any target in its library. But most importantly, it is excellent for Plate Solving (ability to align my scope to the location of images I’ve taken in the past), allowing me to continue gathering data one night after another.
Takeaway 2: My advice for someone new is, start small and work your way up as there is no perfect star tracker. I could not bring my Eq6r to a dark site because it’s 60 lbs in weight. But with my SAP is always ready to go.
Challenge 3: Image Editing. This is what makes astrophotography very different from normal photography. I will cover this in a future article, but generally, astrophotographers get hours of data to increase the signal-to-noise ratio. You’re shooting through the atmosphere, and your camera generates a lot of noise (boosted iso and warm sensor); most of your early stacked images (including calibration frames to the best quality and highest dynamic range) will result in pretty dark files. By stretching the images (pushing the contrast), the colors will start to come out. The data is all there, but because of light pollution and everything is very washed out. Therefore stretching is required to get the details to come out; see image below.
Sometimes different process results in a very different image. As you learn more techniques and software, you will reveal more data in the image. I frequently go back tO revisits my older images to see if I’ve improved. I mainly use Photoshop, but recently I’ve started using Pixinsight (NASA uses this) to help with the initial stretching. I have some professional experience using Photoshop, so this is probably the biggest hurdle for first-time users. My suggestion is don’t give up. Once you get the hang of it, it gets easier. Here are a few images and processes of M8 (Lagoon Nebula), and you can see that practicing in all three challenges will yield better and better results.
Takeaway 3: My advice to someone new, there is no perfect way to process your image. Try new methods and go back to your older images. You’ll be surprised how much you’ve captured.
By no means have I master all three challenges. And there are other challenges that I have not mentioned, but honing in on these three will allow you to get consistent results for beginners. There were many frustrating nights where there was no resulting image because something went wrong with the setup, or the camera doesn’t want to point at the right area of the night sky. Challenge three is something I will be developing for the rest of my life as I can always revisit old data and realized how much more data was hidden from me.
Below are some of the many images I’ve managed to produce in my first year. I started with brighter targets like M8 (Lagoon), M31 (Andromeda), and M42 (Orion) and worked my way to more challenging targets like Veil and California. Many of the targets require multiple tries. In doing so, I’m learning to read the night sky.
Veil Nebula, The source supernova was a star 20 times more massive than the Sun, which exploded between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago.
M31 The Andromeda galaxy, our closest galactic neighbor.
Orion Molecular Cloud Complex (M42, M43, & NGC 2023). Objects are bright enough to see with the naked eye.
Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex, the edge of the milky way core, teases you with challenging colors to bring out.
Below are additional targets I’ve shot during this first year.
As a result of my explorations in deep space objects, I’ve learned to use stacking and tracking techniques to create better milky way landscape shots. The more you learn, the more you can put your skills to use.
And that is my adventure so far, one year into this new hobby. I hope this article gives those of you just starting this hobby the encouragement to go and explore. Remember, there is no perfection, but practice will always get you closer to it.
TLDR: You can achieve a lot in a year if you learn to use your gear and learn to be patient. There is no perfection, but you must still practice getting ever closer to it.
If you enjoyed this article or the images, make sure to like it. If you loved it, follow me on Instagram and find more of my work at www.georgexlin.com.
