Uploaded February 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Shown is an image I took earlier this year of one of the most majestic galaxies as seen from us; the M101 (so-called Pinwheel galaxy). It's located about 20 million lightyears from us and houses approx 1 trillion stars. Its face-on characteristic is a truly spectacular sight.
Image acquisition was done with ZWO's AM5 mount and ASI2600MC PRO camera through a Skywatcher 100ED DS-PRO refractor with a .85 reducer, i.e., at 765 mm focal length and f/7.65. Taken from a Bortle 4 zone.
In total 80 5-minute exposures (6 hours and 20 minutes). Stacking, edge cropping and background extraction was made in Siril, and the remaining postprocessing in PixInsight. Particularly, the magic wands Blur- and Noise exterminator were used therein. I spend typically 30 minutes on post and have much to learn as some may notice.
No affiliation involved.
Astrophoto channels I like:
@NebulaPhotos Nico is brilliant on what he does and is the main reason that I eventually went into astrophoto two years ago (with a DSLR and a tripod).
@lukomatico Superb in-depth comparisons among gears, and always provide interesting tutorials and reviews.
@CuivTheLazyGeek Enthusiastic and entertaining reviews/comparisons/tutorials. Always a pleasure to watch.
Visuals made with my astro camera and telescope; images stitched and blended in ffmpeg, as well as some Python tweaks.
The beautiful music was made by @gpcbass; the song title is Starless (a King Crimson cover from 2022). A vocal version can be found here: youtube.com/watch?v=TbJvKYycOAY&ab_channel=gpcbass
Shown is an image I took earlier this year of one of the most majestic galaxies as seen from us; the M101 (so-called Pinwheel galaxy). It's located about 20 million lightyears from us and houses approx 1 trillion stars. Its face-on characteristic is a truly spectacular sight.
Image acquisition was done with ZWO's AM5 mount and ASI2600MC PRO camera through a Skywatcher 100ED DS-PRO refractor with a .85 reducer, i.e., at 765 mm focal length and f/7.65. Taken from a Bortle 4 zone.
In total 80 5-minute exposures (6 hours and 20 minutes). Stacking, edge cropping and background extraction was made in Siril, and the remaining postprocessing in PixInsight. Particularly, the magic wands Blur- and Noise exterminator were used therein. I spend typically 30 minutes on post and have much to learn as some may notice.
No affiliation involved.
Astrophoto channels I like:
@NebulaPhotos Nico is brilliant on what he does and is the main reason that I eventually went into astrophoto two years ago (with a DSLR and a tripod).
@lukomatico Superb in-depth comparisons among gears, and always provide interesting tutorials and reviews.
@CuivTheLazyGeek Enthusiastic and entertaining reviews/comparisons/tutorials. Always a pleasure to watch.
Visuals made with my astro camera and telescope; images stitched and blended in ffmpeg, as well as some Python tweaks.
The beautiful music was made by @gpcbass; the song title is Starless (a King Crimson cover from 2022). A vocal version can be found here: youtube.com/watch?v=TbJvKYycOAY&ab_channel=gpcbass
