Link to a 16:9 version. These should be good up to 8k resolution.

(Yes I know we're almost two weeks into 2024.) This may look familiar as I've made similar composites for the last several years. 2023 was incredibly productive for me astrophotography wise, and I ended up getting nearly 600 total hours of long exposure time across all of my pics. Since I have very limited horizons from my balcony, I decided to go deep on some fainter narrowband targets.

. I have links below for those who want to check out the uncropped original photos, as well as their specific acquisition and processing details.

Other places where I host my images:

Flickr | Instagram

Commonly asked questions about my photos:

How do you take long exposures if the sky moves?

• I use an equatorial mount to track the movement of the sky and take long exposures without the stars trailing. I also take several hundred shorter exposures (several minutes each) and stack them together to create one single image that then goes onto post processing.

Are the Colors Real?

• about half of these images are in false color, however images 1, 2, 6, 7, and 10 are considered to be true color (our eyeballs alone will never be able to see color in these objects, even through a telescope). I use a black and white camera, and have to take images through filters which are then mapped to RGB channels in order to produce a color image. Using narrowband filters you can isolate specific wavelengths of light emitted by certain gases in space, and map them to make a false color image.

What is your light pollution/How do you deal with it?

• Most of these were shot from my horribly light polluted apartment, but I managed to take a couple trips out to some darker skies this year. Images 2, 6 (partially), 7, and 10 were the only ones taken from dark skies (Bortle 3).

In order to deal with the light pollution I use narrowband filters which only let through specific wavelengths of light (the specific wavelength that these nebulae emit) and block out almost all other light. It is possible to get good photos without using any kind of light pollution filters, and adding total exposure time is one way to get around LP.

Is it photoshopped?

• Not in the way you think. Nothing is being added in to the photos that come off of the camera. The goal of post processing is to bring out the data that is already there. The raw images are pretty much black, but brightening, sharpening, and running noise reduction helps turn them into nice looking photos.

How much does your equipment cost?

• What are you, my wife?

Equipment:

• TPO 6" F/4 Imaging Newtonian

• Orion Sirius EQ-G

• ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro

• Skywatcher Quattro Coma Corrector

• ZWO EFW 8x1.25"/31mm

• Astronomik LRGB+CLS Filters- 31mm

• Astrodon 31mm Ha 5nm, Oiii 3nm, Sii 5nm

• Agena 50mm Deluxe Straight-Through Guide Scope

• ZWO ASI-290mc for guiding

• Moonlite Autofocuser

• NINA (FOSS and the best acquisition software out there imo) used for acquisition and automation, PixInsight for stacking and processing.

Images from left to right: (with exposure times)

• Comet C2022 E3 (ZTF) (1h 30m)

• Bubble Nebula and M52 (2h 2m)

• Sh2-174 (55h)

• NGC 7822 (51h 30m)

• Flying Bat and Squid Nebulae (110h 6m)

• vdB 152 (30h 36m)

• Trifid Nebula (2h 36m)

• Wizard Nebula (12h 48m)

• Heart and Soul Nebulae (110h 18m - partially shot in 2022)

• Antennae Galaxies (3h 52m)

(just as a heads up the heart and soul pic is a *very * large image)

Stumbled over here after seeing your Eclipse shot, which is killer!

You mention you’ve done these stitches previously, did you used to post them on Reddit? I recall one for sure, maybe more, that had the same idea. Was a big fan then and had one as my phone background for a while.

Nice to see ya on Lemmy, if that was you, and keep up the good work regardless.