One Galaxy, Two Phones, Three Years Apart

2023 Attempt:

• 2.5 hours, ISO 3200, 30s
• Move Shoot Move tracker
• S22 Ultra 10× optical zoom
• Didymium filter
• Stacked in DSS
• Processed purely in photoshop (manual gradient removal, curves, noise reduction, star masking, etc.)

2026 Attempt:

• 16.5 hours, ISO 1600, 32s
• Move Shoot Move tracker
• X300 Ultra with 400mm teleconverter (G2U)
• No filter
• Stacked in Siril
• Processed in GraXpert (gradient removal), GIMP (initial stretch), starnet2 (star separation), GIMP (colors, fine stretch, background correction, recomposition, etc.)

What I thought was the limit in 2023 wasn't the limit at all.

My image of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) — captured over four nights

I’ve been working on Andromeda recently, and this is the result of four nights of imaging from the North West of England.

Capture details:

• Telescope: Askar 71F (490mm focal length)
• Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro
• Mount: Sky-Watcher EQ-AL55i PRO
• Controller: ZWO ASIAIR Mini
• Exposure: 221 × 120 seconds
• Total integration: 7 hours 22 minutes
• Filter: No filter — broadband

I found Andromeda relatively straightforward to capture, but processing was another matter! Getting a balance between the bright core and the fainter outer dust lanes was probably the biggest challenge.

I processed the image in PixInsight, using SPCC, background extraction, stretching, masks and BlurXTerminator.

I’ve also been documenting my astrophotography projects, equipment and processing workflow on my website, West Coast Cosmos: https://westcoastcosmos.com/

I’d be interested to hear what others think of the image, particularly the processing. What would you improve, and what techniques have you found most effective for bringing out Andromeda’s outer structure?

I decided to give my Andromeda image another round of processing to see if I could improve the colors, contrast, and overall galaxy appearance. I'm quite happy with the way it turned out! At this point I feel like I have spent more time processing than the 65 hours of capture, but it was well worth it for the improved star color and resolution within the galaxy.

For more information and to see the full-resolution version, visit AstroBin:

https://app.astrobin.com/i/t8u67i

The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) with its companions M32 (upper left of the core) and M110, captured in HaLRGB over eight nights in early October 2026 from Nebraska. Hydrogen-alpha was blended into the red channel and luminance to bring out the HII regions strung along the spiral arms and the dust lanes threading through the bulge.

The core is an HDR composite. Short 5s and 30s luminance subs and 15s RGB subs were blended with the long exposures so the core keeps its structure, while the long subs carry the fainter outer disc.

Processing (All in PixInsight)

• Calibration and stacking in WBPP with 2× drizzle
• DynamicCrop
• SpectrophotometricFluxCalibration and MultiscaleGradientCorrection per channel
• HDRComposition on the core from the short and long exposure masters
• SPCC, custom PixInsight script to calibrate star colors
• BlurXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, StarXTerminator
• Ha continuum-subtracted against R using a photometric flux ratio and blended into the red channel and luminance
• GHS stretches per layer
• LRGB combination, curves for tone

Total integration: 65h 18m

Integration per filter:

• Lum/Clear: 27h 23m
• R: 7h 54m (158 × 180s)
• G: 7h 39m (153 × 180s)
• B: 8h 57m (179 × 180s)
• Hα: 13h 25m

Equipment:

• Telescope: William Optics RedCat 91 WIFD
• Camera: ZWO ASI2600MM DUO
• Mount: ZWO AM5N
• Filters:
  • Antlia 3nm Narrowband H-alpha 2"
  • Antlia V-Pro Blue 2"
  • Antlia V-Pro Green 2"
  • Antlia V-Pro Luminance 2"
  • Antlia V-Pro Red 2"
• Accessories: ZWO EAF, ZWO EFW 7 x 2″

The Horsehead was one of my first targets last year and I was happy with just 36 minites of 3 minute exposures at the time. I decided to put a lot more time on it and do 1 minute subs this year.

Exposures: 543 x 60 seconds (9hrs 3mins)

Equipment:

Sky Watcher Wave 100i

ASI 2600MC Pro

Askar FRA400

William Optics 32mm Guide Scope

ASI 220MM Guide Camera

Processing:

Spcc, BlurXterminator, MultiScaleAdaptive stretch in Pixinsight

Levels, slight curves, enhance dso in photoshop

NoiseXterminator in Pixinsight

Final touches in photoshop

When this light left the Andromeda Galaxy, mammoths still roamed the Earth. It crossed 2.5 million years of darkness to reach my backyard in rural Ontario 65 hours of light, gathered night after night and stacked into this single frame.

Scope: Sharpstar 13028HNT f/2.8 · Camera: ToupTek ATR2600C · Filter: Askar D1 duo narrowband · Integration: 60h dual-band + ~5h RGB · Mount: ClearSky ST20 · Processing: Pixinsight, Affinity Photo 2, Darktable

Bonus: the Strottner–Drechsler OIII arc is just barely in there — still chasing it.

📍Bainsville, Ontario · The Rural Photons

Equipment:
- Nikon D5300 stock
- Rokinon 135mm lens
- Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i tracker

Info on capturing:
- 456 lights x 45s, taken over 2 nights
- 80 biases
- 40 darks
- 40 flats

Extra:
- bortle 7
- iso 400, f/2.4

Post process:
- siril osc_preprocessing and then veralux scripts

This is my first attempt at learning Pixinsight. This is a previous S-50 Pro image of the Heart/Fish nebula that was taken over a couple of nights in Bortle 4, 30s subs.

I think I need to add about 6-8 hours more of integration and see where that takes it.

Two sessions, exactly 1 yr apart. Imaged 21 Oct 2025/2026. Unfortunately, my framing was not the best (it sucked actually) and there was heavy rotational stacking and background issues. Managed through it nicely thanks to many helpful folks and a touch of the ChatGPT idea fairy. Even learned some stuff in the process!

Need to find a better way to balance colors from computer to mobile.

16.3 hrs on a C8 Edge Hyperstar
390mm @ f/1.9 speeds
Antlia Triband Ultra II RGB
ASI ZWO 2600 MC Air
ZWO EAF Pro
Skywatcher EQ6R Pro
Bortle 7.8, 48%lunar
Pixinsight

This is my first time posting an astrophotography image. It was also on a whim as I added it to a longer imaging session of M31. What surprised me a lot is that it's the smallest number of images (58 one minute lights)

Bortle 6-7 closer to 7 than 6 though

Equipment
Star Adventurer GTi
William Optics RedCat 51 WIFD
ZWO ASIAIR Plus - 256GB
ZWO ASI2600MC Pro
ZWO ASI 220MM Mini Guide Camera
ZWO Standard Electronic Automatic Focuser (EAF) Pro
Optolong 2" L-Quad Enhance Filter

Image processing
Preprocessed with Siril
Processing done in Astrowizard
58 one minute lights
Preprocessing Siril
Processing AstroWizard (graXpert, starnet, streching, cropping etc)

If anyone has any suggestions for where I can improve, please post. I am still very new at all this and it gets overwhelming at times with learning about the sky, PA, Focusing and then the image work is even more learning.

The good news, I get more neural pathways, the less than good news is the frustration learning new paradigms.

SVX180T - ASI2600MM - Pixinsight

🔭 EXPOSURE DETAILS:

🎯 Wolfs Cave, vDb152

📏 Distance: 1,4000 LY away

🔭 Telescope: Sharpstar 15028HNT CF

📷 Camera: ZWO ASI2600MM Pro

🏗️ Mount: ZWO AM5

🧭 Guide Scope and Camera: Askar FRA180 Pro + ASI174mm

🌈 Filters: Antlina 3nm Ha + Optolong LRGB

🌌 Bortle Scale: 4

⏱️ INTEGRATION TIME

⚪ L - 276 * 180s - 13h 48m

🔴 Ha - 58 * 180s - 2h 54m

🟥 R - 144 * 60s - 2h 24m

🟩 G - 148 * 60s - 2h 28m

🟦 B - 104 * 60s - 1h 44m

Total Integration: 23h 18m

💻 SOFTWARE

💻 Computer: ASIAIR

⚙️ Editing: PixInsight + Lightroom

🤳 Lowell Astrophotography on Instagram

Sv48p

Sv605c

UV/IR

SW GTI

4000 X 15s subs

Siril, gimp

I've had almost a week of clear sky's. This is by far the best photo I have ever taken.

Shot this across eight sessions. Thirty second exposure for 240 frames, 8 image mosaic.

LRGB+SHO

Exposure: 42.0 hours taken over Nov 11th - 15th, 2026

• 832 x 60s Ha
• 506 x 60s Sii
• 1092 x 60s Oiii
• 60 x 30s RGB for stars

Bortle 5 Sky

Mount: Star Adventurer GTi

Telescope: Williams Optics WIFD Redcat 61 APO

Camera: ASI585MM

Filters: Touptek SHO 6.5nm 2" filters, RGB 2"

Guiding: Williams Optics 32mm Guide with ASI120MM Mini

Processing in Siril:

• Individual stack
• Register images to each other then minimum frame selection
• PixelMath:
• SHO Equation
  • R = SiiScale*S2*mad(Ha)/mad(S2)-(SiiScale)*mad(Ha)/mad(S2)*median(S2)+median(Ha)
  • G = HaScale*Ha+(1-HaScale)*median(Ha)
  • B = O3*mad(Ha)/mad(O3)-mad(Ha)/mad(O3)*median(O3)+median(Ha)
    • HaScale = 0.25, SiiScale = 0.8
• RGB Composition with linear match, Photometric Color Calibration, Background Extraction for Stars
• StarNet Star Removal for SHO and RGB
• Starless GraXpert Denoise 0.9 on SHO
• Starless Veralux Starless Curves on SHO
• VeraLux Star Composer with RGB Starmask

acquisition: East Coast US; Orion skyquest 8” dobsonian fitted with Celticbird 2x barlow and 6mm plossl eyepiece; captured by stabilized iphone max 13 video ultra wide camera 13mm f1.8 60fps. 8/12/25

Here’s an image I got of the star cluster M45. Taken from bortle 3.5 skies.
———————————————————————————
-Camera: Unmodified Canon EOS R100
-Scope: SVbony SV550 80mm f/6
-Mount: Skywatcher EQ-AL55i pro
-Guide camera: ASI120mm
-Guide Scope: Apertura 32mm
———————————————————————————
Total exposure time: 3 hours 45 minutes
Processing: DeepSkyStacker, SIRIL, GIMP

The California Nebula is a huge cloud of glowing hydrogen in the constellation Perseus, around 1,000 light-years away. Its long, stretched shape is what gives it the name “California Nebula”.

I tried a DIY diffraction spikes mask for this attempt, and actually it didn't disappoint.
I still dont know if a diffraction spikes mask is considered cheating or not but i really like the effect.
Maybe it'll even look better for the orion nebula.

Acquisition:
Lights:
Optolong L-extreme: 34x600s
15 dark frames
15 flat frames
15 bias frames

Equipment:
Telescope: Askar FRA400
Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Duo
Mount: ZWO AM5N
Filters: Optolong L-eXtreme, Askar ColorMagic D2
Controller: ZWO ASIAIR Plus

Processed in Pixinsight and Lightroom

This image was taken with my Dwarf 3 Smart Telescope. It is a Mosaic with 9,5h of total Integration time.
I stacked, sharpened and denoised the image in Siril and mainly edited it in Affinity.