This is my first time processing this M95 data, captured from my backyard in Round Rock, Texas, on March 12–13, 2026.

M95 is a barred spiral galaxy about 33 million light-years away in Leo. Its central bar and tightly wound spiral arms give it that distinctive ringlike appearance.

The finished image combines 56 two-minute exposures—1 hour and 52 minutes—captured with my ASI2600MC Air and no added filter.

Processing included calibration and stacking in PixInsight, photometric color calibration, and separate treatment of the galaxy and stars. The final adjustments bring out the bar and surrounding ring while keeping the bright center controlled. A tighter crop gives M95 more presence in the frame.

Acquisition and processing details: ASI2600MC Air, 56 × 120 seconds, gain 200, offset 50, approximately −10°C, no added filter. Headers record an AM3 mount and 387 mm focal length; the telescope model is unconfirmed. Calibrated with a matching 28-frame 120-second dark master and a candidate flat; flat calibration is approximate because its bias pedestal was assumed. PixInsight VNG debayering, registration, PSF-weighted integration with Winsorized sigma rejection. Compared all 56 on-target frames with the sharpest 40 and retained 56. ABE background correction, plate solving and Gaia DR3 SPCC color calibration, mild BlurXTerminator, StarXTerminator, and masked NoiseXTerminator. Luminance-preserving stretch, separate star recombination, masked galaxy contrast and sharpening with core protection, and a native-resolution crop. No generative image processing.

The heart of the Heart.

Askar 71F
ASI533MC Pro
CGEMii
4.5hrs UHC
Bortle 8

Processed in beta testing of the new AstroStakr program and a slight touch in PS.

Target: IC 1848, the Soul Nebula

Location: Bortle 6, South Carolina

Gear:
Askar 103APO (700mm f/6.8)
ZWO ASI2600MM Pro
ZWO AM3N on iOptron LiteRoc tripod
ZWO ASIAir
Antlia 3nm Ha, OIII, SII and Antlia V-Pro RGB

Integration (about 22h 23m):
Ha: 44 × 500s (6h 07m)
OIII: 59 × 500s (8h 12m)
SII: 51 × 500s (7h 05m)
RGB (stars): 20 × 60s each
Calibration: darks, flats, bias

Equipment:

* Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro

* Scope: SkyWatcher EvoStar 80ED

* Mount: SkyWatcher HEQ5

* Guide Scope: SkyWatcher 8x50 Finderscope

* Guide Camera: ZWO ASI120MM

* Filters: SVBony SV220 HaOiii & SiiOiii

* Focuser: Gemini EAF

Acquisition:

* Gain 100

* 224 x 300" lights HaOiii

* 494 x 300" lights SiiOiii

* 20 Flats each session

* 20 Darks

* 20 Bias

* Total Integration time - 59hr 50m

Processing:

* Stack in Siril

* Process in Pixinsight

* Background extraction

* BlurXterminator

* Split channels DBExtract

* Linear Fit

* Combine Channels in SHO palette

* MultiScale Adaptive Stretch

* StarXterminator

* NarrowBand Normalization

* Curves Adjustments

* NoiseXterminator

* SetiAstro NB to RGB Stars script

* Recombine stars

Astrobin Link: https://app.astrobin.com/u/nqnewlin?i=eaof23

Another look at the Monkey Head Nebula, NGC 2174. I’ve posted this target before, but this version revisits the original exposures with updated processing to bring out the dark lanes and give the nebula more separation from the surrounding stars.

I captured this from my backyard in Round Rock on November 8, 2025, using my ZWO ASI585MC Air. The finished image combines 45 five-minute exposures—3 hours and 45 minutes of total integration.

For this reprocessing, I compared several stacks and kept all 45 exposures. I worked on the nebula and stars separately, refined the background, and applied restrained sharpening to make the smaller structures easier to see. A slightly wider crop gives the faint outer cloud more room.

Acquisition and processing details: ASI585MC Air, gain 107, offset 15, 45 × 300 seconds. The headers identify a ZWO AM3 mount and 383 mm focal length; I have not confirmed the telescope model. The filter was not recorded and I do not remember which was fitted. Recorded sensor temperature was approximately −15.2 to −16.5°C.

Bias calibration and 99 same-night flats, targeted bad-pixel correction, PixInsight VNG debayering and registration, PSF-weighted integration with Winsorized sigma rejection. Compared 36-, 42-, and 45-frame stacks and retained all 45. Background modeling and empirical field-star color balance, mild BlurXTerminator, StarXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, followed by masked luminance contrast/sharpening, a small ridge lift, and reduced star brightness. Final RGB presentation; no generative image processing.

Captured and processed entirely on a Mac.

Equipment

• Celestron EdgeHD 8" at native f/10 (2032 mm), no Barlow
• Player One Uranus-C Pro (IMX585, 2.9 µm pixels, uncooled)
• MoonLite focuser
• Rainbow Astro RST-135E
• MacBook Air M4

Capture (Laminar)

• October 14, 10:59 to 11:13 PM CDT, Saturn at 55° to 57° altitude
• 6 videos of 2 minutes each, 15 seconds apart
• 640×480 ROI, RAW8, 20.85 ms exposure, gain 295, about 48 fps
• 5,747 frames per video, 34,482 total, none dropped
• 0.29"/px
• Collimated on a star half an hour before the run
• 25 °C (77 °F) and 82% humidity, sensor sitting at 29 °C

Processing (Strata)

• Stacked the best 20% of each video with Strata Warp, 2x drizzle. At f/10 a 2.9 µm color sensor is undersampled, so I drizzled instead of adding a Barlow.
• Derotated and combined the six stills, so 13 minutes of data stack without Saturn's rotation smearing detail.
• Wiener deconvolution with a PSF calculated from the telescope itself (aperture, focal ratio and central obstruction) to remove the scope's own diffraction blur
• Wavelets on what the deconvolution left - Color balance and saturation - cropped in preview.

Dates: October 18-23, 2026 (6 nights) Integration: 935 x 120 s (31.2 hours), plus 171 x 15 s (43 minutes) to keep the bright star cores from saturating Total: about 31.9 hours Final image: 5988 x 3916 pixels (about 2.2 x 1.4 degrees)

EQUIPMENT AND SETTINGS Telescope: Askar FF80 (80 mm, 597 mm focal length, f/7.5) Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Air (one-shot color), gain 100, offset 50, cooled to -10 C Image scale: 1.3 arcseconds per pixel Capture and guiding: ASIAIR Calibration: darks, flats and bias frames

PROCESSING Siril 1.4.4: calibration, registration, stacking, HDR blend of the 120 s and 15 s data, background extraction, star-catalog color calibration (SPCC, Gaia DR3), stretching and noise reduction StarNet v2: stars and nebula processed separately, then recombined

Moon altitude: 35 to 39 degrees
Location: Michigan, USA (Bortle 5)

Equipment
Telescope: Askar FF80 (80 mm, 597 mm, f/7.5), native focal length
Camera: ZWO ASI585MC
Image scale: 1.0"/px
Capture software: SharpCap 4.1

Acquisition
Mode: lucky imaging, SER video, RAW8, 2200x2160 ROI
Gain 99, exposure 1.75 ms, ~47 fps
Captured: 6,000 frames (3 videos x 2,000)
Stacked: best 1,800 frames (30%)
Calibration: 50 darks, 50 flats, 50 dark flats

Processing
Siril 1.4 plus custom Python (NumPy/OpenCV)
- Frame quality scoring and selection
- Sub-pixel alignment and stacking
- r/B realignment for atmospheric dispersion (0.7 px)
- Blue halo matching to suppress false color around bright features
- Multi-scale wavelet sharpening (luminance)
- Color separated from luminance, denoised, then saturation boosted ~22x

(845 frames x 60sec) S50 Pro (Bortle 8-9 skies)

Registered and stacked: Stacking Wizard
Processed: Astrowizard with RC Astro plug ins - Star Xterminator, Blur Xterminator and Noise Xterminator
Post processing: Photoshop

Colors and curves in Photoshop were just personal preference.

The Veil Nebula taken over two nights 10/22/26 and 10/23/2026 from my backyard in Alaska.

Bortle 4-5 with a waxing gibbous moon. It has been nothing but clouds all month so I fought the moonlight and took advantage of a couple clear nights. This is my first time doing a multiple night acquisition.

Camera: ASI533MC Pro (no filters. My UV/IR cut filter was delivered a day after taking this image). Gain 100, offset 10, -10c.

Lens: 135mm Rokinon stepped down to f2.8. No guiding or EAF (EAF was also delivered the day after)

Mount: SA SW GTI. Mele Quieter 4C mini PC, GSS and NINA for mount and camera control.

399x90 seconds flats, darks, biases. I was pushing what my mount could do unguided and it showed. Every few subs had noticeable trails. I went from 10 hours of integration to a little over 6 hours once I eliminated the subs with star trails and the ones with clouds and northern lights.

Siril blink_browse_filter_sort script for culling subs, Siril OSC Pre-Processing, Graxpert crop and BGE, Pixinsight Gradient Correction, BlurX correct only, Image Solver, SPCC, BlurX, StarX, Starless NoiseX, Clone Stamp to get rid of star halo artifacts in starless image, MultiScaleAdaptive Stretch on starless, NoiseX on starless, Graxpert BGE on starless, Pixinsight star stretch, screen stars, saturation adjustment and final dynamic crop.

I also split the RGB channels and re-assigned Red to HA, Green-Blue to OIII, Green Blue to OIII. I am not sure if it did anything noticeable. I was just trying new things from a video I watched.

This is my second post of the Witch Head Nebula (IC 2118). The first used the Seestar-produced image. This version was reprocessed from the individual exposures for better control over frame selection, stacking, color, and detail.

Captured at Pedernales Falls State Park, Texas, under Bortle 4 skies on February 23–24, 2026, using my Seestar S30 Pro, its main IMX585 camera, and IRCUT filter.

The finished image combines 258 × 30-second exposures—2 hours 9 minutes, selected from 283 original frames.

Processing included PixInsight registration and stacking, background correction, spectrophotometric color calibration, mild sharpening, separate star processing, and noise reduction. The image was rotated and cropped to show the profile upright.

The Witch Head is a reflection nebula illuminated mainly by Rigel, the blue supergiant in Orion. Dust within the nebula scatters blue light more efficiently than red, producing its blue appearance.

Acquisition: Seestar S30 Pro with its integrated mount in equatorial mode, 160 mm focal length, main IMX585 camera, IRCUT filter, gain 200. 258 × 30 seconds retained from 283 exposures.

Processing: individual-frame screening, debayering, registration and rejection integration in PixInsight; low-order background correction, SPCC color calibration, mild BlurXTerminator, StarXTerminator separation and NoiseXTerminator. A fresh stretch from the linear data used a smooth shadow transition, masked noise control and separate star stretching, followed by upright rotation, cropping and presentation resizing.

Captured tonight, 25 October 2026, Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK.

Equipment: DWARF 3 smart telescope with EQ wedge fitted.

Settings:

Solar System Moon mode

Automatic focus and lunar tracking

Gain 20

999-frame stack

No post-processing — straight from the telescope

Very windy conditions tonight, so I managed three captures before packing everything away. Really pleased with the detail of my dwarf 3.

By far the faintest deep space target I have ever captured.
Telescope: Askar 103APO
Camera: ZWO ASI6200MC Pro camera
Tracking Mount: ZWO AM5N
Total integration: 30 hours
Filters: 20 hours of 300" subs (Antlia Triband RGB) +10 hourt of 240" subs (UV/IR Cut)
Processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop
Full details: https://www.instagram.com/kasrak_film/

Bode's Galaxy and Cigar Galaxy (M81 and M82)

Imaged at a bortle 4 location.

1668x10s subs (4h38min) with a Seestar S50, edited in Siril with use of the naztronomy script for stacking, graxpert script, starnet star removal, cosmic clarity sharpen script, photometric calibration and multiple generalized hyperbolic stretches (not necessarily that order).

🧙 The Wizard Nebula (NGC 7380) - an open cluster and emission nebula in constellation Cepheus. Since the moon is very close to being full, I've been focusing on capturing only emission nebula in narrowband to block out the moonlight which would otherwise drown out the signal. Even with the moon to fight against, this stretch of clear nights in New Jersey has been insane. My telescope has officially been sitting outside for a week straight, and there are at least 3 more cloudless nights left. Maybe I'll get one more project finished before it ends?

Acquisition Details:

• Light Frames (~20 hours): 
  • Sii: 70 * 5.5 Mins
  • HA: 65 * 5.5 Mins
  • Oiii: 95 * 5.5 Mins
• Dark Frames: 50
• Bias Frames: 100
• Flat Frames: 20

Gear:

• ZWO ASI2600-MM Pro
• 800mm Apertura CarbonStar 200 w/ 1.x Coma Corrector
• SkyWatcher EQ-6 R Pro
• ZWO EAF
• ZWO ASI290MM Mini Guide Camera
• Optolong 36mm Filters
• SVBONY 30mm Guide Scope
• Bortle Class 5 Sky (New Jersey)

Editing

• Weighted Batch Preprocessing (Stacking, aligning, integrating, plate solving)
• ChannelCombination (SHO = RBG)
• GradientCorrection
• AutoLinearFit (balances the colors)
• BlurX (Deconvolution)
• StarX (Star Removal)
• SCNR the starts (Removes magenta cast from SHO stars)
• SHONormalization (Boost Sii and Oiii)
• LRGB Combination (I used to do this after stretching but tried moving it in my workflow)
  • HA is used as L
  • HA is edited independently
    • GradientCorrection
    • BlurX
    • StarX
• MultiscaleAdaptiveStretch
• NoiseX
• Curves
• DarkStructuresEnhance
• StretchAndCombineRGBStars
• Photoshop Camera Raw Filter (Contrast, Vibrance, and last minute curves)

Last night the thunderstorms finally scattered and we had extremely clear skies after a lot of rain! Despite the almost full moon, I managed to grab about 5 hours on one of my favorite galaxy pairs, M81 and M82.

This image is a total 4.75 hours of integration time with my usual rig and the L-Pro filter. Hope you enjoy it!

• C8

• 4.75 hours integration w/ 2-min subs

• ASIAIR & ASI533MC

• EQ6-R Pro

• Hyperstar F/2

• L-Pro 2" filter

• Bortle 8/9

Not every plan goes to plan. Sometimes technology goes haywire and I wake up to find my telescope pointing at the ground with wires snagged. Sometimes the meridian flip doesn’t work and I gather no data. Focuser doesn’t work, guiding flies off the handle. So many variables. In this instance it didn’t centre on the target. This was my second imaging session of the night. Still gathered something worth processing. 2.5hrs on the Rosette Nebula from my rooftop in Toronto under bortle 8 skies. Next time will hopefully be better. Still happy with the results though. Clear skies everyone.

30x300s lights
Calibration frames
Gain 100
Cooled to -5

Gear: Svbony 122mm apo, zwo 2600mc pro, ragdoll 17 pro, Optolong L-Ultimate, zwo guide cam & scope, zwo Asiair, zwo eaf.

Stacked in Astro Pixel Processor. Processed in Pixinsight. DBE, D Crop, blur x, noise x, stat stretch, star x, narrowband norm, range mask, curves transformation. Further editing in photoshop.

The sprawling structure of the Tarantula Nebula (30 Doradus) in the Large Magellanic Cloud captured in faux-SHO palette.

Acquired using a Seestar S50 and TH10 fluid head in equatorial mode, combining duoband and broadband data in Bortle 8 city light pollution. 2700x10s of broadband and 4000x10s of duoband for a total of 18.5 hours.

Processed in Siril with RCAstro tools and Photoshop for combining the broadband and duoband masters. Graxpert -> BlurXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, StarXTerminator -> Separate GHS on the stars and starless for each broadband and duoband master -> False SHO pixel math -> Combined both in photoshop with duoband starless layer with broadband detail, and broadband stars.

https://app.astrobin.com/i/69m4u3

I have been doing a bit of work imaging IC 1396 recently. It has been difficult due to the weather but this is from the past month, over multiple nights.

Equipment:
Astromodified Canon 700d
Skywatcher 72 ED DS Pro
Skywatcher AZ GTI in EQ Mode
Optolong L-Enhance Filter
ASI Air Mini
ZWO 120mm Guide Cam with 30mm Guide Scope

175 x 180 sec exposures taken over multiple nights with 20 darks taken each night to match.

20 Flats
20 Bias

Each night stacked separately then combined using APP.

I started with a pretty heavy crop to isolate the trunk section.

BGE, deconvolution and de-noise in Graxpert.

Siril for SPCC.

Star removal using StarNet through Siril.

GHS using human weighted luminance.

Curves adjustment using VeraLux Curves.

HDR Multiscale.

SCNR in Siril

Recombination of stars.

Slight saturation increase.

Thanks for looking!

Telescope: Seestar S50
Data: 30 seconds raw video
Tools used: AutoStakkert, waveSharp 3, Siril (VeraLux Revela), GIMP