How long of an exposure was this?
this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2026
42 points (100.0% liked)
Astrophotography
4124 readers
1 users here now
Welcome to !astrophotography!
We are Lemmy's dedicated astrophotography community!
If you want to see or post pictures of space taken by amateurs using amateur level equipment, this is the place for you!
If you want to learn more about taking astro photos, check out our wiki or our discord!
Please read the rules before you post! It is your responsibility to be aware of current rules. Failure to be aware of current rules may result in your post being removed without warning at moderator discretion.
Rules
- I | Real space images only.
-
Astrophotography refers to images of astronomical objects or phenomena exclusively.
-
~~Images that show objects or people below the Kármán Line (100km) will be removed.~~ We won't be enforcing this rule for now, but as the community grows eventually we will split and have a separate space for just landscape astro.
-
Images must be an accurate representation of a real astronomical object.
- II | Original and Amateur Content Only
-
Image posts can only be images that you have captured and processed yourself, or discussion about capturing and/or processing your own images.
-
Images acquired from public sources, professional observatories, or other professional services are not allowed.
-
If you have done a drastic alteration or reprocessing of a prior submission, you may repost your edit - but only after a minimum of one week has passed.
- III | Post Types
-
Image posts are to link directly to the image, not to landing pages, personal galleries, blogs, or professional sites. Link to these in the comments. (AstroBin and Imgur, are allowed)
-
Questions are welcome here for the time being.
-
Links to blogs, articles or external websites should be interesting and promote discussion about amateur astrophotography.
- IV | Titles
- All image posts should just include include the name of the object being photographed. Extra info such as equipment, it being your first image, or other information should go in a comment along with your acquisition info. Please see this page for more details.
If your post is removed, try reposting with a different title. Don't hesitate to message the mods if you still have questions!
- V | Acquisition and Processing Information
-
All submitted images must include acquisition and processing details as a top-level comment. All posts without this information may be given a warning, and if not updated will be removed.
-
This includes the telescope, mount, camera, accessories, and any other pieces of equipment you used to capture the image.
-
You must also include processing details, i.e. the programs you used and a general rundown of the workflow/processes you used within those programs. “Processed in Photoshop” is not enough.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Whoops, probably shouldve thrown that in the title. it was a 10s exposure at iso 8000, wide open at f/1.2
i processed using darktable. this was my first time trying anything remotely astro related, so any criticism welcome! there's some hot pixels down there in the shadows i coudlve cleaned up a bit more, but meh
Edit: just to add some more detail because I failed to read the rules. Sorry bout that. I processed in darktable, essentially I just used darktable's astro Denoise module, set the strength to around 75. I used the regular Denoise profiled module, and capture sharpening. I pushed the darks down and pulled the highlights up in the sky with color balance RGB and a mask, and did essentially the opposite with a second color balance RGB instance in order to bring out the land and the house. I had quite a few hot pixels that I tried to remove with the hot pixel module, but it didn't seem to work, so I used retouch to just remove them. They were all in the land section so I didn't disturb any stars
Looks great for a first shot! If you took a couple more exposures you could stack them and use dark frames to help with the hot pixels. Also if you ever get a star tracker you could stop the lens down slightly to help with the distorted stars on the edges, but overall it looks pretty decent
Thanks! When you say
the distorted stars on the edges
do you mean the edge of the frame or the edges of the stars? I'm assuming you mean edge of the frame due to the edge-to-edge sharpness diminishing wide open, but it seems to my eyes all my stars are a bit distorted -- even in the center. Then again, I have no idea how they ought to look! lol. I did use the 500 rule to try to avoid star trails. I think 13s exposure was acceptable but i wanted to be safe so i went with 10s.
any chance you have any reading recommendations for astrophotography, or maybe even for astronomy in general?
Edge of the frame. Since stars are point sources of light any distortion from the optics, trailing from a long exposure, or even the atmosphere will distort them. IMO the center stars are what I’d consider acceptable for an untracked image, but then again I don’t really do much widefield astrophotography. It could also be your camera shifted slightly or from walking around near it?
There’s a number of YouTube channels of varying quality/expertise that are good for beginners, like AstroBackyard, Alaskan astro, cuiv the lazy geek to name a few. The cloudynights forum should If your a discord person, we do have one for this community (.gg/astrophotography) that’s pretty active with a lot of info that’s been gathered over the years, and it’s where I’ve learned most of what I know about the hobby.
Ahh gotcha. I bet it was because I was wide open. I'll check out some of those resources, thanks for the input!