Take Pro Astrophotos with Any Setup (Complete Guide)
Astrophotography is more than just equipment, stacking, and processing. In this complete guide, I explain how to make your astrophotos look better by focusing on the four pillars o...
The Space Koala Astrophotography by Luca Bartek
G’day, Luca I finally made the time to check out this video….heads above the usual faire out there. You put quite a bit of effort into this presentation; Very OBVIOUSLY! Not just your powerful, well conceived narrative as a Master Class in and of itself‼️; but also the enlarged images and how you presented them. My goodness, have to infirm my friends & colleagues in our SJ, Ca Club of this production!! Might consider a business arrangement with any science program on television. Just a wonderful job of being educated / informed, while being entertained. 🙌
hey there, oh wow thank you for the kind words. Glad you enjoyed the presentation and special thanks if you get the word out there, it helps me out a lot! :)
All excellent information - thank you! I started my photography education 40 years ago studying and attempting to imitate landscape and macro pictures from Audubon Society, Ansel Adams, and others who focused very deliberately on the image starting with careful planning. I made my own prints from 24 exposure rolls of film. Even now that I can just tap away on my phone and take a dozen pictures or grab a 4K video and select the absolute best frame, I don't. I spend time composing and intentionally snapping the picture or, almost as often, deciding it's not even worth attempting because I know the reproduction will just miss too much of the reality seen directly by the eyeball and be boring to look at. Now that I'm getting into astrophotography, I'm definitely starting by looking at composition with tools like Stellarium well before setting up the gear to see what I can do with the photons. I think it's the only way to make something that sticks with people in the age of doom scrolling - you definitely must produce a compositionally strong image.
glad you agree! Being intentional is what makes the difference between a quick snapshot/observation (which are also valid in and of themselves) vs a photograph, which I think we should strive for.
As always, thank you for taking the time to make these videos!
Best analysis of what astrophotography really is. Thank you.
Bravo, my lady. Well thought out and presented. Your videos are full of such great information. You have helped me learn many new concepts and have provided a valuable source of information about a difficult and challenging hobby.
Thanks!
Thanks, glad you liked it!
@the_space_koalaIt's an amazing video! And it reminded me, right at the beginning, of how much I "suffer" with the sky here where I live: hot, relative humidity around 80%, and in a city that once had the second highest sea spray IN THE WORLD (an I leave right next to the ocean)! Besides that, from my balcony I can only reach 42 degrees of altitude, so I shot from 20° to that limit. Lot's of atmosphere and LP! It's a terrible sky, and under these conditions it reminded me to be satisfied with my photos, haha. I can't travel that often to see better skies because of work, so I do what I can here...
What a superb presentation. Great work.
Very very detailled video, you hit the nail on the head for every major aspect of deep sky astrophotography. I would definitely recommand this video for a beginner/intermediate, gj !
This is an excellent presentation. Thank you for making this video for those who were unable to attend NEAIC.
Excellent presentation.
Your breakdown of how to calibrate with darks, flats and bias really clarified why my stacks were showing banding—I’ve been skipping the master dark step. Since I started applying that, I’ve been sending the calibrated subs to Cosmos Darkroom for the final stretch and color calibration, and it cuts my processing time from hours to a couple of minutes. Keeps me focused on capturing more frames.
Thanks! Also, while I love the focus and balance of the cropped version of your Giraffe Nebula image, don't abandon the uncropped version--I think the full image is awesome!
What a great presentation!
28:59 the reason rgb images appear green sometimes isn't because of the bayer pattern, it is because image sensors are just more sensitive to green light rather than other wavelengths
you are right I should not have mixed the bayer pattern in there... debayering already takes care of that
Great job, Luca! You are one if the best teachers on processing astronomical images. Thank you for spending your precious time on helping others learn to process images correctly. 😃🌺
Hi Space Koala. I have a question for you I am just starting out with a Seestar S30 PRO I see every video shot at night uses a red light flashlight or red headband. Can you tell me why and is there a scale of red color that I need to look for? Thank you in advance. Dave
hey, this video explains it all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rdGdZttjR0
15:00 Never in my life would i even consider removing a galaxy in the background of my image lol. Great guide!
Wow! What an awesome presentation! The presentation and organization of this information is wonderful, not to mention the informative content. I will be adapting the organization of this for wildlife photography.
Taking 'pretty pictures' is what astrophotography is all about isn't it? After all, we're not scientist collecting data for scientific analysis. Seriously, it's all personal artistic interpretation. But as a community, we can generally agree as to what comprises a pleasing astrophoto. Be consistent in your approach-collect your flats, dark flats, bias and dark frames-always. (The decision NOT to use them is yours-but at least you'll have the data if needed later). Take your exposures from the darkest skies you can access. Avoid some processing techniques such as completely removing stars from nebula shots, -artistic interpretation gone wrong in my opinion. Personally, I limit my use of filters of any type, if possible, (I admit I'm not a fan of the false color palette). The minute you have to explain that the colors in your photo are the result of using filters, you've lost the interest of the average person. 'Is this photo real? 'Oh, its fake colors' they'll say. Try explaining your reasoning for doing so to the average person unfamiliar with our hobby.
Ever wonder how a person wanting to do astrophotography in the thick of a galaxy would deal with light pollution.
Imagine those MW photos though ❤ even the “winter” MW shots would be incredible