Time for another galaxy! This is still from the observations a week ago. I took more tiles for the Triangulum Galaxy M33, and I really like the result! Colors came out nicely, including the small pinkish blobs that are ultra-hot hydrogen clouds! 🔭🧪 #astrophotography 1/ - ThreadSky

mpoessel.de • 107 days ago

Time for another galaxy! This is still from the observations a week ago. I took more tiles for the Triangulum Galaxy M33, and I really like the result! Colors came out nicely, including the small pinkish blobs that are ultra-hot hydrogen clouds! 🔭🧪 #astrophotography 1/

Comments

tellmejeff.bsky.social•107 days ago

I just can't get over how big the universe is. So beautiful. But so big. I want to go see it all. Relativity says "sorry, but no".

mpoessel.de•107 days ago

On the plus side, relativity also says "you know what, let me show you a movie - the farther you look out into space, the farther back in cosmic history you will see" :-)

telecomone.bsky.social•107 days ago

Beautiful.
Space is sure a big place!

garenshaw.bsky.social•107 days ago

If I was rich I'd be doing #Astrophotography every chance I got, its crazy how cool the night sky can be.

bloomscroll.bsky.social•107 days ago

Gorgeous

elibnyc.bsky.social•107 days ago

Oh my God. That is such a gorgeous picture. Holy smokes!

mpoessel.de•107 days ago

Thank you!

jackwuzhere.bsky.social•107 days ago

I can totally see my house from here!
Kidding!
Beautiful picture.

grubenpony.bsky.social•107 days ago

Do you run any manual postprocessing on your images except for stitching the tiles or is that just the output of the Seestar? I only got my Seestar very recently and the weather has been pretty crap ever since.

mpoessel.de•106 days ago

For mosaics, I take 30-minute-tiles for each region; more than that and image rotation becomes too large for my taste. When processing, I first stack the 10s frames for each tile separately, then crop manually to get rid of the noisy border regions. I then mosaic the resulting stacked tiles, 1/

mpoessel.de•106 days ago

do gradient removal and denoising with graXpert, color correction with Siril. The only manual in the sense of arbitrary/not exactly reproducible processing is the stretching and the saturation boost (both in Siril). 2/2

grubenpony.bsky.social•106 days ago

Thank you. I used "manual" as a contrary to "I just let the Seestar software work its magic", but I guess I'll have to dive into graphic processing as well then. If it's ever going to clear up, that is.

mpoessel.de•106 days ago

Ah, ok, now I know what you mean. I started out letting the Seestar do its thing (that was before it had mosaic mode), but gradually moved to more “manual” stuff. By now, doing the manual processing is half of the fun!

grubenpony.bsky.social•106 days ago

If I may ask: I had some sessions where the Seestar gathers for around 30 minutes, but only images from the first few minutes are stacked, the rest is apparently discarded. I'm unsure of the reasons.

mischarn.bsky.social•107 days ago

So pretty! What are you imaging and processing with?

mpoessel.de•107 days ago

Thanks! Seestar S50, mosaic with AstroPixelProcessor, gradient removal and denoising with GraXpert, color correction and stretching with Siril.

mischarn.bsky.social•107 days ago

I don’t think most people know how much time, effort, planning and equipment it takes to capture and process an image of this quality. It’s clearly a labor of love for you.

mpoessel.de•107 days ago

I appreciate the implicit compliment, but I think the image as an example goes in the opposite direction: to show how accessible astrophotography can be. The Seestar S50 is comparatively low-price, and my processing is not particularly skilled (I started doing this a few months ago).

mischarn.bsky.social•107 days ago

‘Comparatively’ being the key word here. I have a used doublet meter (150mm objective) refractor with a few nice eyepieces, an old GEM and the barest of accessories, and it still was a bit of an outlay for a middle-aged nurse. But you are correct that accessibility has massively improved. ❤️

mpoessel.de•107 days ago

You are right that “comparatively” is key. The range is over more than one order of magnitude, though, and I wanted to make clear I am not playing in the league of those who invest (with the privilege of being able to do so, true) in “top gear”.

mimianvegan.bsky.social•107 days ago

Incredible!

innerchild2.bsky.social•107 days ago

Amazing!

mikechristie.bsky.social•107 days ago

That’s with the Seestar? Great picture!

mpoessel.de•107 days ago

Yes, and thank you! It’s a (handmade, small, heavily overlapping 16-tiled) mosaic.

thedarthspurious.bsky.social•106 days ago

Very nice!

Shot this with a Tak TOA130 a few years back....

Personally, I think you might be able to push your data a bit barder and get those dust lanes to "pop" and some contrast/brightening of the gas bubbles.

mpoessel.de•106 days ago

Very cool! (And nice gear!) I'm not done with M33 yet and will collect more photons as they become available :-)

thispetera.bsky.social•107 days ago

Very impressive picture!

ianseine.bsky.social•107 days ago

Wow.

mpoessel.de•107 days ago

Here is the comparison with my previous version, which had less contrast in the brighter areas, and bleached-out colors. I like the difference, even though I am not really sure where it comes from. I got more light this time, sure, but it’s probably more because of variations in processing. 2/

mpoessel.de•107 days ago

Fun fact: pinkish blobs like this, albeit in more distant galaxies, fooled Edwin Hubble when he was determining galaxy distances which then led to his discovery of cosmic expansion. He thought they were the galaxy’s brightest red stars, but they aren’t - they are gas clouds. 3/

mpoessel.de•107 days ago

The differences due to different processing are a reminder that astro images like that are not realistic in showing us what we would see with the naked eye. In order to show the structures of the galaxy (which are real!), we need to stretch a tiny region of brightness values so our eyes can 4/

mpoessel.de•107 days ago

grasp the contrasts. 5/5

spacepunch.bsky.social•107 days ago

Nice! I’m just under a year into astrophotography and recently had first light with my new 12 inch Newtonian F4. This is 1h54m of M33. Of course my telescope is not as handy to transport as yours!

mpoessel.de•107 days ago

Nice! I particularly like the additional detail for the HII regions in your image.

crazyeyes64.bsky.social•107 days ago

Amazing how much there is out there, nothing will ever amaze me as much as outer space. It's absolutely bonkers, good capture!

kuujira.bsky.social•107 days ago

This is so beautiful!! Galaxies look so edible. Like soup ✨

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