5 Roadblocks to better Astrophotography - 1 Year Special!

[@mikelockwood2104]

71 year old Astrophotographer says ........ you nailed it. Keep 'em coming

[@thomasphennigan]

Great video and well said Ryan . Im a total rank beginner and at 70 years old I find the pursuit ( I refuse to call it just a hobby ) of astrophotography a blend of both science and art. I find it compelling to say the least. Your channel is a breath of fresh air . Keep em coming !

[@darkrangersinc]

Couldn’t agree more! Once you start traveling regular to dark skies it becomes a lifestyle as well. I’ve seen many people find this hobby in their 60/70s and put out some great work. Excited to see your progress.

[@sonofoneintheuniverse]

The learning process is where the real magic is ... what once was hard becomes easy and there is always a next level. 😊

[@jeffparker641]

Amen… Love your content & love the no BS attitude. Let’s go TX Astro team, Thank you for all that you do!😊

[@darkrangersinc]

I’m a member of one of the Texas Astro clubs and they’ve got some talented people in there. I don’t post in there currently because I’m not imaging in Texas right now, but I do like to see what people come up with!

[@douglasfleming1]

Good points. Smart scopes dumb everything down

[@darkrangersinc]

Yeah, I’m just not a fan. I know that makes me unpopular to some people. I saw Dillon O’Donnell just put out a video kind of echoing the sentiment. I think they’re OK for the casual astronomer or young person. I actually had no problem with them until they started being compared to using an actual rig and that’s when I started to not like them. I had people reaching out to me to upgrade their equipment because they couldn’t get the results. They thought they would and so essentially it was just a waste of $500 because you can’t upgrade them. I think they will get to a point where it’s worthwhile the Celestron one looks the best thus far, but until it comes with an equatorial amount and the ability to upgrade the components, I will still push anybody who is really interested into the hobby into getting even a budget rig set up, which is not very hard to put together

[@N1701S]

Thanks to Ryan’s videos I can now look at an image and realize that it needs more data. I might need multiple nights on one target. And, I’ve just scratched the surface of Pixinsight. Hanging onto the learning cliff with all ten fingernails.

[@Astro_Shed]

Great video, and all useful info…👍🏻

[@KevinRudd-w8s]

Great advice. I only wish I'd seen a video like this five years ago. It took me a while to figure out that the reason my images were so poor was due to insufficient data or over processing the data I had. One thing I do believe is that so long as you learn from your mistakes, no time is wasted even if you didn't produce the image you wanted, there's always tomorrow. Stay positive.

[@darkrangersinc]

Sometimes we have to learn the hard way to fully trust it anyways. I’ve been telling this to people for months and months before they finally take the advice and then they see how much better it is when they double the integration time and finally vow to never short change it again so at least you know for sure from experience what the benefit is.

[@bengundy3372]

Thanks for a great video Ryan. Great information and insight...

[@WArockets]

Something I told my family when they asked why astrophotography always seems never ending is that nothing is ever finished just a functioning work in progress. I always see ways to improve. I see things like BlurX as the cherry on top like you say but also it can be a frustration saver if I'm just not having a good few nights I'll keep imaging, heavily cull and BlurX keeps me happy and engaged in the hobby.

[@darkrangersinc]

Yeah, I get it. There’s a lot of challenges with the hobby and some of the ones that are in your control are easier to live with then some like having bad weather. I know I don’t have it as bad as some. I think the longest I’ve ever gone because of weather is probably 10 or 12 days and that’s pretty rare. My only caution with BlurX to everybody is just to remember that if your stars are blurry, that also means you’re nebula detail is blurry and well that tool can recognize a star and make it round again. It doesn’t know what the nebula structure is supposed to look like so you’re going to have potentially sharpened stars but the other data could be softer than you would hope for. It sounds like you have the right mentality though and for the most part are doing what you can to get the best possible and that’s all you can do

[@raymondlillard1054]

Commenting to give your channel a bump

[@darkrangersinc]

Appreciated!

[@jayhull4096]

Lots of words of wisdom there. Thanks for the encouragement to constantly think about how to improve and explore new methods. I've certainly improved dramatically since taking up the hobby last summer/fall and then there is the speed with which the tools that are available have themselves evolved so quickly over the same time!

[@darkrangersinc]

That’s good to hear, it’s definitely possible to get good at the Saavi pretty quickly. My first image wasn’t too bad. I did a lot of research before hand and went to a Bortle 1 dark site. If you put the effort in, you can get pretty good results quickly, especially with how good the equipment and software has gotten over the last couple years.

[@txdave2]

I am almost 70 years old and am just getting started in astronomy and astrophotography. I purchased a Skywatcher refractor with a go-to mount along with a couple of nice eyepieces. Pretty soon after that I bought a used DSLR and downloaded a few software programs. My two biggest roadblocks have been the steep learning curve of some of the software programs, and biggest of all...the weather. I live in a rural Bortle 3 to 4 area, but have had nothing but clouds every night for weeks on end. This has been so discouraging, especially for a newbie. New subscriber.

[@darkrangersinc]

Yeah, clouds are definitely tough. At least you don’t have a ton of light pollution to deal with. if you want to set up some time to go through the software, you can shoot me an email otherwise there is a fair amount of good stuff online including this page for Pixinsight or Photoshop. I know neither program is free, but I would highly recommend investing in it as processing is the major skill involved in the hobby. Once you get good at collecting data, it becomes pretty much auto pilot and the real skilled development and hard work is in the image processing as well as I mentioned in the video having the discipline to wait till you get enough data. Since you are under darker skies, you do get more signal per unit of time than somebody who is in a light polluted city, which is nice. But it still takes a couple nights worth of data to start getting some nice images. Often times if it’s a partly cloudy forecast, I will set my stuff up and have it run even if most of the night is bad data if the clouds part even for an hour or two it’s better than nothing so you could try that because often times the forecast is incorrect, and when it says it’s going to be mostly cloudy, there will be patches of clear skies. One thing you can set up your DSLR with a wide Lens and do a Timelapse during the night and see if it does in fact clear up at times. I do that for video content but it’s cool to see how much clear skies you can get even when the forecast says otherwise

[@txdave2]

@@darkrangersinc Thank you for your response. It's been like monsoon season here in central Texas this Spring. Looks like there may be a short break tonight. Yay!

[@GrouchoDuke]

Great stuff!

[@RawNoise]

Great channel Ryan! Congrats on the anniversary and I look forward to the channels future.

[@darkrangersinc]

Thanks, great name for a YT channel. Would also make a good name for an astrophotography bad or podcast.

[@RawNoise]

@@darkrangersinc Thanks brother!! YT channel in the future maybe. In the mean time I'm enjoying the shit out of yours. Great content and production value, strong work!!

[@woody5109]

Great content sir, hopefully one day, our sky’s will clear. Cheers.

[@tostativerdk]

Your videos are so thoughtful and high quality, I really appreciate them! Also, I am going to start using Photoshop/Lightroom for more than just exporting to JPEG :)

[@ekalbkr]

I'm another 71 orbits of the sun amateur astrophotographer. I truly appreciate your channel. Your 5 hints to improve my images was excellent. My takeaway was to take my PI processed image into Photoshop for final adjustments. I first learned processing on it, but havent used it since i started PI. What a waste of a fantastic tool! Also, I like your suggestion to fit your processing to the quality of your data. Not trying to force more out of an image than the data can support makes sense. After some 3 years of learning, makings lots of mistakes and spending lots of time and money, I'm finally getting to a much better place in my imaging. And there are still light years to go. Thanks for your help getting there!

[@darkrangersinc]

Glad to hear you are making progress. I think this is a great hobby to get into at any age and your takeaways sound very solid to me. I personally know for a fact not get the results I do without Photoshop. And if I tried to replicate in PI, it would add a lot of time to each processing session.

[@briankotak403]

Awesome advice Ryan. Every point resonates. For me, I need to invest multiple nights on a single target. I tend to do just one night on a target and then once to the next. Part of that is because there are just so many interesting targets out there and I want you to capture as many as possible. However, the lack of integration time is noticeable and it is too easy to overcook the data in post processing. Dr B from Manitoba, Canada 🇨🇦

[@darkrangersinc]

Yeah, sometimes it’s the kid in a candy store fact where you just want to image everything. That’s why I say discipline and not effort because it doesn’t take any less effort to image multiple targets it just takes discipline to stick with one, when there are so many others out there. But from all the people I’ve worked with when they do finally make the decision to prioritize less targets with more time. Their overall satisfaction does go up. Sometimes it’s just literally even one more night on the difference between good and great. If you truly can’t get the additional time then pulling back how far are you push the data is the next best option as you mentioned

[@erewhon42]

Good perspective / sound advice as always. Thanks! And tbh I've thought your production values / editing were quite solid as long as I've been watching.

[@darkrangersinc]

Ha thanks, I’m just new to the video stuff I don’t shoot in LOG or anything like that I do shoot with a nice Mirrorless and have some decent lights but nothing too crazy like some KZbinrs in other genres. Luckily no one expects much from Astrophotography YTers because we don’t make any money from it 😂

[@erewhon42]

@@darkrangersinc True dat! lol. Good lights and good sound are plenty. IMO, Log might make sense in some cases but just ends up taking lots of space.

[@darkrangersinc]

@@erewhon42 I’m sure I could do the color grading, but I haven’t gotten a monitor yet. I was looking at the ninja and then the new one came out and almost doubled the price. You know how it is when the model comes out you can possibly get the old one, so a $400 investments to probably closer to 1000 by the time you get all the accessories and SSD. Normally I wouldn’t get it but for my camera it unlocks 10 bit color if I get an external monitor so that kind of makes it worth it. Then I’m looking at Sure SM7DB the new one that has a built-in preamp. But I need to kind of get out of the bread with the channel expenses before I can justify spending more lol .

[@erewhon42]

@@darkrangersinc Yeah, it gets expensive quickly. I didn't buy it, but one camera I've thought about buying supports 6k, but only on an external recorder. So yeah that starts adding up quickly. It's too bad more cameras don't support direct SSD recording. Maybe the next gen will. Your current audio is pretty good, but yeah, that SM7DB looks nice. Have you seen the Lewitt Ray? That one looks really intriguing. But yeah... just another sunk cost. 🙂

[@Wheeljack678]

Integration time / enough signal is a really important one. I feel that most of us, certainly myself included, wanted to get as many targets as possible that first season or two. I would set my scope at something, let it gather 1, maybe 2 hours on something, process it (badly) then move on to the next. Wasn't until the next season I started to "settle down" and go for minumum 6h pr target - More signal, equals cleaner signal. It doesn't just look better, it makes post-processing a looot easier.

[@darkrangersinc]

Yeah, I think for me with any image the absolute bare minimum for a first draft is 6 hours. I won’t stack less than that. Typical integration time for a final image 15 to 25 hours. That’s monochrome in most cases under Bortle 5 skies. If somebody is under better conditions, obviously they could probably knock that down a little bit. The ironic thing is the only time I’ve ever done one hour or two hour images for the channel when I was testing a certain product like a filter and comparing it versus one or two other filters.

[@longhornastro]

Great video Ryan.

[@amateurastrophoto3057]

Great video as always Ryan. I think most probably fundamentally know the first two points but just don’t want to invest the extra time and effort. At least I know I did, and took almost a year for me to finally accept that good just wasn’t good enough for me, so working on both of those. Agree on the other 3 as well, especially with trying to weed out some of the noise and focus my KZbin following more and looking for a good smaller group to be a part of for more fine t7ned learning. Keep up the great work and awesome channel.

[@darkrangersinc]

Yeah, I was saying that to a friend last night who was letting me know he just saw the video. My first comment was I think several people probably know some of these but just need that occasional reminder and someone to “light the fire” i’ll probably only stick to a couple videos for the entire year like this where it’s more of a philosophical approach video. The first one I did was at the end of 2023 and now this one at the one year anniversary of the channel. I think it’s more common sense for people that have done other hobbies or pursuits at a pretty high level. Some people who maybe didn’t do athletics or pursue music or the art in high school may have never really pushed themselves out of their comfort zone. But for most of us, I think it’s so good reminder of what’s important.

[@TexasEngineerScotty]

Thanks for another inspirational one that held my interest to the end. I personally have about a year of visual and two years of astrophotography experience. Personally I'm very happy with my gear set up and the data I'm gathering. I tend to lean the other way on integration and spend a very long time on one target and am very picky with the subs I keep. My current hurdle is a breakdown in the processing workflow when I need to be creative with color, mostly at the point I'm launching GHS. My solution to that has been to subscribe to Adam Block's fundamentals and I am about 20 hours into it. I think it is probably about 50 hours long but I am avoiding the urge to jump ahead and just watch the part I want to know. I have to say even though I think I dont need to watch all the preamble I always learn something in every lesson. That said I have gotten an immense amount of help from your Photoshop videos. To me PS is more intimidating that PixInsight. There are way more options and directions to go! Lastly, I have thought many times about joining this community but I don't have a facebook presence and really don't want to. I'll be standing by to see if you guys ever decide to switch platforms. THANKS!

[@darkrangersinc]

Thanks for the comment, the video series I was mentioning not wanting to sit through is the one you’re talking about I was actually being nice on the total number of hours because I was thinking of one of the more introductory classes. I think it’s not a bad thing to invest in for sure. There’s a lot of good information but I’m somebody that likes to just get either one on one or in a small group and be able to get the answers to the questions that I need and save myself 30-40 extra hours. I think a lot of people would be better off getting a baseline knowledge and then when they start to run into roadblock start working with somebody, you could take the money that you spend on the class and get several hours on one time and then I also save a ton of time as well, which is also saving money in my example of time being a replacement for money. I have actually spoken to him and I did give him the feedback for his KZbin stuff at least to shorten it down and he did seem to immediately put it into place. It was several months ago and most of his videos have been between 10 and 20 minutes since then. It’s actually really hard to make episodes shorter vs longer. Longer is much easier . I think I said that in the past. Regarding our group, it’s a private Facebook group meeting. Nothing will be shared outside of it and I actually have it so you can’t share something externally. You can create an anonymous profile and just join that group and you don’t have to use your real name. Several people have alias and no profile pic. They literally just created a profile to join the group. If you read the rules, one of them is to keep anything that said both by me and other members within the group, and if I found somebody not following it, they would no longer be a part of it. It’s a pretty private group. You don’t have to worry about stuff leaking out that you’re posting in there. So maybe something to consider.

[@TexasEngineerScotty]

@@darkrangersinc Ryan, thanks so much for the very thoughtful reply! I also appreciate the information on the user group and will strongly consider it. Additionally if I get to the point once I am done with my "education" (I consider $215 for the entirety of PI fundamentals to be a steal compared to the price of most things in the AP trade) if I run into any road blocks I will also consider some one-on-one time. I will say though that I have found in my career as an engineer, which is largely using computer programs to solve problems, taking the time to understand how everything under the hood works at a fundamental level when using a new software has carried me much farther than getting the help to "push that button to do X" has. I think some things like NINA are straightforward and simple enough that getting that kind of assistance is definitely what you need but something as complicated as Pixinsight deserves the time investment.

[@davewilton6021]

Good advice! For me, I want to learn how to use Photoshop for color processing. I'm currently using PixInsight for that, but I get the feeling that Photoshop (or maybe Lightroom) will be much better for that particular task.

[@darkrangersinc]

It truly is a huge game changer. It opens up so many more possibilities. It also has grade tools that it’s coming out with all the time like the “remove tool” which is like the clone stamp only you don’t need to tell it where to pull the data to replace it uses its “content aware“ technology and literally makes the spot disappear like it was never there. It works on some pretty big structures.

[@MicheleHernandez-d2e]

I was skeptical and then jumped in, watched Ryan's tutorial and did a few sessions and the difference is HUGE - now I'm pretty good at PS and would not bother to do those edits in PI

[@marekgumienny5813]

spot on, guilty.re integration time. In first few months i wanted to try everything as it was fascinating to see how much i will get to see of particular targets. It was some what helpful in a process of working out iso, exposure, tracking, guiding etc. One could argue you dont want to commit 15 hours to your first target and then realise you really should go for 180s at 400iso and not 30s subs at iso1600. Ultimately once lessons are learnt, yes discipline is needed to pick a target and get enough data.

[@panicrevn101]

well said!! I'm STILL never happy with my end product but I know I need to put more time into learning more about post processing...I also know I need tons of data....even after like 5-6 years in...this is a full time job with only satisfaction for a pay off lol

[@darkrangersinc]

I was going to mention this, but I decided to leave it out because I think sometimes it’s a good thing and sometimes it’s a bad thing but people that are never happy with their work usually tend to improve pretty fast. I’m the same way. I think it’s good to appreciate parts of each image but also see areas of opportunity. I left it out because sometimes I think it can drive people a little crazy lol. On the flipside it’s not something people usually learn you can either have the trait or you don’t so if I did leave it in, I would be speaking to the people that are going to be that way no matter what 😂

[@leonardoleo5250]

You’re a great, top tier Astrophotography professional. But your video editing and production…cmon. And since the beginning is top tier. That’s world class among ANY KZbin channel.

[@astrofromhome]

I think your on the point is most of your five roadblocks. You may remember that we talked in the comments about garbage in and garbage out. I think not having enough integration time is something difficult for a bunch of people to achieve. I am one of them. I usually try to expose two or three nights on on target. Unfortunately I am sitting inside the cloud kitchen of Europe. Often I don't even get the chance to expose a second night on a target during the year. I have data lying around on my hard drive that is two years old and I have to hope that maybe next year I am going to have the chance to grab some more photons. In order to escape from my beautiful BC6/7 sky with tons of clouds all year long I would have to drive 3 or 4 hours each direction. So pretty senseless to plan and then to see that surprisingly on that night there are also clouds around. This year I already had 1 good night and two ok nights for capturing photos. 2nd half of last year was just a single night to take photos. That's why I have to balance which level or garbage I have to accept not to just complete only one photo per year. In oder to overcome the situation that I have around 8-10 real good nights per year I am going to afford another telescope with the same focal length like the one I use the most but with faster f-ratio. A second good capacity mount is already on it's way to me. Just with such effort I am able to double the integration time without waiting minimum 1 year to get back to the target. As you say: effort is also money that you are willing to spend.

[@darkrangersinc]

That’s pretty brutal to be honest. I probably couldn’t do the hobby if I could only image eight nights a year it would drive me crazy. I would get cranky if I could only image eight nights in a month which happened in January. But if I did decide to live somewhere with that much clouds, I still would standby the same principles and just learn to deal with it. Or travel more lol 😬

[@chrischarlesjax]

Good advice. I struggle with my back spacing. I can’t get round stars in the corners with my Altair 26c and coma corrector on an 8” newt. 55mm is the suggested backspacing, but in actuality it’s not correct and I cannot find a happy medium. I’ve gone 10mm up and down from 55 and still can’t figure it out. I’m at a loss as to what I should do. The companies I am using for gear have been no help.

[@darkrangersinc]

Do you know if the coma corrector is rated for that large of a sensor? I wonder if it’s not a matter of backspace and just that it’s not able to correct that far out on the sensor. if you look at a diagram refractor with a reducer size increases more and more the further away from the center of the sensor you go. I’m not a big fan of Newtonians. They promise low cost aperture, but by the time you do all the necessary upgrades and buy the accessories they end up being almost as much as a refractor. The ones Staeizona makes that’s a .75 does a Pretty good job even with apsc.

[@tyshantz8675]

You are a dialed unit Ryan, thank you for your effort. I've been hammering away on APP lately, and am starting to get what I consider to be decent results. I'm want to get in to PI, but hesitant because I want to get better at APP first. Your/anyone's thoughts, should I just pull the trigger and buy PI? Or better to spend my time sharpening up on APP?

[@darkrangersinc]

That’s actually a really good question. I use APP mostly for stacking and some of the early steps. But it’s star calibration is actually been really good on galaxies in bringing out some of the blues and other colors that are often hiding. I know he’s working on it, but currently there is no real noise reduction. I think you could get some pretty good results using APP and Photoshop. You can do all of the things that you would need to do in PI in APP and just get Topaz Denoise for Photoshop. I think it’s better than. NoiseXterminator and pretty well priced. Unfortunately, Photoshop is only subscription based, but it also makes it so it’s not as big of an upfront investment. It was usually over $300 before the subscription.

[@tyshantz8675]

@@darkrangersincThanks for the info, much appreciated. I'll probably end with all of them at some point! Clear skies

[@tyshantz8675]

Sooo I've figured out APP. I'm starting to be proud of my results given my experience level. Re-watching this and Photoshop must be purchased in the next few days 🎉 Congrats on 5k. I see 100k ++ coming your way. Thanks again for your efforts. Clear skies

[@dustyhammer7569]

Think me and the Vespera gang have heard enough, let’s go boys. To our rascals! Jokes aside, always like to hears the input of how things can be done different. Always learning

[@darkrangersinc]

Happy to pick a target with a few Dark Ranger community members and go traditional rig vs Vespera boys for a little contest 😉😉

[@SpaceRocksandStardust]

Nothing beats integration time! I dont use much in post, I spent all my cash on gear so I use Siril, it is free and works very well if you have good clean data that doesnt need a bunch of AI make up!!! Great video!👍🏻

[@darkrangersinc]

That’s actually a good point processing is also so much easier with good data and you don’t need as much technology. When I have good data after I do the color combination and a decent stretch it’s looking pretty good to go. Just some little tweaks in Photoshop to find it and some of my images literally 10 or 15 minutes of editing time total!

[@christianvulpescu1398]

All you said is so true and honest! Thank you for these wonderful words. I have two problems with processing. First: Besides the rational criteria of processing, how much color should I put into the object? How sharp can I make it? Some greate astro photographers would have had the posibility to go much sharper without bringing any noise in the object, but they do not do it. Why? Second: I found out that my most successful pictures were those, where I understud the physics behind the object. Than I know how I have to process them. But I don't understand every object I shoot.😅 CS Christian 😀

[@darkrangersinc]

That’s actually a really good question knowing when to stop. Something that I find myself pulling my one-on-one people back from going to far much more often than pulling them back. Our tendency is to overdo it. So if you’re at that point where you’re kind of an intermediate, you know how to sharpen and you know how to add color effectively, it’s likely your gut instinct is going to be too over-process a bit. Especially when you think about nebula targets, how sharp is really going to be in real life? No very it’s it’s going to be fairly cloud like I would imagine. Typically the Sii forms a lot of the sharper details and structure. Ha has the most volume and Oiii tends to be more centralized in larger gas targets. My goal is to take what comes in camera and just give it a little oomph. Because I know with atmospheric dispersion, even a very subtle amount of guiding and perfection, etc it’s going to be a little softer than it is in real life. But when it comes to the saturation slider go more than 3 or 4 in Photoshop, and usually the most I’ll take vibrance is 10. So I’m not really adding that much if I have good signal, there’s plenty of color right off the bat. In terms of sharpening with clarity, which is probably most often used sharpening tool in Photoshop I never go more than about 10 or 15. Sometimes when I’m doing Topaz Denoise at the very end before I add the stars back I’ll give it 10-20 for Denoise and 10-15 for sharpening. So overall, as a rule, I would probably say 20% increase or less with the combination of the tools that you’re using what comes in camera. I think 15% is probably a good for saturation and sharpening increase. But some taste more realistic although the trend more processed, I think I’ve let it influence me and I might be doing a little bit of a pullback on my own here shortly.

[@christianvulpescu1398]

@@darkrangersinc Thank you so much for the detailed answer. Appreciate it . Clear skyes, Christian 😃

[@jesuschrist2284]

5k lol i assumed you had like 10k already :( Ty for all your efforts

[@darkrangersinc]

Kind of a niche hobby takes a while to get big in Astrophotography. Almost every channel with 10k in this genre is a few years old or more.

[@TheAstrocast]

DAMN RIGHT! You had me at your first point man. If it was easy, everyone would do it! That's why i NEVER recommend a Seestar or Dwarf. You can't LEARN using these tools. Great first year! I just crossed 2500 listeners on my podcast, love seeing us grow together!

[@darkrangersinc]

I know I subscribed to it on one of my two KZbin channels because I see it show up and tune in from time to time. I’ve wanted to do a live episode, but I see it looks like it’s really hard to get a lot of concurrent viewers at the same time, but I suppose people can always watch it after the fact. Astro backyard goes live. I think he peaks around 1000 total viewers. Thanks for all your contributions to the community as well !

[@TheAstrocast]

@@darkrangersinc If you'd ever like to do an interview on the podcast, let me know! I'm working to interview some of my favorite AP KZbin Personalities, and i'd love to have you on one day! Don't judge the youtube channel view count, the vast majority of our listeners come from Spotify and Apple podcasts. I just started adding the shows to youtube on a regular basis 2 or 3 weeks ago. Thanks again!

[@KaidenBainAstro]

I’m almost at 100 hours on M101😬😬

[@KaidenBainAstro]

Ahahahaha I know you thought about me when you said “been saying they’re gonna get photoshop for months now” 🤣

[@KaidenBainAstro]

Another great video!

[@MicheleHernandez-d2e]

@@KaidenBainAstro GET IT KAIDEN lol - don't make me buy it for you for your birthday :-)

[@darkrangersinc]

You were definitely one of them lol

[@tompage8674]

I'd get more integration time but we've had such bad weather lately I'm struggling. I'm building myself a pier so I can get my setup time down.

[@darkrangersinc]

Can you get a scope cover like a telegizmo 365 and just them leave it out like I do have 3 rigs out there full time I can get all 3 running in like 15 minutes and only check polar alignment every so often they don’t really shift much.

[@tompage8674]

@@darkrangersinc that's exactly the plan. I'm going to use a motorbike cover and spray it with heavy duty tent waterproofing (which I highly recommend btw). Do you have any issues with damp and dew? Thanks for taking the time to respond btw.

[@darkrangersinc]

@@tompage8674 the Telegizmo covers are totally bombproof and don’t need any kind of spray. They also have a nice straw string on the bottom and they’re kind of pre-formed the type of scope that you can choose from in their lineup. Unfortunately, they don’t sell them at Agena and I don’t have any partnership with them so I’ve just had to get them through other sources but I don’t have any issues leaving my scope out under any condition with them. I feel totally confident it was scary at first of course, but then after it rained for the first time or snow for the first time, he realize it’s fine.

[@andreguimaraes96]

👍🏼🖖🏼

[@AmatureAstronomer]

For me, the hobby is collimation frustration, camera failures, mount breakdowns, sitting in the freezing cold and sweltering heat. I do EAA and try to avoid post work.

[@darkrangersinc]

Another wonderfully positive comment as always 😉. Maybe KZbin won’t delete this one again lol.

[@MicheleHernandez-d2e]

Dude - if you did a few phone consultations with Ryan, you'd spare yourself all the frustrating - he's literally solved dozens of my annoying issues and explained literally everything to me - he's like "astro doctor" for any issue - not kidding!

[@dumpydalekobservatory]

This is a hobby where you keep on learning although I'm seeing a lot of people with decent kit buying smart telescopes these days & unless you're doing out reach with them then why buy one? Also my limitations is budget I've made plenty of mistakes over the years buying the wrong gear but I have got an observatory up & running for less than the price of an AM5 with tripod, pier & counterweight bar. I would like to get Pixinsight but firstly I need to update the PC so it will run the program faster as I'm using an old i5 so it's been a slow process for me but some of the free programs like SIRIL is a pretty decent performer & has helped improve my imaging but I'm not there yet. Clear skies

[@darkrangersinc]

Obviously, budget is always a key concern and you have to make decisions that make the most sense for where you’re at. Unfortunately this and every hobby are getting more and more expensive to have even decent equipment. All you can do is the best with what you’ve got and a lot of times with some extra effort, quality gear can still put out good results. I’ve seen people do great work with Siril. The software comment was aimed at a lot of people that can’t afford it, but choosing not to because I don’t want to take the time to learn it. so the point was rather than trying to struggle in one program just put in the effort to learn make life easier in the long run

[@KingLoopie1]

Adobe's subscription is like renting something that you maybe don't use everyday. It hurts for a while, but you get used to it after a while. I don't like their price hikes and really hate the fact that they went that way instead of outright selling a license like they used to, but that what we've got... 🙄. That said, I have a creative cloud sub. It gives you use of a lot of the tools available and they're all integrated with each other.

[@darkrangersinc]

I 100% agree I’m not a fan of the subscriptions. It’s like death from 1000 cuts lol. “It’s only 9.99” but when you have 15 subscriptions every month it adds up! I look at it this way it probably saves me a half hour per edit at least and allows me to get better results than I would be able to otherwise. So if it saves me, let’s say two hours a month on four images. Two hours of my time is definitely worth more than 9.99$. I actually locked in a deal for 29.99 and get every app they sell. So that actually feels like a better deal. I use Adobe express which has access to their AI services for the thumbnails, and After Effects if I want to do those 3D style edits. I’ve also used illustrator to help friends do stuff for their businesses on the side with photography and creating brochures etc. one of those jobs has paid for the subscription for the next several years so I try to make it “work for me” in return and actually make some money back from the subscription. In general, I would rather just buy one and cry once lol. Rip off the Band-Aid and be done with it. That’s why I tell people not to get super cheap. Just save up and wait longer so you don’t have to buy it again like I have had in the past not because I bought cheap stuff but because I didn’t buy the stuff.

[@doubletapgaming1189]

The biggest problem I see, as a beginner is that the ad's and many video's make it look so easy to get those beautiful pictures. In reality it takes a lot of time and patience... And failure. I have spent hours getting data that was completely unusable. Even when you get good data you need to know what to do with it. Don't get me wrong I love the hobby but I'm calling false advertising...Lol.

[@darkrangersinc]

That’s a big reason I don’t like the idea of selling “easy astrophotography”. There are really only a couple companies doing it and let’s just say I wouldn’t go to them for their quality of product. We want what we cannot have or do. The moment something because easy it’s no longer as desirable. It’s the reason some who posts an A.I. nebula image is immediately downgraded in the eyes of most because they know no effort went into it.