Confessions of a bad astrophotographer....

[@deepskydetail]

Join my discord! Let's support each other :) discord.gg/HajJHCQzmE

[@DavesAstrophotography]

Done!

[@Hioctane321]

You have no idea how encouraging this video is. Thanks for sharing!

[@deepskydetail]

You're welcome! Thanks for watching!

[@mikehardy8247]

Over the past year, I bought a skywatcher GTI. Then an ASiair, folowed by my first OTA, and finally a dedicated astro camera (with guider ). I'm in bortle 8 - 9. From 2017 to last year I just used lenses with the original SW SA. Coincidentally, I deleated the the past 6 years of dozens of completely useless attempts at desent images up until this rig. Save Andromeda and Orion. Its darn near impossible to star hop, when you can hardly see bright stars like Polaris! Goto, and asiair allows me to find targets. Thank you ZWO. Just wraped up imaging Sadr region with a Rokinon 135. To see subs roll in with clear color from nebulosity is awsome. I don't regret a second of pretty much 5 years of failure. A few lunar and solar eclipses turned out great in the past. Don't anyone give up! Clear skies.

[@deepskydetail]

Thanks for sharing! I feel like I'm in the same boat. I have a LOT of data from when I lived in the Bortle 8-9 zone that I never finished processing (with the unmodded t4i). All that imaging did help me learn the basics though :)

[@mikehardy8247]

A couple years before getting serious, I ban astromoded T7i from Spencer's Camera's. This helped greatly. I thought about upping my game with a mirrorless mod. Investigating cost is what made me realize I could buy the ZWO ASI533MC Pro for less than anything moded. No brainer for me. Love the T7i for wide field with MSM etc.

[@dumpydalekobservatory]

I started out with an unmodded Canon 1000D in 2012 & it all went downhill from there lol. I used to go to a darksite due to my then neighbours security light blasting on lighting up the whole garden with varying results. I tried a QHY8 OSC camera & the results from that were meh! Made a lot of mistakes still do now but technology & software like NINA have significantly changed the hobby as I nearly gave up. Great video as always clear skies

[@deepskydetail]

Glad you stuck with it. Technology has certainly improved a ton, which I'm thankful for too! Thanks for sharing! :)

[@gary122]

Thanks for the insights into your learning! I started way back in the 80's. Trying to hand guide with my old C8 at f/10 and my old pentax k1000. Went through soo many rolls of film! Only managed a few ok pictures but of only very bright objects like m42 and m8. Even got a few pics of Halley's comet! They look shocking compared to when digital cameras came to be! My first real digital camera was a canon 300D and it was fantastic! The gear now is mind blowing even compared to 20 years ago! I'm still learning and still stuffing up badly as well. All part of the fun!😊

[@Graeme_Lastname]

I had a very, very basic Pentax, Aperture. exposure, focus. That is all there was. Now I've got a more modern digital box and the options seem endless. If I could get a digital camera that had the same options as the old Pentax, I would be a very happy man. I've looked and looked but found nothing except the knowledge that there are a lot of models out there. 🙂

[@Darren-vf2qw]

I seriously have to tip the hat to ANYONE that manually guided! Now most of us gripe when the computer gives us 1.5 arcseconds RMS.

[@deepskydetail]

I can't imagine guiding by hand either! And the gear even in the past 5 years has gotten so much better. From sensitive CMOS sensors to the imaging software like kstars. It has really exploded in a good way.

[@goldfish31ful]

Thanks for the video. That brought me back down memory lane. Been there done that.

[@tutting]

Many thanks for sharing, it's a really good reminder that this can be a challenging hobby and we all have to start somewhere. I've only been taking astro pics for 3 years or so and there is still so much more to learn.

[@KlausStoermer]

Spot on, just what I needed to see, thank you! I Everyones astro images are always so perfect and they make it sound so easy, when in reality astro imaging is harder than learning guitar! Thanks for your reality check. I will hang in there and keep going with the struggle.

[@deepskydetail]

Glad it was helpful!

[@rickdurham264]

What a great and timely video!! I am still very much beginner astrophotographer but have started posting a few of my (at times ordinary!!) images by way of a KZbin channel. I have already had a negative comment on one of my videos concerning an image I processed, and it was uplifting to watch your video to see that we all had to start somewhere... Thanks for that!!!

[@deepskydetail]

Glad it was helpful!

[@rudyamaya2532]

Thank you so much for this video. I have been imaging for the last 3 years. I have learn a lot and I have to admit that my images have improved over time. However, in the past year, I felt that I had hit a wall and that many of my images have been just okay and I cannot get out this rut of not improving on my images. Now I have to say that weather has been against me, but I kept blaming myself. This "confessions" really helped place thing in prospective. You made me realize that I am not alone. Also I like your opening statement that most astrophotographers post their best pictures and not their worst. I feel better now. Thanks!

[@deepskydetail]

You're very much welcome! I'm glad you enjoyed the video, and that I'm glad I'm not alone either! It can be tough, and it's refreshing to know that it doesn't have to be perfect to be fun :)

[@botiiiii2754]

My first astrophoto was Andromeda as well and it looked exactly like yours. The hardest thing for me was learning and understanding how guiding works. With an EQ5 GoTo it was such a challenging thing. But I am so happy it didn't work properly for so long because I had to learn how it works exactly. Starting with a basic equipment really makes you understand how all the things work.

[@deepskydetail]

Yep! Guiding is pretty difficult at first! I always had trouble guiding on hot pixels. The graph looked perfect, but the image did not lol!

[@botiiiii2754]

@@deepskydetail that was my problem as well. People at r/AskAstrophotography helped me a lot

[@botiiiii2754]

@@deepskydetail a quick question out of theme. I tried to use AsteoSharp and AstroClean recently but I got an error message. The image is 500mb. Is the problem with my computer or with the program?

[@deepskytrekkin9600]

Great topic. Important topic. Over 8 years into the hobby and every once in a while I still manage to do something stupid. But that's ok. Now days I do things right most of the time. Being able to learn from one's mistakes is simply part of it. Such is life.

[@deepskydetail]

Thank you and agreed 100% :)

[@DavesAstrophotography]

We've all been there and still go through that pain regularly!

[@deepskydetail]

Too regularly for me! lol 😂

[@Astrouze]

This video feels surreal for some reason. But yeah, we've all definitely had our trials and errors, but they are of course something we can learn from, and improve.

[@deepskydetail]

Most definitely :)

[@SoCalAstro]

My first deep sky shots were of Andromeda and Orion, I didn't know anything about collimation (I was using an 8" Newtonian), I didn't know anything about guiding, (and my mount is already underpowered for that scope), and because of impatience I shot total integration times of less than three minutes, but given I was shooting them from Death Valley I thought they still came out incredible. Looking back at them, the coma aberration is horrible, because I only shot a few subexposures without guiding and good polar alignment, there are horrible stacking problems, and with Andromeda in particular, (I didn't know anything about field of view) it was cropped to the inner third. And yet, I'm still happy with those photos, because regardless of how the result looks knowing what I know now, being able to see Andromeda and Orion with a level of clarity I haven't ever done before, set me on the path I'm on now. Years later I haven't had the chance to go back out there and retry those first shots but I'm excited to see the process, like you and others in the comments have said, struggling to troubleshoot all the problems I encountered has helped get me to the point that I feel I'm at the verge of being able to take incredible images, as soon as I get out of my horribly light polluted neighborhood LOL.

[@deepskydetail]

Thanks for sharing :) There really is something amazing about taking pictures of space!! I hope you are able to get out to dark skies soon, but at the very least imaging in the city is really good practice :)

[@heliczer]

What a lovely video. Thanks for doing this.

[@deepskydetail]

You're welcome and thanks for watching!

[@davidletz9123]

Man, can I relate to this video! I am still a beginner at this, use a Nikon mirrorless, and would love it if you would do a video on the proper rotation of the camera with respect to the deep sky subject. I am used to doing either portrait or landscape orientation (from doing landscape photography), but is that a source of failure in this genre of photography? IS this a big deal? Thanks again.

[@deepskydetail]

Thank you! You can use any rotation you'd like :) But the important thing is if you combine multiple nights of imaging to try to get the rotation the same each night. I could do a short video on it (depending on if I have enough time)

[@davidletz9123]

@@deepskydetail Thanks for the clarification. That makes perfect sense.

[@AstroAF]

Lol “My one life’s motto…” 😂 My first attempts were with an iPhone and a camera tripod. Didn’t go well for me, not sure there was any useable data worth saving.

[@deepskydetail]

I can imagine! I bet starting off with just a tripod and phone is a good way to figure out if it's worth pursuing :)

[@AstroAF]

@@deepskydetail my first video was a laugh at myself getting started 😉 “It builds character…”, they say 😂

[@robertlundstrom8061]

OK, stop and explain what dithering is. All astrophotography seem to think their audience knows everything. I have no idea what you're doing or what equipment you're using. So, maybe you should start a total beginner astrophotography channel since you know how to go wrong so well. Nice video by the way.