Meteor Shower Processing: Quick Tips

Did you shoot the Perseids Meteor Shower last week and now need some tips for processing? Here's a quick video with a few pointers (Sorry, not quite five minutes 😜)
#fiveminutefridays #nebulaphotos
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[@tachyon3.14]

Week 13 of appreciating Five Minute Fridays

[@MrBlueSky1987]

5:40 :D who doesn't know the name giving of files like that :D - untracked-new, tracked-newnew, tracked-forReal - I'm glad I'm not the only one :D thanks for the video Nico!

[@DylanODonnell]

Good back to front of the technique .. thx Nic!

[@aeyde]

ㅤ

[@justindame]

When you inverted the layer mask my jaw dropped. That is so cool. Great #fiveminutefriday video Nico!

[@GulliNL]

So far I have watched 4 videos of yours. I have way too many subscriptions on this website but after watching your channel for a bit I decided I'd kick one out and add yours to my subscriptions. These video's are on point, clear, well annunciated , you take the time to teach us quite complicated material (at least for laymen) and your results are amazing. Can't wait to get my own tracker and start astrophotographing. I already installed DSS, GIMP and Starnet, and bought an old DSLR to mod. Thank you Nico for an awesome channel!

[@NebulaPhotos]

Thanks for subscribing and watching some of my videos. I appreciate it, and I'm glad you plan to try out astrophotography! Clear skies!

[@koolkrazy1]

Yay.. perfect video.. another awesome #5MinFriday.. Thank's Nico... 😍🥳

[@keithhanssen7413]

Thankful to have your matter-of-fact tutorials handy. I always cringe when I see someone post a photo thinking they’ve captured a meteor, but it’s an iridium satellite or a plane. I’m not too critical because I made the same mistake years ago, lol.

[@NebulaPhotos]

Yep, so have I! :)

[@NikonJax]

you are quickly becoming one of my 1st choices when i search anything AP wise. You are clear and also give enough info for those who may not know some of the things people assume they should know. You also show great examples and are just easy to listen to. Thanks for this!

[@astropenedes6851]

Just two words: Great video! Clear, symple and easy. It's worth every minute. Thanks Nico!!

[@gregorykeating4195]

Awesome tutorial - I used the process as outlined in other compositing vids - much longer and more tedious. This is the shortest and cleanest method I’ve seen yet - thank you!

[@kevins8575]

I watched this twice so I would be ready. Spent several hours out tonight and got zilch. I was out during the "peak" but I guess a combination of bad luck and not-so-dark sky did me in. I got about five yesterday so I was hopeful for tonight. So it goes.

[@clairehachey2189]

Your processing tutorials are incredible! Thank you for sharing your passion :) Cheers from the East Coast of Canada!

[@davanti]

Absolutely brilliant and informative; really loving these friday videos!!

[@jedidiahwest4619]

I can’t wait to try this!!

[@cribbsprojects]

My night sky viewing is that much more interesting since I found your channel. I was over the border in Woodford VT at that time and saw some great sights on the 14th!

[@Vipinkunnanamgath]

Well explained..thanks

[@garyschmelz6728]

Great job yet again.

[@andydungan3335]

Thanks so much for this and all your work. I am a year and a half into being an amateur. So many things you have done have helped me. And this morning, even though I don't use anything with adobe's name on it, I was able to figure out how to do a meteor composite using Affinity Photo 2 using your methods.

[@shortexposureastrophotogra4988]

Another great video! Thanks for making these.

[@rahulgaur5916]

Hi Nico. Thank you for all your efforts in sharing your knowledge :)

[@boycefitzgerald]

Thank you for this helpful tutorial.

[@rinohals]

Cool! The highlight for today!

[@hukumongdu]

This.is exactly what I needed. thank you

[@SharpStarAstro]

Such a helpful video, meteors are so fun to capture!

[@MahendraSinghDhoniFan]

Thank you so much :-) Super helpful.

[@alensley1368]

Awesome.

[@helencogan2187]

THANKS SO MUCH!!!! This was awesome....

[@marcosaltran9719]

Welcome back Nic!!!! :)

[@avt_astro206]

Great Video!! I have Been Wanting To Observe The Perseid Meteor Shower, but Too Bad Clouds!! Thanks For This Tutorial!

[@karlk672]

Nice image Nico and a great process tutorial.

[@nicholastedford9177]

awesome. Thanks for the tutorial. I have a photo of a single meteor that i got but could not figure out how to get it into my stacked image. now it looks awesome.

[@WilliFromEarth]

Great picture and composite! Very nice tutorial! Very radiant ;-)

[@DSOImager]

Nice video Nico! Going to try capturing some tonight.

[@ruiner101]

NICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL I love the way you name your files. Reminds me of the way I do. Trackednewnew Trackedforreal XD

[@brmolnar]

On Nikon cameras, the technique you used has a limitation. If you simply hold down a shutter release button, they will only take ~100 images before they stop. For some models, the limit is removed when the shutter speed is 4 seconds or more, but I’ve hit this limit on my D750 before and had to reset the cable release.

[@alexolariu9335]

I guess I'm not the only one who is trying to get some data on the Pleiades :)))). Great video man!

[@mohammadyasirkhan2709]

Informative ♥️

[@horizonastronomiaargentina7593]

Excelente mi amigo muy bueno saludos!!!

[@fenanzer]

Quebrei a cabeça tentando editar minhas fotos da chuva de meteoro e, sem saber dos satélites, tinha selecionado várias que eram meteoros mas na verdade eram satélites. Excelente vídeo! Parabéns!

[@zakstone9821]

I tried this years ago. Glad I found another way to do it because I forgot the other way.

[@_relytt]

I've been wondering on how to do this for while now. Thanks :P

[@BritishBeachcomber]

Family circumstances meant that I had to move from a Bortle 3 to a Bortle 6 or worse, with most nights being cloudy. The baddest move of my life.

[@philthompson22]

excellent, concise video! i know Bridge is free but for people who don’t want to use Adobe stuff, “culling mode” in darktable can do the same things that Adobe Bridge does.

[@kevinashley478]

I'm gonna give this a try Monday night. The space folks are predicting it will either be a dud orr it's could be up to 1000 meteors an hour.

[@3DAstroTC]

Neat!

[@astro_hunter1823]

Awesome tutorial Nico,are you doing any more proccesing after this when you shoot these types of images (noise reduction,curves, etc)?

[@NebulaPhotos]

In this case, nope. I posted exactly what you see in the video to instagram.

[@keyswitches9269]

What did you use to align the images? Amazing video btw. Wish I'd have seen this before I finished my process

[@CaptRescue2]

Cool beans

[@TalGivoly]

Thanks. You skipped the part in pixinsight that aligns them and expands canvas. What alternatives are there to folks that don’t have pixinsight?

[@colejoliat]

Hi Nico! Incredible tutorial, just dropped a subscription. I had a quick question for you. Did you leave your camera out overnight here or only for a certain section? Where I will be during the shower next year I won't have access to the weather so I'd have to just hope it wouldn't rain. And how long was it out there to catch that amount of meteors?

[@NebulaPhotos]

I was out all night taking photos, but I did batches and moved the camera a few times. If memory serves, this photo represented about 3 hours of meteors.

[@mexmax1657]

Great video, as always. :) Could I technically also do a long shot with tracker e.g. 5 minutes? Or would the meteors light then disappear because of the length?

[@NebulaPhotos]

Yes, you can certainly track and take longer exposures. I'd probably only do 5 minutes if you are at an extremely dark location otherwise you might find the light pollution brightens the sky too much lowering contrast with the meteors. With another setup I was shooting 30 sec. exposures tracked with an 85mm lens at f/1.6 and caught some good ones.

[@mexmax1657]

@@NebulaPhotos allright, thanks, again. :) just so you know, because of you I bought the MoveShootMove a few weeks ago. And I'm very happy about it. ;) no more looking to my barndoor tracker all the time but finally enjoying the nightsky again.

[@MARS-ht7qu]

Thanks Im shooting the Orionids tomorrow, is there a clip or tutorial to do this on gimp ? i do not have photoshop due to budget technical problems lol

[@NebulaPhotos]

Should be able to just follow along with this in GIMP. Steps are the same

[@scottschuette74]

Awesome picture! Now I have yet another project to try out (sarcasm intended). Quick question, what is the best method for removing light pollution in a photo with a foreground? I took some milky way photos with a corn field in the foreground and when I used Sequator to stack the images the sky at the bottom is completely blown out. My computer skills are still pretty weak, hopefully one day it will all click. Thanks Nico!

[@claudiogoncalves1985]

You can try the gradiente filter in Lightroom or a mask reducing the exposure at the PS.

[@orlangurs]

I guess it could be better to not stack foreground and polluted area in the Sequator (Sky region - Irregular mask). Or you can do some local adjustments on photos before and after stacking like gradient filter.

[@scottschuette74]

@@orlangurs Are you saying whatever is selected in the sky region is the only thing that gets stacked? I was thinking that "unselected" foreground gets stacked but does not move/rotate with the sky.

[@carolsantulis1990]

I really love the Light pollution tool in Sequator for my MW photos.

[@BillWood]

When I import my photos from bridge and stack and align them in photoshop and select all but the base layer and change blend mode to lighten I get a startrail. You mention registering the photos in bridge is this my problem. I don’t know what you mean. How do I align for the stars and not the foreground. Thanks for the help.

[@NebulaPhotos]

Hi Bill, I registered all the photos using Star Alignment in PixInsight, but you can use whatever astro-specific software for star alignment you normally use (Siril, DeepSkyStacker, etc.) to do the same thing. If you use DSS, just make sure to turn on 'save intermediate files' in the settings so that you can access the registered pictures. If that doesn't work for some reason, you can alternatively register them by eye in Photoshop by just adjusting the layer opacity and using the position tool and arrow keys to align each layer. After they are all aligned as layers, just continue with the tutorial. Hope this helps, Nico

[@GLee-lk3rf]

I only managed to capture those starlink sats shame cause theyre so annoying and theres 40 thousand more of them coming, and theres only 2 thousand up there now!

[@user-po5cr3yf4n]

How do you align the pictures?

[@NebulaPhotos]

I used PixInsight, but there is also freeware like Siril, or since it's only a few photos you could do it by hand in Photoshop (just lower opacity and move/rotate each layer to match up the stars). Photoshop auto-align won't work well for this since it will try to align to the land, and we want to align to the stars.

[@navithsha]

So I use a rebel T5i and it has no built in intervelometer. I use a basic shutter release. Can that be used to time the shots? Or should I sit next to the camera and use the remote to take the shots?

[@NebulaPhotos]

Yes, Just set the camera shooting mode from 'Single' shooting to 'Continuous' shooting and then put the release shutter into the 'hold' position and the camera should just keep taking photos until you stop it by releasing the hold on the shutter release.

[@navithsha]

@@NebulaPhotos Thank you

[@vitorhearteater]

You can install Magic Lantern. It gives many options helpfull for astro. There are many tutorials and forum coments about its features. I've installed in my T3i and it helps a lot having a little more control of the camera.

[@navithsha]

@@vitorhearteater I have seen the option of installing this software however, there is a risk of 1% that i don't wanna take. If it doesn't work then the camera is equal to trash. I can't afford to buy another camera for now if ML fails.

[@guptazzzfamily8639]

Any updates of the critic video ?

[@NebulaPhotos]

Just starting to go through responses. It will take a while to finish, but should come out some time this fall.

[@R-A-F]

Clouds everywhere in the uk but I managed to see one meteor 👍

[@bigjimny]

You were unluck. In Berkshire we had 3 of the clearest hours I have ever seen. There was no moonlight and excellent "seeing" with no high level haze. For the first time in many many years I could just see the Milky Way by eye (averted vision technique). Bortle 5

[@DavidPankarican]

If youre taking multiple shots over lets say 30 min, how hard is that to align each photo? how do you do that?

[@NebulaPhotos]

Easy, the Astro software does it for you as long as the stars are round and in focus. If you have windows you can use Deep Sky Stacker (free) and have it save the intermediate files.

[@DavidPankarican]

@@NebulaPhotos Ah ok thanks! Is there any astro software for Mac that you recommend?

[@NebulaPhotos]

@@DavidPankarican Siril (Free) or PixInsight ($). They are potentially a bit more complicated, but worth learning for astrophotography. And they can both register photos of star fields very well. I use both on my Macs

[@NebulaPhotos]

You can also try just aligning in photoshop itself. Esp. If there are foreground features in your photos, it usually does a fairly good job. File>Scripts>Load files into stack..

[@DavidPankarican]

@@NebulaPhotos thanks for the info! I’m gonna try this with Photoshop and try my hand at the stacking software to see what works for me. This will be my first try with the Perseids this weekend

[@kevinashley478]

I was wondering, I have a nifty fifty, but I also have an 18-55 mm....which one would be better? I am leaning toward the 50, but the 18 would definitely give me more sky. By the way, which area of the sky will the meteors come from? I know that the Perseids come from the constellation Perseid, so where will these be coming from?

[@NebulaPhotos]

I'm hearing West near Ursa Major

[@kevinashley478]

@@NebulaPhotos thanks for the response. Unfortunately I tested positive for COVID like 20 minutes ago, so I won't be going out. I live in a Bortle 6 (I think) so I hope that some will be visible.

[@kevinashley478]

@@NebulaPhotos I'm not sure how legit this is, but I read somewhere that it will be Tau Herculis in the Hercules constellation

[@NebulaPhotos]

@@kevinashley478 Yes, that's right. sorry to hear about COVID. hope you feel better soon

[@kevinashley478]

@@NebulaPhotos lol, that's the funny part. I would never have known unless my wife made me test. I have ran a fever for 3 days, no headache, no stomach issues, no congestion. That's it. I hear this latest COVID is much weaker but is much more contagious. But thank you. One last question, for now, but I mentioned in a previous post that I am looking forward to getting an image of the Heart and Soul nebula for my granddaughter....is that available year round or during certain parts of the year?

[@DeepakKumar-Welostinplaces]

All the single shots are taken with a star tracker, or just a tripod?

[@NebulaPhotos]

Just a tripod

[@VladekR]

Nice, unfortunately Adobe products are out of my financial reach. Also, I do star trails which helps to narrow down search for pics with not starts objects

[@puhbluebeary1420]

That Rokinon 24 mm lens really sucks.

[@loojiasiang5123]

hi but you mean you are going to review thousands of photos to check for whether its an airplane or meteor? what is the fast way to do this?

[@NebulaPhotos]

It's fast with Adobe Bridge or Lightroom or any other program that let's you quickly scan through your images with the right arrow key. I can easily look through a thousand images in a 1/2 hour or so.

[@indysbike3014]

Ah, you skipped the most tricky part of aligning.

[@NebulaPhotos]

What software do you use? It's quite easy and completely automated with PixInsight's 'StarAlignment' process, but it's also doable and automated with the free Siril (siril.org) software. With just 12 shots like I had here, you could also just do it manually in Photoshop, but I agree doing the alignment manually can be tricky due to rotation and lens distortion combining to make it difficult.

[@indysbike3014]

@@NebulaPhotos I tried with ’auto align layers’ in photoshop but it doesn’t work. I will give Siril a try, thx.

[@cloudynights8796]

Hello sir pls unban me from ur discord server plss

[@dharaviratajor1509]

Your videos helps me a lot sir 🫶🏼