Which way around should astro images be?

[@julianm12345]

Surely, rather than do the two mirroring adjustments you can just do a 180 rotation, as you end up with the same thing 😀

[@astrostufftomtrubridge7915]

This is what we do in long periods of cloud cover😂😂. I think its really all down to aesthetics.. Atb Tom.

[@ronm6585]

Not sure exactly which way it should be but thanks for sharing.

[@Luftbubblan]

Personally i don't care about the orientation, i like to be creative with framing and positioning. I know many hate it tho, to the point they will call you out for it :D What i would consider to be "correct" would be to represent the image as the eyes would show it, depending on your setup the adjustments needed may vary.

[@CarpeNoctem42]

Before all; It really doesn't matter as far as I'm concerned. Having said that; what I usually do is look it up in Stellarium at the exact time of gathering and match the orientation. That obviously is dependent on the angle and framing, so sometimes it's rotated for aesthetic reasons. But never mirrored. Everything is relative ;-)

[@andrewhazon4675]

The orientation has never been a big thing for me, I tend to choose what looks best for the image. I’ve just switched to a Rasa from the 130PDS and notice when stacking in pixinsight I’m getting RANSAC errors with the Rasa mirror images. After stacking I just do a horizontal mirror flip and run image solver, no RANSAC errors after that.

[@Tony-Elliott]

Think its down to personal preference also we are influenced by how the object was oriented the first time we see it ,

[@dumpydalekobservatory]

I've never really thought about it Andy although using the RASA the image is mirrored just to add some extra confusion. Personally I don't think it really matters as like you say there's no real up or down in space.

[@AndyofAstro]

It's interesting, I've never corrected my images and now they look wrong when I do correct them. Therefore I'm not sure...

[@Excessus1978]

there is no up/down in space. But left/right is totally wrong. That is a true mirroring -

[@Photographersforyou]

Or just rotate image 180 degrees is the same

[@Cheapass-tro]

Did you ever see the horse's head in the Horsehead Nebula looking to the right? No. It's always looking left and until you can view it with your own two unaided eyes in space, it always will. I get what you're saying but after all we've seen and imaged, to flip these images would now look unnatural, ironically.

[@AndyofAstro]

Good point