awesome-astrophotography

Astrophotography resource hub

A curated collection of resources and guides for astrophotography, including articles, tutorials, software recommendations, and more.

A curated list of resources related to astrophotography.

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Awesome Astrophotography / Articles

An Astrophotographer's Gentle Introduction To Noise An easy to understand introduction to various sources of noise in astrophotography and how to eliminate them
Autoguiding An introduction to auto-guiding
Buyer's Guide to ZWO Astronomy Cameras ZWO has a diverse product line. This guide will help you make the right choice
Cable Management Recommendations Some solid advice on cables in an astrophotography setup
Cameras and Lenses Another interactive guide by Bartosz Ciechanowski, this time about cameras and lenses. A for anyone interested in telescopes and photography
DeepSkyStacker vs PixInsight A detailed comparison of the pre-processing features
Drift Alignment by Robert Vice (D.A.R.V) Accurate alignment in just a matter of minutes
Flat Fields and Stray Light in Amateur Telescopes A great resource to help one identify and resolve flat-fielding issues
Guide Scope vs. Off-Axis Guider: Which is Better for Astrophotography? Compares the two guiding options in details
Guide to Focal Reducers for Astronomy How focal reducers work, what types are there, and how to use them
Guide to Preprocessing of Raw Data With PixInsight Mistakes that happen during the pre-processing stages cannot be corrected anymore in post-processing. This guide from Bernd Landmann acquaints fellow astrophotographers with PixInsight's tools needed for recognising and avoiding such mistakes
How to Set the Correct Back Focus An easy to follow guide on what back focus is and how to set it
Lights and Shadows This interactive guide to light by Bartosz Ciechanowski, teaches about travel vectors, irradiance, radiance, angles, luminance, and more
Master PixInsight's Astrophotography Statistics: Analyze, Adjust, Enhance Successfully processing astronomical images entails a series of informed decisions. Understanding the data is crucial. This article provides a comprehensive guide to the Statistics process in PixInsight
Mastering Flat Frames: Gain matching This blog series by Willem Jan Drijfhout will take you on a deep dive into the topic of flat frames ( , and )
Optical Glass Types What makes a top-tier telescope? This article will clear up some common misconceptions
Selecting a Guide Scope and Autoguiding Camera for Astrophotography Choosing the right autoguiding equipment can be challenging. This guide will help with making the right decision
Signal, Noise and Histograms Part of Jon Rista's Astrophotography Basics series, this article provides a great bit of theory around signals, noise and histograms
Sky-Watcher AZ-GTI: The Perfect Mount for Mobile Astrophotography The Sky-Watcher AZ-GTI mount was never meant for astrophotography. Oh, the irony!
The Differences between CCD and CMOS Sensors One of the best explanations to CCD vs. CMOS camera sensors
The best solution of 55mm back focal length Guidance on how to reach the 55mm back focal length with ASI cameras

Awesome Astrophotography / Books

Astrophotography is Easy!: Basics for Beginners
Inside PixInsight
Mastering PixInsight (and the Art of Astroimage Processing)
The Astrophotography Manual: A Practical and Scientific Approach to Deep Sky Imaging
The Deep-Sky Imaging Primer

Awesome Astrophotography / Tutorials

A Beginner Guide to Night Photography If you're interested in night photography and particularly deepscapes, this guide hits the spot with it's succinctness
Adam Block's PixInsight video series An extensive collection of video lessons covering both the fundamental and advanced use of PixInsight
Andromeda Galaxy with only a Camera, Lens, & Tripod A comprehensive step-by-step guide. Includes a follow-up videos on post-processing the images in different apps
Astrophotography RGB histogram in nine minutes A lightning explanation of what a histogram is
Capturing Galaxyset A detailed tutorial on how to plan, execute and post-process a deepscape of the Andromeda galaxy aligned with a mountain in Southern Colorado
Chris White's Guide to Fixing Tilt and Spacing Annoying and hard to fix, tilt and spacing can ruin your imaging. This guide will help you eliminate them
Filters for Deep Sky Astrophotography A video series that kicks off with a gentle introduction to filters and closes down comparing the most popular ones
Harry's PixInsight tutorials Newcomer friendly, down-to-earth and comprehensive video tutorials
How to Eliminate Star Halos in PixInsight One of the more challenging issues in astrophotography. Charles Bracken, the author of "The Deep-Sky Imaging Primer", has you covered
How to Make a Padded Travel Box for Your Telescope Rig assembly on-site can be tedious. A more comfortable alternative is to assemble at home, then upon arrival at the imaging site, install on the mount
Independent Starless Processing This article details a simple and effective method to separate, process, and later reintroduce stars into an image without artifacts. It also discusses how to get more naturally looking stars from a narrowband dataset
Light Vortex Astronomy's PixInsight tutorials An extensive collection of tutorials covering both pre- and post-processing workflows
Orion Nebula (M42) with a DSLR, Start to Finish A complete walk-through. From planning to post-processing
RGB Stars From Narrowband Data Narrowband palettes such as SHO, HOO, etc. produce uncalibrated stars. One way to fix star color is to shoot also in RGB, then blend. In this article, Alberto Ibañez suggests another approach that uses the already acquired narrowband data to achieve the same
Stacking Multiple Sessions in DSS - The Correct Way Even though it's from year 2012, this video on stacking multiple imaging sessions is still relevant today

Awesome Astrophotography / Presentations

Basic Statistics for Astro Imaging Having some understanding of statistics is essential in astrophotography. Here, noted astrophotographer and scientist John Hayes teaches the basics
Beauty and the Beholder On the hidden stories in astro-images and how to tell them. A truly inspirational message from famous astrophotographer Adam Block
Deep Sky Astrophotography With CMOS Cameras by Dr Robin Glover How long should a sub-exposure be? How much to cool? What gain to use? Dr. Robin Glover of SharpCap talks us through the science behind deep sky astrophotography using modern CMOS imaging sensors
Noise and Astrophotography In this presentation, Tim Hutchison from The Astro Imaging Channel talks about the different types of signal and noise that are present in astronomical photos. How noise impacts photography and what we can do against it

Awesome Astrophotography / Software / Acquisition

APT The Swiss army knife for your astro imaging sessions
Ekos An advanced cross-platform (Windows, macOS, Linux) observatory control and automation tool
NINA Free and very powerful astrophotography imaging suite
Nebulosity 129 about 3 years ago Open source, powerful, and easy to use astrophotography software
Sequence Generator Pro The classic fully automated night sky imaging
Voyager User-friendly system integration and astrophotography automation software

Awesome Astrophotography / Software / Guiding

MetaGuide A free guiding software that uses novel centroid methods to reduce the impact of seeing. It also offers comprehensive collimation support than can be of great help for f/4 and faster Newtonian/SCT systems
PHD2 Arguably THE guiding software. Free and open source

Awesome Astrophotography / Software / Image Processing

Adobe Photoshop Advanced and very powerful software for post-processing
BlurXTerminator An AI based deconvolution tool. Currently only available as a process module plug-in for PixInsight
DeepSkyStacker Registering, stacking, and simple post-processing
PixInsight Advanced image processing software platform. Very powerful but the user interface is intimidating
Siril Registering, stacking, and post-processing, specially tailored for noise reduction and improving the signal-to-noise ratio
StarNet++ A simple program that allows the removal of the stars from astrophotography images

Awesome Astrophotography / Software / Planetarium

Cartes du Ciel Cross-platform and free sky charts
KStars Part of the free Ekos imaging suite, this cross-platform planetarium will help you image the sky
Stellarium Cross-platform and free planetarium with realistic 3D sky. It also has a

Awesome Astrophotography / Software / Planning

12 Deep Sky Objects to Photograph A beginner friendly list of objects to photograph with a DSLR camera
Astronomy Tools A tools suite with various calculators, field of view simulation, star chart, etc
Blackwater Skies Imaging Toolbox Plan your framing
Noise Analysis in Stacked Exposures A web application that assists in finding the optimal sub-exposure time. It takes into account the imaging setup, sky glow, etc
PhotoPills A photography planning mobile app (Android & iOS). Best for planning your next Milky Way, Moon, Sunrise, Sunset, Star Trails, Meteor Showers, Solar or Lunar eclipse photo
Telescopius Free planning and image hosting for astrophotographers
lightpollutionmap.info This website uses satellite data to show light pollution related content

Awesome Astrophotography / Software / Other

FocusMax Accurate, automated and repeatable focusing
Modulation Transfer Function and Image Sampling Analyzer This online tool provides insight into the capabilities of a given imaging system. It computes key values such as plate scale, stellar full-width at half-maximum (FWHM), diffraction limit and presents a graph of the system's modulation transfer function (MTF). Very useful for evaluating the performance of a telescope and camera combination

Awesome Astrophotography / YouTube Channels

AstroBackyard Shoot nebulae, galaxies, and star clusters with Trevor Jones
Cuiv, The Lazy Geek Let's talk astronomy and astrophotography! Tutorials, technical videos, and insights by Cuiv, The Lazy Geek
James Lamb With his pleasant and down-to-earth narrative, James teaches astrophotography one pixel at a time
Lukomatico Experiments, comparisons, and processing with PixInsight. Lukomatico has it all
Nebula Photos Tutorials and reviews related to astrophotography by Nico Carver
Patriot Astro Everything N.I.N.A. Complete details with examples

Awesome Astrophotography / Reference

Astrobin's Heatmap of the Sky An inspiring map showing the parts of the sky that the community on Astrobin photographs the most (or least)
Calibration Frames Cheat-Sheet ( )
Canon EOS DSLR models matrix A list of Canon EOS models with useful reference information such as sensor and pixel size, quantum efficiency, shutter life, etc
Digital Camera Database A database holding sensor characteristics for a plethora of digital cameras
IDAS filter comparison CloudyNights forum member Jim Thompson tests and compares a large selection of IDAS brand filters. ( )
Low Level Landscape Lighting A method for lighting the landscape for night-scape photography. This is its official site
Messier All objects from the Messier catalogue with lots of background information and images
Nikon DSLR models matrix A list of Nikon models with useful reference information such as sensor and pixel size, quantum efficiency, shutter life, etc
Online Narrowband RGB Combination Preview Tool This tool allows you to upload black and white source images (filtered eg. Ha, Sii, Oiii or R, G, B), then shows every possible permutation for the various combinations/palettes
Photons to Photos Interactive charts with sensor data contributed by people around the world
Rouzastro equipment reviews A growing list of equipment reviews. The experiences and results may prove useful for those looking at new gear
Sharpless Images of all objects from the Sharpless catalogue each with capture and background information
The 750 Best Deep Sky Objects (Reachable from the Northern Hemisphere) A simplified tool to help astrophotographers easily find targets on any night of the year

Awesome Astrophotography / Astronomy as a Service (AaaS)

Pixel Skies Custom built remote observatories with hosting options
RoboScopes Multi pier remote observatory with reasonable rates for the whole world to use. It offers hourly, syndicates & hosting piers for those who prefer to use their own equipment
Telescope Live Online access to a global network of 10 robotic telescopes with an ever-increasing image archive

Awesome Astrophotography / Community

Astrobin Social image hosting dedicated to astrophotography
Cloudy Nights Arguably the largest community forums
Stargazers Lounge Small but active UK community forums

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