I agree. Nico, I'm just learning -your video is so thorough and easy to understand. I appreciate the work you put into it. And Alyn Wallace - I follow you too - love your work as well and just bought the MSM - and the Z and V-plates. Can't wait to get started. Eventually I hope to also get a tracker like the one Nico is using as well. Thanks again to both of you for sharing your knowledge and passion. Cheers!
Who th would give a thumbs down without the video even being available? :( how could you... this guy is like the Bob Ross of astrophotoghraphy, all his videos are pure positivity and inspiration.
When I first discovered your channel I was kinda hesitent because of the lenght of some of your tutorials. My interest started to grow with every video I watched and by now I´m really excited to get my first very own tracker in a couple of days. I highly appreciate that you share all of your knowledge without skipping any secrete trick or step. Hopefully I´ll be able to follow along and get some nice results with the help of your tutorials. Thanks again for sharing your astro-skills with all of us.
Thank you for showing such clear results on "no tracking" method across multiple videos. When I started astrophotography I hit a wall of people who kept saying that unless I invest in a tracker there's no point in doing this. Your fine work allowed me (and many others) to dive into this amazing hobby without investing a ton of money into gear.
I must say it is really amazing what you can do with very little gear but by paying attention to all the details, i ve been doing this for 2 years now and have a lot of gear but it’s just so satisfying to see what you can do with a camera and a tracker if you have all the information to give you a head start. I spent so much time and frustration even with much better gear and your videos just give all the information you need. I really love that every video just gives you the WHOLE process that is invaluable and it’s sad to see others not being as diligent and educational as you are. THANK YOU SO MUCH !!!
Yep, it is definitely a hobby that rewards experience and attention to detail. I think the one other thing that is hard to conceptualize at first is how big a difference a truly dark sky can make. Clear skies!
I watched most of your videos. The way you are explaining same things over and over each video requires patiance but for the viewers it really helps learning. Keep it up please 👍
Man. I had to stop it after the intro alone. I am so pumped to watch the rest of it but just had to stop and say I appreciate these videos so much. I have 0 knowledge about this stuff. I have only recently taken any pictures of the night sky and man. You always nail it. Even if I had no interest in this topic you are so easy to understand. So friendly and approachable. Thank you for taking the time to help us novice photographers understand even the small details of what you talk about.
This is an amazing video. I'm checking everything out as you go. You have the most amazing astrophotography channel available. I view them all, and your's is the most valuable to us. Thank You!
My god at the end, I thought the 'untracked' image was the tracked one because I thought it looked better! We'll blame my untrained eye :') this is an absolutely incredible guide, you are the man. Thank you for this. Never thought without a tracker it'd be possible but now I'm gonna rush off and try myself!!
Appreciate all your videos. When we first went into the lockdowns I was looking for a new hobby. I started with all your post processing videos. After about 3 weeks give or take I was able to produce my first Astro pics and even a galaxy. I appreciate your attention to detail and taking it slow during your tutorials. I dunno how anyone interested in astrology or astro photography can dislike this mans videos. Just a bunch of random haters.
This is far and away the most helpful video I've seen on night sky photography. I'd all but given up when autoplay served up this gem! Subbed! Great work!
The very best content creator ! His channel isn't full of infomercial shit ! You get top notch KNOWLEDGE here without having shit crammed down your throat for sale. Niko is bomb. Im very grateful. You can find some reviews on his channel but mostly you're going to learn technique.
You've shot a couple of photos of the night sky, you fell in love with it, and decided that this is your niche? ... You're not alone. I have been looking for a mentor, considering I have ADHD; it has been a struggle! This is Nico Carvers' first video I'm watching and all I can say is, I have found a mentor.
Absolutely loved the video. By far my favorite part is when you revealed the stacked pictures of the star cluster and it appeared to be a Subaru Impreza!
Again, amazing video and tutorial. Your Tutorials for tracked astrophotography and post processing helped me a lot and got me to buy a Star tracker for myself. You explained every step of the processing in a way, that someone who never did astrophotography before can understand how to do it. And that's amazing. Really good work.
Awesome comparison! Thanks and Respect! I had no doubt, that the longer exposed subs bring more depth (even if You'd use only the half total exposure time), but I did not expect the difference that huge. The keyword for good pictures is signal/noise-ratio - and "Signal" comes first... Having very few noise is nice, but it does not bring much if there is also very few signal. Capturing as much as possible signal in each sub brings depth to the final picture, so a tracking system (even if it's just a DIY Barndoor mount) is still(*) more important as I expected. * when I started astrophotography 2 decades ago, we had no digital cameras, we exposed on dia-positive film (i prefered Kodak Ektachrome 200). Single shot exposure over several minutes. Manually/visually guided on the (not motorized) equatorial mount through a small lens telescope. Even aligning that mount (no polar finder scope, no App) was an adventure. And the result came 2-3 weeks later from the photo laboratory. Digital cameras have made so much things so much easier. (but they've also complicated other things...)
Nico, your tutorials are head and shoulders above those of most of your contemporaries - if not a very well-trained educator, you are a born teacher. So grateful for the knowledge you have shared with me. My greatest wish is for you to give us a tutorial on using ZWO ASIAir Pro. That would be wonderful. Thanks heaps from Mel in Sydney.
You have some really good teaching skills . Clear, nicely laid out simplification of what can be some really confusing steps for a new person trying to get into picture taking of the night sky. I got a lot out of this video. thanks.
This is 100% the best tutotial I've seen over the years. After years of interest then 1 year of taking advantage of all rare clear nights, I still count myself firmly as a beginner and this is very clear and helpful, (I always forget something). Big thank you!
For anyone else but me, too, this might be too much detail, HOWEVER, this was like the keys to the kingdom as far astrophotography goes. Everyone of my questions got answered and shown how to do it. Thank you so much. This was super helpful!!!! ★★★★★
This is an incredible video! Very detailed and extremely well constructed. As a photographer and aviation enthusiast/flight simmer i’d like to add two useful comments: - photographer in me says: choosing the widest possible aperture on your camera/lens might not always be the best way to go. Many lenses get somewhat unsharp or show chromatic abberation when they’re wide open. Dial down from say f/2.8 to f/3.5 could significantly increase image quality in terms of color and sharpness. It also helps sharpen the whole field of view and allows for more even distribution of light into the lens as it will get less fuzzy from corner to corner. Pro lenses are a lot less susceptible to these things. So sacrificing a notch of light might in many cases be beneficial for the overall picture, if you can add a bit of exposure time to each shot. - same goes for focal length for anyone reading this: if you can, stick to prime lenses, those are lenses with one fixed focal length only, like a 200mm lens or 24mm lens. Avoid zoom lenses with different focal lengths range because they tend to be unsharp and warp the image throughout the focal length range. If you do have a zoom lens you’d best look online on reviews to see at what focal length (and aperture) the lens performs best. This could mean the difference between a fuzzy and greyish shot and a tack sharp, colorful shot. - the flight simmer in me says: check websites like Windy.com. It’s also very helpful as you can select all sorts of parameters like aerosol, wind, humidity and all kinds of pollutants that are in the skies. Happy shooting!! 🎉💫☄️
I couldn’t agree more, was also surprised he set it wide open but i guess he wasn’t so much comparing sharpness in this comparison but noise and wanted to get as much light as possible in 30 minutes so his decision does make sense. I would have stopped down to f/4 though and doubled exposure time for better results.
Love that I found this channel after @AlynWallace and @astrobackyard collections of tutorials! Everyone helpful, informational, while having enough variance to discern important lessons on this subject. Being in the massachusetts area, Im glad someone is as successful with imaging while battling the variances in weather throughout the year. I tend to use cameras not intended for any sort of framable astrophotography (gopros, phone cameras, so far, entry levels and kits lens next!), so the relatively new focus on youtube creators tutorials on starter level cams and editing has been a MAJOR help to me in both hobby AND business, so I appreciate the hell out of all of your work! Oddly, phones and gopros have been focusing on developing better night photography, and Im even practicng deep sky Super Easy with a phone, which blows my mind that its even possible! Weird objects lately too from satellite swarms to new flying objects of unknown origin (to me anyways LOL) and meteor showers galore... this has been a blast so far!
I have watched many of your videos over the past few months but this one I keep coming back to and continue learning - You have done such an awesome job of sharing how to allow us newbies in this field to understand some of the tools we can use on our own to answer our own specific questions regarding the appropriate shutter speed, aperture, ISO, etc. for each of our specific cameras and lenses and tracker. I have read soooooo many books that never provide enough detail to help understand what I need to do in a given circumstance for a given target based on our specific equipment... (“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” @Lao Tzu.) Thank you so very much for continuing to do what you do.
Thank you for the video Nico. You mentioned in a previous video that you would be attempting fewer but better quality videos this year and this shows. Thank you for taking the time to produce this 🙏🏻
I'm about to attempt the no tracker Pleiades tonight! Have had the camera for a while, but now it's finally time to see if I can do it. I appreciate the video, Nico!
Great video sir. I follow all of your videos and tutorials from Trinidad where I live. I am newbie and I must say that your instructions are clear and concise. great job. Blessings to you also.
It is fascinating with the space and the pictures one can take. Gave it a try, after watching several of your videos, I tried with the Pleiades without tracker and common equipment - Canon 5D mk III with a 100-400 lens which could get aperture 5.0 at 200 mm. Living in Nuuk/Greenland, where I managed to find a good place to set up the stand - 64.09 N and 51.41 W - it was minus 8-9 Celsius. Did not get a set of pictures that could be used in Deepskystacker did not find many stars and focus could probably also have been better. Encountered a different problem with light pollution, not from the city though, but the atmosphere in the form of northern lights, temperature played a bit in when the camera eventually froze. As they say, you have to start somewhere.
Thanks so much for these videos, it's saved me so many hours of searching for and reading the right information. Other youtube videos skip right over the important details to tell you things everyone with a day's camera experience already knows. These however are perfect.
FINALLY!! I really hope the results are close.. im willing to put in the hardwork but i just dont have the money to spend for tracker gear to take pictures... so far ive taken pics of everything from andromeda to the horsehead nebula.. cant wait for this amazing vid!
I know the tracked version has more detail, but I think I prefer the untracked version 😬 I think it’s the colour of the stars they look more blue than the tracked version, great video again Nico, I recently followed your step by step guide for Andromeda and had pretty good results so thank you for these videos, looking forward to the next one 😎
Some time ago, there was a Japanese photog who combined OOF images (similar to tracking/non-tracking) with focused images in order to emphasize star colours.
Subscribed sir, I'm just beginning stargazing and want to eventually learn astrophotography, and just a few minutes into this video I knew you are a great teacher.
Hey Nico, Thank you for your wonderful tutorials....I've just got into astrophotography and your tutorials help me so much... Can't wait for this one as well... I'm just 15 btw... Hope I will be able to take such type of pics one day...❤️
Nice to hear that young people are interested in astronomy! I was about your age when I started myself. But we had no digital cameras and no internet back then :-) Take care and clear skies!
I'm beginning to get some grip on Photoshop post-processing! I watched your M31 processing and now getting a hold of the pattern. Still a lot to learn about such a powerful software with so many features! Great video! Thanks!
How is this channel so good!? Amazing video btw. Pleiades is my favorite star cluster and it's nice to see that my favorite TH-cam channel is coming around to image it.
I’m taking a picture of the Pleiades right now. I don’t have a dew heater, and the I can feel the dampness in air. I’m hoping for the best, but this video will hopefully give me a decent look if things don’t go to plan. Thanks again, Nico!
Thanks for your awesome video! I lived in Medford too and really wish I could go with you to a photoshoot session. I'm going to try my first astrophotography soon when the next new moon comes and your video really helped me a lot in my preparation. Thanks again!
I just got the canon r6 and a used tamron 70-200 2.8. So I'm going to try this shot, this weekend without a tracker! Hopefully the clouds cooperate. Thanks for the video.
A great video and very informative. Apart from the moon, I have never taken pictures of any deep sky objects, and if I took a picture similar to the unguided image, then I would be very happy. I am slowly getting my head around all this, and luckily have the kit needed (DSLR, a few lenses, tripods). Just waiting for the opportunity to arise now. Seeing your videos gives me inspiration.
What a great video, I learned a lot !! I've been in wide-field astrophotography for a while and I've only recently been learning and reading in deep space. The use of saddle really helps a lot, greetings from Chile.
This was a Masterclass. Only 2 questions or comments. With a 200mm or any lens of that size/weight, should you be using a lens collar to take the stress off the mount point? Second, with the tracker/camera/lens weight, it is less stable when extending the center stack of the tripod up.
Hi Nico, absolutely love the way you explain things... I got my first astrophoto yesterday of the Orion nebula through my Nikon D3500 and 70-300mm lens (at 300mm f/6.3)... I live in a city with a highly polluted night sky (bortle class 8) the image I got is somewhat satisfactory as first try, but I stumbled across the NPF calculator as the old one and new one gave me different exposure lengths :( still now I cannot figure out which one is the right way to go...
What were the two different values? I would probably just try a test shot using the longer one and then zoom in as much as you can in playback mode and see if the stars look round.
Thanks! One tip, you could use N.I.NA to focus. Connect your camera and turn on annotate image under settings imaging. As you take your test frames you will visually see the fwhm go up and down. 👍
Great tutorial. Thanks for making and posting this. I do disagree that you always want to go with the lowest F stop. Most lenses produce sharper images and nearly eliminate chromatic, especially around the outer edges, if you stop down one or two f stops. I've achieved dramatically improved results with astrophotography work by doing this. I can't collect as much light but I can compensate by taking more light images. The extra time and effort is worth it.
Awesome Nico, another comprehensive and to the point tutorial. I was wonder how long tracked exposure I can go with DSLR before I get major hot pixels and other inherited distortions effects. I understand it's related to sensor type and ambient temperature, but how to find the limit!
I've taken 30 minute DSLR exposures on a summer evening. There were more hot pixels then say a 5 minute shot, but I don't think there were 6x more. Darks will still work too, but will be a pain to shoot and match temperature unless you can do it on a cloudy night with the same ambient temp. So I don't think anything really changes too much. I routinely take 10 and 20 minute exposures with my dedicated CMOS astro camera which uses a sensor that is also used in modern dslr/mirrorless cameras.
Nico you Rock! I really enjoy watching your well put videos. I have not done a picture myself yet but hopefully I will.. Thanks again and keep them coming
I follow your channel quite a while and last night i caught first time a dso, the orion nebula with Canon M50 and Canon 55-250 as you mentioned to do with stacking. What should i say, it just works. But i did a little workflow-tuning on the setup, so i use a small motorized tracker and choose a exposure time of 2.5 sec because the lens is too slow at 250. It works fine for me and now i optimise my work on the software-side. Many thanks for your great work with this channel!
I picked up a few tips here Nico thanks. I've mainly been trying to get my histogram in by 1/3rd so it's good to try a different approach and also in the way you go about stretching the channels. Thanks Nico🙏
This has been great! I really like your videos. I try to do astrophotography from my backyard with a modded camera and tripod under a Bortle 6 sky in the city. I've got results that are not that good though but this weekend I'm finally receiving a star tracker after a long wait (all out of stock since November). I'm following your video and I hope to have some results as good as yours in this video, I''ll start with the Peyades to compare. Clear skies!!
Watched the video in full this morning, simply fantastic. Thanks Nico, really enjoying your content. This really makes me want to persevere more with my Skyguider pro I've brought to take camping.
An easy way to understand ISO is that it's not making your sensor more sensitive to light, it's just amplifying the signal created by the light hitting your sensor. So, think of it like recording sound. There's the sound you want to record and background noise. If the sound you're recording is loud enough, it will drown out the background noise and you won't hear it. That's like taking an image with lots of light. The signal created by light hitting your sensor is overpowering the sensors 'noise'. But, if the sound you're recording is really quiet and you get around the lack of volume by amplifying the recorded sound, the background noise will get amplified as well.
Well said. With astrophotography, we need people to get that base understanding and then understand there is a noise term associated with ISO called readout noise that typically goes down by increasing ISO, and that while this has no impact on daytime photography, can have a much bigger impact on stacked astrophotography.
Nice comparison! I just tried Pleiades 2 nights ago, but had problems with my MSM tracker and didn't get much usable data. Was shooting for at least an hour of 1' subs using my Samyang 135mm lens. Live view on my T3i seemed to show relatively sharp stars, but when I got them in the pc, I ended up losing all but 8 photos out of over 100, due to trailing. Very frustrating night! 😡 I shouldve shot 30-45" subs, I think.
@@NebulaPhotos it's a pretty nice, very portable tracker, but I think it probably serves best at 50mm and below focal lengths. I'm probably asking too much of it, with my 135mm lens...
I recently used my modifyied camera to photograph Orion. I realizaed that I capture much more the IR. However, the blue glow and the blue in a general way has been reduced. So, I came up with a different approach I dont know if anyone did it. I read about capturing the luminosity of different RGB channels with Monocrome cameras and corresponding filters. Then use the results as the luminosity of each RBG channel in Photoshop. Therefore, I realized the non modifyied camera I have filter the IR and also capture more of the other colors (even better since it is an A7III against the mod T7Ia ). Then I decided to steach with both cameras and then blend the two final images. At the end all the blue nebula around stars close to Orion could be recovered . If we can blend several shots aligning them or blend different monocrome captures of each RGB channel, why could not we blend from different sensors with the same settings? Looking at the T7I before modificatoin, I observed that it already capture almost no blue compared to A7III. Só it seems that mod was not responsable for all the blue alimination. Maybe an A7III modifyoed would bring more blue anyway. However, the idea com blending from diferente sensors due to better quality in part of the capture seems to be interesting. In my case A7III blending with T7Ia bring results up to other level.
Great video, thanks. I am just getting my feet wet with astro photography and just playing around with my ordinary photo equipment. The other day I did my first shoot, just a few frames of the Orion Nebula, and went though the process of stacking them. I will do more when the weather allows. But I have a question about those long exposures: Even without a tracker I can gather enough light to burn out the brighter stars. I have not heard anyone mention this and I assume it is something not to care about? And - don 't you guys have wind over there? I'm trying to imagine how sturdy the mount needs to be to keep the lens stable for those 30+ second exposures...
I get a lot of still nights up here, but yes the windy-er it is the more stable your tripod and setup needs to be. Some tricks for wind are put the tripod in the lowest position possible and weigh it down with sandbags or whatever makeshift weights you can find. I don't care about blowing out star cores so much. The halo can still be colorful and the white cores look fine to me.
Amazing tutorial as always! There is something for everyone, no matter what our level is between "completely new" to "intermediate"! I learn something cool EVERY TIME!!! :) Thanks so much! FYi, I logged to Paypal for a one-time donation but the fees were more than what I could afford to give in total!!! transaction fees were 17.75CAD (about 14$ US I guess). You may want to look into it, it might discourage many small donors... :(
Great effort and comparison dude 👏🏻
Thanks Alyn! I always watch your videos when they come up in my feed. Your Sony A7SIII review was excellent!
Yo I love your work Alyn
I agree. Nico, I'm just learning -your video is so thorough and easy to understand. I appreciate the work you put into it. And Alyn Wallace - I follow you too - love your work as well and just bought the MSM - and the Z and V-plates. Can't wait to get started. Eventually I hope to also get a tracker like the one Nico is using as well. Thanks again to both of you for sharing your knowledge and passion. Cheers!
@@NebulaPhotos Nico, pls have you any video you have made with star tracker?
Its really inspiring to see 2 astro youtubers interacting and commenting positive vibes to each other.
Who th would give a thumbs down without the video even being available? :( how could you... this guy is like the Bob Ross of astrophotoghraphy, all his videos are pure positivity and inspiration.
Probably a flat earther
@@quadbot5229 true
The “Bob Ross” analogy is perfect, Nico has a hypnotic style, enthralling and inspiring
Flattards.
Some people just want to watch the world burn unfortunately.........
This is the best astrophotography guide ever made. Seriously. You literally went through everything 99% of people will ask about.
When I first discovered your channel I was kinda hesitent because of the lenght of some of your tutorials. My interest started to grow with every video I watched and by now I´m really excited to get my first very own tracker in a couple of days. I highly appreciate that you share all of your knowledge without skipping any secrete trick or step. Hopefully I´ll be able to follow along and get some nice results with the help of your tutorials. Thanks again for sharing your astro-skills with all of us.
That's great Peter. Glad I could help. Cheers, Nico
You speak facts dude
Very few people are willing to share those secrets and tricks.
@@marvinracer88 They are not secrets
You are the SUPER HERO of all amateur astrophotographers!! THANK YOU sir!
Too kind! Clear skies, Nico
You have done outstanding job for the beginner with similar equipment....saving them alot of decision-making and wondering....!
Thank you for showing such clear results on "no tracking" method across multiple videos. When I started astrophotography I hit a wall of people who kept saying that unless I invest in a tracker there's no point in doing this. Your fine work allowed me (and many others) to dive into this amazing hobby without investing a ton of money into gear.
I must say it is really amazing what you can do with very little gear but by paying attention to all the details, i ve been doing this for 2 years now and have a lot of gear but it’s just so satisfying to see what you can do with a camera and a tracker if you have all the information to give you a head start. I spent so much time and frustration even with much better gear and your videos just give all the information you need. I really love that every video just gives you the WHOLE process that is invaluable and it’s sad to see others not being as diligent and educational as you are. THANK YOU SO MUCH !!!
Yep, it is definitely a hobby that rewards experience and attention to detail. I think the one other thing that is hard to conceptualize at first is how big a difference a truly dark sky can make. Clear skies!
I watched most of your videos. The way you are explaining same things over and over each video requires patiance but for the viewers it really helps learning. Keep it up please 👍
Nico, your Channel is the reason why it’s worth exploring TH-cam. Keep up the good work!
This is by far the most comprehensive video on the subject I have found so far. Very informative and right level of details, specially for beginners
I watched this over several days just to take it all in. Very nice teaching skills. Thank you!
Man. I had to stop it after the intro alone. I am so pumped to watch the rest of it but just had to stop and say I appreciate these videos so much. I have 0 knowledge about this stuff. I have only recently taken any pictures of the night sky and man. You always nail it. Even if I had no interest in this topic you are so easy to understand. So friendly and approachable. Thank you for taking the time to help us novice photographers understand even the small details of what you talk about.
There's virtually nobody on TH-cam listening to whom I enjoy more. Great videos!
Wow, thanks!
Thank you for the incredible effort and detail you put into these tutorials. It’s like a college class in astrophotography!
possibly the most detailed astrophotography video ever made!
This is an amazing video. I'm checking everything out as you go. You have the most amazing astrophotography channel available. I view them all, and your's is the most valuable to us. Thank You!
My god at the end, I thought the 'untracked' image was the tracked one because I thought it looked better! We'll blame my untrained eye :') this is an absolutely incredible guide, you are the man. Thank you for this. Never thought without a tracker it'd be possible but now I'm gonna rush off and try myself!!
Awesome video, thank you!
Appreciate all your videos. When we first went into the lockdowns I was looking for a new hobby. I started with all your post processing videos. After about 3 weeks give or take I was able to produce my first Astro pics and even a galaxy. I appreciate your attention to detail and taking it slow during your tutorials. I dunno how anyone interested in astrology or astro photography can dislike this mans videos. Just a bunch of random haters.
This is far and away the most helpful video I've seen on night sky photography. I'd all but given up when autoplay served up this gem! Subbed! Great work!
Glad to hear it James! Clear skies, Nico
The very best content creator ! His channel isn't full of infomercial shit ! You get top notch KNOWLEDGE here without having shit crammed down your throat for sale. Niko is bomb. Im very grateful. You can find some reviews on his channel but mostly you're going to learn technique.
You've shot a couple of photos of the night sky, you fell in love with it, and decided that this is your niche? ... You're not alone. I have been looking for a mentor, considering I have ADHD; it has been a struggle! This is Nico Carvers' first video I'm watching and all I can say is, I have found a mentor.
Absolutely loved the video. By far my favorite part is when you revealed the stacked pictures of the star cluster and it appeared to be a Subaru Impreza!
Again, amazing video and tutorial.
Your Tutorials for tracked astrophotography and post processing helped me a lot and got me to buy a Star tracker for myself.
You explained every step of the processing in a way, that someone who never did astrophotography before can understand how to do it. And that's amazing.
Really good work.
Happy to help!
Awesome comparison! Thanks and Respect!
I had no doubt, that the longer exposed subs bring more depth (even if You'd use only the half total exposure time), but I did not expect the difference that huge.
The keyword for good pictures is signal/noise-ratio - and "Signal" comes first...
Having very few noise is nice, but it does not bring much if there is also very few signal.
Capturing as much as possible signal in each sub brings depth to the final picture, so a tracking system (even if it's just a DIY Barndoor mount) is still(*) more important as I expected.
* when I started astrophotography 2 decades ago, we had no digital cameras, we exposed on dia-positive film (i prefered Kodak Ektachrome 200). Single shot exposure over several minutes. Manually/visually guided on the (not motorized) equatorial mount through a small lens telescope. Even aligning that mount (no polar finder scope, no App) was an adventure.
And the result came 2-3 weeks later from the photo laboratory. Digital cameras have made so much things so much easier.
(but they've also complicated other things...)
Nico, your tutorials are head and shoulders above those of most of your contemporaries - if not a very well-trained educator, you are a born teacher. So grateful for the knowledge you have shared with me. My greatest wish is for you to give us a tutorial on using ZWO ASIAir Pro. That would be wonderful. Thanks heaps from Mel in Sydney.
You have some really good teaching skills . Clear, nicely laid out simplification of what can be some really confusing steps for a new person trying to get into picture taking of the night sky. I got a lot out of this video. thanks.
This is 100% the best tutotial I've seen over the years. After years of interest then 1 year of taking advantage of all rare clear nights, I still count myself firmly as a beginner and this is very clear and helpful, (I always forget something). Big thank you!
I am starting with astrophotography with very basic gear but your videos are really clearing up things for me. Thanks for that.
For anyone else but me, too, this might be too much detail, HOWEVER, this was like the keys to the kingdom as far astrophotography goes. Everyone of my questions got answered and shown how to do it. Thank you so much. This was super helpful!!!! ★★★★★
This is an incredible video! Very detailed and extremely well constructed. As a photographer and aviation enthusiast/flight simmer i’d like to add two useful comments:
- photographer in me says: choosing the widest possible aperture on your camera/lens might not always be the best way to go. Many lenses get somewhat unsharp or show chromatic abberation when they’re wide open. Dial down from say f/2.8 to f/3.5 could significantly increase image quality in terms of color and sharpness. It also helps sharpen the whole field of view and allows for more even distribution of light into the lens as it will get less fuzzy from corner to corner. Pro lenses are a lot less susceptible to these things. So sacrificing a notch of light might in many cases be beneficial for the overall picture, if you can add a bit of exposure time to each shot.
- same goes for focal length for anyone reading this: if you can, stick to prime lenses, those are lenses with one fixed focal length only, like a 200mm lens or 24mm lens. Avoid zoom lenses with different focal lengths range because they tend to be unsharp and warp the image throughout the focal length range.
If you do have a zoom lens you’d best look online on reviews to see at what focal length (and aperture) the lens performs best. This could mean the difference between a fuzzy and greyish shot and a tack sharp, colorful shot.
- the flight simmer in me says: check websites like Windy.com. It’s also very helpful as you can select all sorts of parameters like aerosol, wind, humidity and all kinds of pollutants that are in the skies.
Happy shooting!! 🎉💫☄️
I couldn’t agree more, was also surprised he set it wide open but i guess he wasn’t so much comparing sharpness in this comparison but noise and wanted to get as much light as possible in 30 minutes so his decision does make sense. I would have stopped down to f/4 though and doubled exposure time for better results.
What a fantastic video tutorial !!
I don't even shoot astro, but it's really awesome how you're explaining everything !
Thank you so much.
Love that I found this channel after @AlynWallace and @astrobackyard collections of tutorials! Everyone helpful, informational, while having enough variance to discern important lessons on this subject. Being in the massachusetts area, Im glad someone is as successful with imaging while battling the variances in weather throughout the year.
I tend to use cameras not intended for any sort of framable astrophotography (gopros, phone cameras, so far, entry levels and kits lens next!), so the relatively new focus on youtube creators tutorials on starter level cams and editing has been a MAJOR help to me in both hobby AND business, so I appreciate the hell out of all of your work! Oddly, phones and gopros have been focusing on developing better night photography, and Im even practicng deep sky Super Easy with a phone, which blows my mind that its even possible! Weird objects lately too from satellite swarms to new flying objects of unknown origin (to me anyways LOL) and meteor showers galore... this has been a blast so far!
This is one of the best videos on this topic I've ever seen. Must have taken a lot of effort and it shows... Great work!
I have watched many of your videos over the past few months but this one I keep coming back to and continue learning - You have done such an awesome job of sharing how to allow us newbies in this field to understand some of the tools we can use on our own to answer our own specific questions regarding the appropriate shutter speed, aperture, ISO, etc. for each of our specific cameras and lenses and tracker. I have read soooooo many books that never provide enough detail to help understand what I need to do in a given circumstance for a given target based on our specific equipment... (“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” @Lao Tzu.) Thank you so very much for continuing to do what you do.
Thanks!
This video must have taken a LOT of hard work. Thank you! It is very educational and inspiring!
I absolutely have not knowledge to Say if you are the best or not, but for sure you are my favourite astroyoutuber!
Can't wait for the video :D
Thanks Stefano!
Thank you for the video Nico. You mentioned in a previous video that you would be attempting fewer but better quality videos this year and this shows. Thank you for taking the time to produce this 🙏🏻
Thanks Craig, still lots of mistakes, but I am trying to hit a balance between quality and getting the videos out
The Most complete guide I’ve found. Amazing. Thank you!
Very tempted to save up for these upgrades, evidently worth it in my opinion. Thanks for sharing your results.
I'm about to attempt the no tracker Pleiades tonight! Have had the camera for a while, but now it's finally time to see if I can do it. I appreciate the video, Nico!
Great video sir. I follow all of your videos and tutorials from Trinidad where I live. I am newbie and I must say that your instructions are clear and concise. great job. Blessings to you also.
Thanks Desborne! I appreciate the nice comment.
It is fascinating with the space and the pictures one can take. Gave it a try, after watching several of your videos, I tried with the Pleiades without tracker and common equipment - Canon 5D mk III with a 100-400 lens which could get aperture 5.0 at 200 mm. Living in Nuuk/Greenland, where I managed to find a good place to set up the stand - 64.09 N and 51.41 W - it was minus 8-9 Celsius.
Did not get a set of pictures that could be used in Deepskystacker did not find many stars and focus could probably also have been better. Encountered a different problem with light pollution, not from the city though, but the atmosphere in the form of northern lights, temperature played a bit in when the camera eventually froze. As they say, you have to start somewhere.
There was so much good info packed into just the first 1/3 of this video that I am subscribing to your channel now!
Thanks so much for these videos, it's saved me so many hours of searching for and reading the right information. Other youtube videos skip right over the important details to tell you things everyone with a day's camera experience already knows. These however are perfect.
Nico you are my hero! Interesting, entertaining, you have it all… thank you for all your work
FINALLY!! I really hope the results are close.. im willing to put in the hardwork but i just dont have the money to spend for tracker gear to take pictures... so far ive taken pics of everything from andromeda to the horsehead nebula.. cant wait for this amazing vid!
You could make some basic barn door style start tracker yourself on the cheap.
I know the tracked version has more detail, but I think I prefer the untracked version 😬 I think it’s the colour of the stars they look more blue than the tracked version, great video again Nico, I recently followed your step by step guide for Andromeda and had pretty good results so thank you for these videos, looking forward to the next one 😎
Some time ago, there was a Japanese photog who combined OOF images (similar to tracking/non-tracking) with focused images in order to emphasize star colours.
Subscribed sir, I'm just beginning stargazing and want to eventually learn astrophotography, and just a few minutes into this video I knew you are a great teacher.
Thanks Mark! Clear skies, Nico
Hey Nico, Thank you for your wonderful tutorials....I've just got into astrophotography and your tutorials help me so much... Can't wait for this one as well... I'm just 15 btw... Hope I will be able to take such type of pics one day...❤️
Nice to hear that young people are interested in astronomy! I was about your age when I started myself. But we had no digital cameras and no internet back then :-) Take care and clear skies!
@@floryda4281 thx : )
Hows it going
Same here im 15! And the mounts are just overpriced for telescopes for me
Great tutorial for newbies. I'm slowly getting setup for this type of astrophotography and found this video invaluable.
Your videos are getting better and better 🤩🤩
Thanks 😁
I'm beginning to get some grip on Photoshop post-processing! I watched your M31 processing and now getting a hold of the pattern. Still a lot to learn about such a powerful software with so many features! Great video! Thanks!
00:00 🌌 Find Pleiades cluster.
01:21 📸 DSLR & telephoto lens.
01:47 🌠 Use star tracker for better photos.
13:23 🌐 Check shooting conditions.
23:04 🌌 Newer cameras have less noise.
25:02 🌐 Polar alignment & balance matter.
32:44 🔍 Manually focus in live view.
45:53 📷 Prepare lens & screen for shooting.
47:11 💻 Organize astrophotography files.
49:02 🔵 Use Deep Sky Stacker for stacking.
01:00:19 📊 Stretch images in post.
01:10:27 📷 Tracking improves image quality.
01:16:39 📸 Reduce chromatic aberration.
01:19:11 📊 Longer exposures enhance quality.
Thank you for this exhaustive side by side comparison. Really great info and you have me even more excited to get my SkyGuider! Clear Skies!
Clear skies Jay!
As always, a great job and a very useful tutorial. Thanks, Nico! Best wishes from Brazil!
lovely to see ur dedication for work 💝
How is this channel so good!? Amazing video btw. Pleiades is my favorite star cluster and it's nice to see that my favorite TH-cam channel is coming around to image it.
I’m taking a picture of the Pleiades right now. I don’t have a dew heater, and the I can feel the dampness in air. I’m hoping for the best, but this video will hopefully give me a decent look if things don’t go to plan. Thanks again, Nico!
Thanks for your awesome video! I lived in Medford too and really wish I could go with you to a photoshoot session. I'm going to try my first astrophotography soon when the next new moon comes and your video really helped me a lot in my preparation. Thanks again!
I just got the canon r6 and a used tamron 70-200 2.8. So I'm going to try this shot, this weekend without a tracker! Hopefully the clouds cooperate. Thanks for the video.
A great video and very informative. Apart from the moon, I have never taken pictures of any deep sky objects, and if I took a picture similar to the unguided image, then I would be very happy. I am slowly getting my head around all this, and luckily have the kit needed (DSLR, a few lenses, tripods). Just waiting for the opportunity to arise now. Seeing your videos gives me inspiration.
That’s why I love full frame for static tripod shots. You keep more of the center. Cool comparison.
A nice video for getting start with astrophotography, give viewers directions for further tutorials.
What a great video, I learned a lot !! I've been in wide-field astrophotography for a while and I've only recently been learning and reading in deep space. The use of saddle really helps a lot, greetings from Chile.
Glad you enjoyed it! Clear skies Diego!
Great video. Very comprehensive and easy to follow.
This was a Masterclass. Only 2 questions or comments. With a 200mm or any lens of that size/weight, should you be using a lens collar to take the stress off the mount point? Second, with the tracker/camera/lens weight, it is less stable when extending the center stack of the tripod up.
So much information, awesome video! It’s hard to think of Somerville without thinking of Leone’s Pizza on Broadway.
Thanks for your sharing your knowledge! You are really inspiring people like me to look up, focus and marvel.
Hi Nico, absolutely love the way you explain things... I got my first astrophoto yesterday of the Orion nebula through my Nikon D3500 and 70-300mm lens (at 300mm f/6.3)... I live in a city with a highly polluted night sky (bortle class 8) the image I got is somewhat satisfactory as first try, but I stumbled across the NPF calculator as the old one and new one gave me different exposure lengths :( still now I cannot figure out which one is the right way to go...
What were the two different values? I would probably just try a test shot using the longer one and then zoom in as much as you can in playback mode and see if the stars look round.
@@NebulaPhotos thanks for the reply... I'll do that then... The two values are 1.9sec and 4.1sec they differ hugely :(
Wow, you saved us weeks of hard work. Thank you!
Thanks! One tip, you could use N.I.NA to focus. Connect your camera and turn on annotate image under settings imaging. As you take your test frames you will visually see the fwhm go up and down. 👍
Thanks for that Man! Very helpfull tutorial. I was looking for something like that for quite some time. Greetings from Poland!
Hi Nico, brilliant tutorial. Much appreciated. Thank you 🙏
Thanks so much for your efforts. I learn so much from watching your videos. Keep up the great work!
OMG... I just have a Nikon d5600 as in your example about choosing the proper ISO value. Thanks a lot your explanation was very very useful!
Great tutorial. Thanks for making and posting this. I do disagree that you always want to go with the lowest F stop. Most lenses produce sharper images and nearly eliminate chromatic, especially around the outer edges, if you stop down one or two f stops. I've achieved dramatically improved results with astrophotography work by doing this. I can't collect as much light but I can compensate by taking more light images. The extra time and effort is worth it.
Thank you so much I’m hoping I can take my first photos tomorrow using this as a guide. So helpful!
Awesome Nico, another comprehensive and to the point tutorial.
I was wonder how long tracked exposure I can go with DSLR before I get major hot pixels and other inherited distortions effects. I understand it's related to sensor type and ambient temperature, but how to find the limit!
I've taken 30 minute DSLR exposures on a summer evening. There were more hot pixels then say a 5 minute shot, but I don't think there were 6x more. Darks will still work too, but will be a pain to shoot and match temperature unless you can do it on a cloudy night with the same ambient temp. So I don't think anything really changes too much. I routinely take 10 and 20 minute exposures with my dedicated CMOS astro camera which uses a sensor that is also used in modern dslr/mirrorless cameras.
Thank you for the clarifications Nico.
Nico you Rock! I really enjoy watching your well put videos. I have not done a picture myself yet but hopefully I will.. Thanks again and keep them coming
I follow your channel quite a while and last night i caught first time a dso, the orion nebula with Canon M50 and Canon 55-250 as you mentioned to do with stacking. What should i say, it just works. But i did a little workflow-tuning on the setup, so i use a small motorized tracker and choose a exposure time of 2.5 sec because the lens is too slow at 250.
It works fine for me and now i optimise my work on the software-side.
Many thanks for your great work with this channel!
I picked up a few tips here Nico thanks. I've mainly been trying to get my histogram in by 1/3rd so it's good to try a different approach and also in the way you go about stretching the channels. Thanks Nico🙏
This has been great! I really like your videos. I try to do astrophotography from my backyard with a modded camera and tripod under a Bortle 6 sky in the city. I've got results that are not that good though but this weekend I'm finally receiving a star tracker after a long wait (all out of stock since November). I'm following your video and I hope to have some results as good as yours in this video, I''ll start with the Peyades to compare. Clear skies!!
Awesome Angel! The Pleiades are a very nice object. Orion is also a good choice. Cheers, Nico
Thank you for the detailed video on this topic. It was very helpful.
Thanks A Lot 👍 for gifting us this excellent presentation 👏
An excellent presentation and I really appreciate your detail in this presentation Thank you
Hi. Thank you a lot. Your explanation is very clear, and I'm going to try to take some pictures as soon as possible. Goo job!
Watched the video in full this morning, simply fantastic. Thanks Nico, really enjoying your content. This really makes me want to persevere more with my Skyguider pro I've brought to take camping.
It was an amazing session for understanding the details for any beginner. Thank you! Really appreciate it!
Love your videos. I bought this exact same lens (Canon 200mm f/2.8L) based on your recommendation and love it.
your videos are the best! So thorough and well articulated. Thank you :)
An easy way to understand ISO is that it's not making your sensor more sensitive to light, it's just amplifying the signal created by the light hitting your sensor.
So, think of it like recording sound. There's the sound you want to record and background noise. If the sound you're recording is loud enough, it will drown out the background noise and you won't hear it. That's like taking an image with lots of light. The signal created by light hitting your sensor is overpowering the sensors 'noise'.
But, if the sound you're recording is really quiet and you get around the lack of volume by amplifying the recorded sound, the background noise will get amplified as well.
Well said. With astrophotography, we need people to get that base understanding and then understand there is a noise term associated with ISO called readout noise that typically goes down by increasing ISO, and that while this has no impact on daytime photography, can have a much bigger impact on stacked astrophotography.
Nice comparison! I just tried Pleiades 2 nights ago, but had problems with my MSM tracker and didn't get much usable data. Was shooting for at least an hour of 1' subs using my Samyang 135mm lens. Live view on my T3i seemed to show relatively sharp stars, but when I got them in the pc, I ended up losing all but 8 photos out of over 100, due to trailing. Very frustrating night! 😡 I shouldve shot 30-45" subs, I think.
Sorry to hear that. I have the MSM tracker, but haven't tried it yet. Clear skies! Nico
@@NebulaPhotos it's a pretty nice, very portable tracker, but I think it probably serves best at 50mm and below focal lengths. I'm probably asking too much of it, with my 135mm lens...
Great! Really great! I wonder how much space the 1800 untracked version would take up, about 40GB just for the lights. Love your channel 🤩🙏👍
I recently used my modifyied camera to photograph Orion. I realizaed that I capture much more the IR. However, the blue glow and the blue in a general way has been reduced. So, I came up with a different approach I dont know if anyone did it. I read about capturing the luminosity of different RGB channels with Monocrome cameras and corresponding filters. Then use the results as the luminosity of each RBG channel in Photoshop. Therefore, I realized the non modifyied camera I have filter the IR and also capture more of the other colors (even better since it is an A7III against the mod T7Ia ). Then I decided to steach with both cameras and then blend the two final images. At the end all the blue nebula around stars close to Orion could be recovered . If we can blend several shots aligning them or blend different monocrome captures of each RGB channel, why could not we blend from different sensors with the same settings? Looking at the T7I before modificatoin, I observed that it already capture almost no blue compared to A7III. Só it seems that mod was not responsable for all the blue alimination. Maybe an A7III modifyoed would bring more blue anyway. However, the idea com blending from diferente sensors due to better quality in part of the capture seems to be interesting. In my case A7III blending with T7Ia bring results up to other level.
Great video, thanks. I am just getting my feet wet with astro photography and just playing around with my ordinary photo equipment. The other day I did my first shoot, just a few frames of the Orion Nebula, and went though the process of stacking them. I will do more when the weather allows.
But I have a question about those long exposures: Even without a tracker I can gather enough light to burn out the brighter stars. I have not heard anyone mention this and I assume it is something not to care about?
And - don 't you guys have wind over there? I'm trying to imagine how sturdy the mount needs to be to keep the lens stable for those 30+ second exposures...
I get a lot of still nights up here, but yes the windy-er it is the more stable your tripod and setup needs to be. Some tricks for wind are put the tripod in the lowest position possible and weigh it down with sandbags or whatever makeshift weights you can find. I don't care about blowing out star cores so much. The halo can still be colorful and the white cores look fine to me.
Amazing tutorial as always! There is something for everyone, no matter what our level is between "completely new" to "intermediate"! I learn something cool EVERY TIME!!! :) Thanks so much!
FYi, I logged to Paypal for a one-time donation but the fees were more than what I could afford to give in total!!! transaction fees were 17.75CAD (about 14$ US I guess). You may want to look into it, it might discourage many small donors... :(
Wow, using the levels is a game changer! Thanks! Was stoked that all the colors just popped on my image. (orion nebula)