I was at the Griffith Observatory last month and saw the Orion Nebula through their big scope

It was my first time seeing it with my own eyes, not just in a photo. The guide pointed out the Trapezium cluster right in the middle. I went home and tried to image it with my basic DSLR and a 200mm lens. After stacking 30 two-minute exposures, I finally got some faint color and detail. It made me realize how much processing goes into those clean Hubble shots we always see. Anyone else start with visual observing before getting into astrophotography?

3 comments

3 Comments

patking2mo ago

Oh man, welcome to the club of realizing Hubble images are basically space Instagram with a million filters. You go from seeing a faint gray smudge at the eyepiece to spending three hours stacking photos just to get a tiny hint of pink. Makes you respect the pros, but also side-eye every pretty space picture now. My first processed shot of Andromeda looked like a blurry potato.

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nathan1932mo ago

Feel that blurry potato pain.

david_hayes1mo ago

Just stacking more frames and bumping the exposure time helped me get past the blurry potato phase.