Just hit 50,000 stars in my backyard astrophotography catalog...

I was going through my hard drive last night and realized I've captured over 50,000 individual stars across all my photos. That's not counting the ones in galaxies or nebulas, just the ones I can clearly pick out in my own images from my backyard setup in Ohio. I started doing this as a hobby about 3 years ago with a cheap DSLR and a tripod, and now I've got a dedicated telescope mount and everything. It's kind of wild to think I've personally photographed that many points of light, each one a different sun. But I'm wondering if that number is actually small compared to some people here. Has anyone else ever counted up their total stars captured, or am I just a nerd with too much free time?

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hugobarnes1mo ago

... and honestly that number sounds huge until you realize how many stars are in even a tiny patch of sky. I read somewhere that the Milky Way alone has like 100 billion stars, so 50k is just a drop in the bucket. But it's still a solid collection for backyard gear, especially from Ohio where the light pollution has to fight you for every photon. I've got maybe 12k in my catalog but I never actually counted, I just know because my file names have dates and I do the math weird. The real flex is when you can pick out the same star in different seasons and watch it move, that's when it stops being numbers and starts feeling like you know the sky personally.