Acquisition
2025 was the year I went full remote. I am sharing a rig with two local imagers at Starfront Observatory in Rockwood, TX. This has been a huge learning experience. For one, it forced me to learn new fully automated systems, which I had procrastinated on. Second, it taught me how to make the rig more bullet proof, because when you are not there to fix it on the spot, it is quite difficult to trouble shoot. I am beginning to add a few images from this new location, but as of now, I am still fine tuning the setup.
There are currently two imaging systems in Texas. There is a small 3" quad refractor with an 8 position filter wheel. This has a 400mm focal length, which is great for doing wide patches of sky. On the same mount, there is a 2000mm 8" Schmidt Cassegrain. This has a lot of magnification for small galaxies. Each scope has a dedicated focus motor and both systems are controlled with NINA from the comfort of my home. The great thing about automated systems is that I can set up an imaging session and go to bed at a reasonable hour. No more packing the car at 3am.
Sadly, my work schedule has not worked out with the weather this year and I have only been able to take out the Edge 11" once in my driveway back home. The silver lining is that I am applying the automation techniques I learned in TX to my home system. Soon, I hope to be able to sleep while I image, so that is the goal for 2026. I will continue to use the TS Optics 130mm APO for imaging nebula at home. I'm currently building a motorized trolly that will move the system in and out of the garage in minutes. Stay tuned for pics of that project.
Image Processing
Alignment/Stacking - I preprocess darks and flats in Nebulosity, which allows me to process RGB, Ha and OIII simultaneously. I use ImagesPlus for grading and IP's HDR algorithm for stacking. I tested a number of different stacking routines during covid and ImagesPlus HDR is by far the best.
Deconvolution - I will admit to being rather skeptical of anything AI, but Seti Astro recently released and AI-enabled sharpening routine that is.. well.. it's quite good. So I have been sharpening the RG and B stacked images before combining them into a final color image.
Post processing - The bulk of my post processing is done in Photoshop. It has taken me years to feel comfortable in this program, but I finally have a reasonable workflow. I'm still learning new tricks all the time from more experienced processors like Craig Stocks.
Synthetic Luminance - Simply because of the light pollution in my area, I tend not to take separate luminance frames. There has been lots of debate on this, but I have found the best results come from extracting the luminance from the RGB and recombining it with the RGB data.
The one lesson I have learned is to not try to do too much with each step. Each layer is a tiny incremental improvement. When I try to do too much with any step, it ends up looking more like a painting than a photo. Baby steps.