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 sit down and learn how to fully automat a system. My home system is semi-automated because I am sitting right there. 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 Starfront and the dark skies are truly a luxury.
There are currently two imaging systems on the rig in Texas. There is a small 3" quad refractor with an 8 position filter wheel. This scope 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 over the internet from 1200 miles away. 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 and the weather have kept me inside 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. 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 wheeled trolley that will move the system in and out of the garage. Stay tuned for pics of that project.
Image Processing
Alignment/Stacking - I have started using an entirely new processing workflow. With the latest release of Siril came a number of really high quality python scripts. I experimented with an OSC stacking script created by Nazstronomy. This replaced my old Images Plus method. It is quite fast and handles the meridian flip by plate solving each frame. Truly revolutionary.
Deconvolution - Previously, I had never really applied deconvolution consistently because it usually requires a fair amount of trial and error. New releases for both Graxpert and Siril include more power deconvolution routines that are also faster and simpler. I now use this as a first step on every image and it really has helped to bring out the detail.
Color Correction/Stretching - The other major release was the Gaia satellite data treasure trove from ESA. I use this for SPCC color correction. This saves hours of color balancing. I would be remiss if I did not mention the new Veralux Hypermetric stretching script. I discovered this by accident on Reddit and within seconds, I can get more detail in the faint areas.
Post processing - I am still a big fan of the layer, blending and masking tools in Photoshop. I can generally fix whatever problems are still in the image after the python scripts. I have also figured out how to run standalone python scripts directly in Photoshop. It's weird how life works. You spend months and years trying to make tiny incremental improvements and some days, advancements come in major leaps. Never stop never stopping!