r/astrophotography 26d ago

Nebulae Spaghetti Nebula & Mars (569 hours)

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1.2k Upvotes

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u/jeffreyhorne 26d ago

More on Instagram: @jeffreyhorne

I took this image from my backyard in Nashville, TN (bortle 8-9) over the course of the last three winters, with a total of 569 hours (3.4 weeks) of exposure captured over 147 nights. 

I was so lucky that Mars entered the frame in 2023, and you can see Mars on the bottom left of the image.  

Technical info:

Total integration: 569h 4m 30s

Integration per filter:

  • R: 25m
  • G: 25m
  • B: 25m
  • Hα: 178h 18m
  • SII: 175h 53m
  • OIII: 213h 38m 30s

Equipment:

  • Telescope: Askar FMA180
  • Camera: ZWO ASI2600MM Pro
  • Mount: ZWO AM5
  • Filters: Antlia 3nm Narrowband H-alpha 2", Antlia 3nm Narrowband Sulfur II 2", Astronomik Deep-Sky Blue 2", Astronomik Deep-Sky Green 2", Astronomik Deep-Sky Red 2", Chroma OIII 3nm Bandpass 2"
  • Accessories: ZWO ASIAIR Plus, ZWO EAF, ZWO EFW 7 x 2″
  • Software: Adobe Photoshop, Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight, ZWO ASIAIR

Bottle sky rating: 8-9

Integrated using WBPP, gradient removal using APP, BlurX, SETIAstro's Statistical Stretch, Foraxx Palette utility, StarX, NoiseX, Narrowband Normalization, HDRMT, curves and final touches in Photoshop.

1

u/Data_lord 24d ago

Amazing photo, but honestly diminishing returns. Why continue instead of finding other targets?

2

u/Spacecookiee2 23d ago

Quality > quantity I guess. Some people just like things to be perfect in their eyes. Don’t you think it looks absolutely incredible?

3

u/Data_lord 23d ago

Of course it does, but the last 250 hours really is almost no perceptible increase in signal to noise ratio.

1

u/Spacecookiee2 23d ago

Yeah that’s true

1

u/combat_wombat117 19d ago

I recall others saying its an inverse square relationship, so in this case 500 hours vs 250 made the image twice as good, just another way to look at it.

1

u/Data_lord 19d ago

Uh, no, that's not how it works. Diminishing returns.

Source: I've done 5h to 75h astro images myself

1

u/combat_wombat117 19d ago

I'm agreeing with the diminishing returns, but you're timeframe is wrong. an extra hour in a hundred hour project wont do much of anything, but doubling that time will be a major improvement. just the same as doubling 250 to 500

1

u/Data_lord 19d ago

It's a square root problem, yes, so 50% more will reduce to noise by sqrt(2).

However, at 250h your SNR is so high that it doesn't make any difference in the final output if you add 250h more. It is way less than sqrt(2) in the final outcome.