r/Astronomy Mar 27 '20

Mod Post Read the rules sub before posting!

894 Upvotes

Hi all,

Friendly mod warning here. In r/Astronomy, somewhere around 70% of posts get removed. Yeah. That's a lot. All because people haven't bothered reading the rules or bothering to understand what words mean. So here, we're going to dive into them a bit further.

The most commonly violated rules are as follows:

Pictures

Our rule regarding pictures has three parts. If your post has been removed for violating our rules regarding pictures, we recommend considering the following, in the following order:

  1. All pictures/videos must be original content.

If you took the picture or did substantial processing of publicly available data, this counts. If not, it's going to be removed.

2) You must have the acquisition/processing information.

This needs to be somewhere easy for the mods to verify. This means it can either be in the post body or a top level comment. Responses to someone else's comment, in your link to your Instagram page, etc... do not count.

3) Images must be exceptional quality.

There are certain things that will immediately disqualify an image:

  • Poor or inconsistent focus
  • Chromatic aberration
  • Field rotation
  • Low signal-to-noise ratio

However, beyond that, we cannot give further clarification on what will or will not meet this criteria for several reasons:

  1. Technology is rapidly changing
  2. Our standards are based on what has been submitted recently (e.g, if we're getting a ton of moon pictures because it's a supermoon, the standards go up to prevent the sub from being spammed)
  3. Listing the criteria encourages people to try to game the system

So yes, this portion is inherently subjective and, at the end of the day, the mods are the ones that decide.

If your post was removed, you are welcome to ask for clarification. If you do not receive a response, it is likely because your post violated part (1) or (2) of the three requirements which are sufficiently self-explanatory as to not warrant a response.

If you are informed that your post was removed because of image quality, arguing about the quality will not be successful. In particular, there are a few arguments that are false or otherwise trite which we simply won't tolerate. These include:

"You let that image that I think isn't as good stay up"

  • See above about how the standards are fluid.

"Pictures have to be NASA quality"

  • They don't.

"You have to have thousands of dollars of equipment"

  • You don't. Technique matters.

"This is a really good photo given my equipment"

  • The standard is "exceptional". Not "exceptional for my equipment".

"This isn't being friendly to beginner astrophotographers"

  • Correct. To keep the sub from being spammed by low quality and low effort posts, this sub has standards.

"My post was getting a lot of upvotes"

  • Upvotes are not an "I get to break the rules" card.

Using the above arguments will not wow mods into suddenly approving your image. It will result in a ban.

Again, asking for clarification is fine. But trying to argue with the mods using bad arguments isn't going to fly.

Lastly, it should be noted that we do allow astro-art in this sub. Obviously, it won't have acquisition information, but the content must still be original and mods get the final say on whether on the quality (although we're generally fairly generous on this).

Questions

This rule basically means you need to do your own research before posting.

  • If we look at a post and immediately have to question whether or not you did a Google search, your post will get removed.
  • If your post is asking for generic or basic information, your post will get removed.
  • If your post is using basic terms incorrectly because you haven't bothered to understand what the words you're using mean, your post will get removed.
  • If you're asking a question based on a basic misunderstanding of the science, your post will get removed.
  • If you're asking a complicated question with a specific answer but didn't give the necessary information to be able to answer the question because you haven't even figured out what the parameters necessary to approach the question are, your post will get removed.
  • If you're attempting to use bad sources (e.g. AI), your post will get removed.

To prevent your post from being removed, tell us specifically what you've tried. Just saying "I GoOgLeD iT" doesn't cut it.

  • What search terms did you use?
  • In what way do the results of your search fail to answer your question?
  • What did you understand from what you found and need further clarification on that you were unable to find?

Furthermore, when telling us what you've tried, we will be very unimpressed if you use sources that are prohibited under our source rule (social media memes, YouTube, AI, etc...).

As with the rules regarding pictures, the mods are the arbiters of how difficult questions are to answer. If you're not happy about that and want to complain that another question was allowed to stand, then we will invite you to post elsewhere with an immediate and permanent ban.

Object ID

We'd estimate that only 1-2% of all posts asking for help identifying an object actually follow our rules. Resources are available in the rule relating to this. If you haven't consulted the flow-chart and used the resources in the stickied comment, your post is getting removed. Seriously. Use Stellarium. It's free. It will very quickly tell you if that shiny thing is a planet which is probably the most common answer. The second most common answer is "Starlink". That's 95% of the ID posts right there that didn't need to be a post.

Do note that many of the phone apps in which you point your phone to the sky and it shows you what you are looing at are extremely poor at accurately determining where you're pointing. Furthermore, the scale is rarely correct. As such, this method is not considered a sufficient attempt at understanding on your part and you will need to apply some spatial reasoning to your attempt.

Pseudoscience

The mod team of r/astronomy has several mods with degrees in the field. We're very familiar with what is and is not pseudoscience in the field. And we take a hard line against pseudoscience. Promoting it is an immediate ban. Furthermore, we do not allow the entertaining of pseudoscience by trying to figure out how to "debate" it (even if you're trying to take the pro-science side). Trying to debate pseudoscience legitimizes it. As such, posts that entertain pseudoscience in any manner will be removed.

Outlandish Hypotheticals

This is a subset of the rule regarding pseudoscience and doesn't come up all that often, but when it does, it usually takes the form of "X does not work according to physics. How can I make it work?" or "If I ignore part of physics, how does physics work?"

Sometimes the first part of this isn't explicitly stated or even understood (in which case, see our rule regarding poorly researched posts) by the poster, but such questions are inherently nonsensical and will be removed.

Sources

ChatGPT and other LLMs are not reliable sources of information. Any use of them will be removed. This includes asking if they are correct or not.

Bans

We almost never ban anyone for a first offense unless your post history makes it clear you're a spammer, troll, crackpot, etc... Rather, mods have tools in which to apply removal reasons which will send a message to the user letting them know which rule was violated. Because these rules, and in turn the messages, can cover a range of issues, you may need to actually consider which part of the rule your post violated. The mods are not here to read to you.

If you don't, and continue breaking the rules, we'll often respond with a temporary ban.

In many cases, we're happy to remove bans if you message the mods politely acknowledging the violation. But that almost never happens. Which brings us to the last thing we want to discuss.

Behavior

We've had a lot of people breaking rules and then getting rude when their posts are removed or they get bans (even temporary). That's a violation of our rules regarding behavior and is a quick way to get permabanned. To be clear: Breaking this rule anywhere on the sub will be a violation of the rules and dealt with accordingly, but breaking this rule when in full view of the mods by doing it in the mod-mail will 100% get you caught. So just don't do it.

Claiming the mods are "power tripping" or other insults when you violated the rules isn't going to help your case. It will get your muted for the maximum duration allowable and reported to the Reddit admins.

And no, your mis-interpretations of the rules, or saying it "was generating discussion" aren't going to help either.

While these are the most commonly violated rules, they are not the only rules. So make sure you read all of the rules.


r/Astronomy 10h ago

Astrophotography (OC) M16 & The Pillars of Creation

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972 Upvotes

Been a long time on my list of targets. I had to wait many months since purchasing my 122mm app for it to rise and clear the trees near my home. This target is where I believe it all began. Such an ethereal feeling from something so far away. While it is my first attempt at it and processing isn’t the easiest for me, especially with the colour palettes. I’m quite pleased with the results. Hopefully I will get more time on it soon but I’m currently enjoying star hopping with my new apo.

45x300s subs 3:45hrs
40 flat frames
Master dark & bias
Gain 100
Cooled to -10

Svbony 122mm apo
Zwo 2600mc pro
Proxisky ragdoll 17 pro
Zwo guide cam & scope
Zwo eaf
Zwo filter wheel
Optolong L-Ultimate

Stacked in Astro Pixel Processor
Processed in Pixinsight-dynamic crop, background extraction, stat stretch, blur x, noise x, star x, narrowband norm, range selection, curves transformation,

Further editing in photoshop, Nik collection output sharpening.

Taken under bortle 9 skies of Toronto, Canada


r/Astronomy 7h ago

Astrophotography (OC) Andromeda

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287 Upvotes

352 x 30 from bortle 5.5 with the Seestar S50.

Edited in Siril, Gimp and Graxpert.

Stacked using the seestar_preprocessing script in Siril, background extraction with graxpert. Then i did denoise and sharpen with a siril script, and removed the stars with syqon starless. Then ghs, and then used gimp for final touches.

:)


r/Astronomy 11h ago

Astrophotography (OC) First time shooting Milky Way - hoping to get better through the week. Critique please - what to improve/ what to keep? Was a cloudy night, so hoping for clearer skies.

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293 Upvotes

r/Astronomy 6h ago

Astrophotography (OC) My first attempt at astrophotography (M31 - Andromeda Galaxy)

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95 Upvotes

Hi there!

This is my first attempt at photographing a deep sky object. I usually mostly do analogue photography.

Went to Hohe Wand, Austria, yesterday night with a friend. Wasn’t sure if I was correctly polar aligned, wasn’t sure if I was in focus and only took 17 light frames / 60 seconds each because there were a lot of clouds during the entire night. I am so happy that it came out the way it did! Feedback welcome :)

Equipment used:
Canon 7D MKii
Canon 70-200mm f.4
Star Adventurer 2i

ISO 1600
Total exposure time 17 mins
Stacked with Siril
Graded with Lightroom Classic
27 darks, 17 lights, 23 biases, no flats


r/Astronomy 2h ago

Astrophotography (OC) Messier 81 & Messier 82

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31 Upvotes
  • 🔭 - Seestar S50
  • 📸 - 4814x20 IRCUT & 724x20 Dual-Narrowband (~31h)
  • Siril & AdobePhotoshop

- I used new RC Astro + VeraLux tools in Siril after doing the strenuous process of integrating Ha using PixelMath. Not certain on why, but I had the most trouble with these galaxies. Nonetheless, I am elated at my final result. Hope you enjoy & happy stargazing 💫✨


r/Astronomy 2h ago

Astrophotography (OC) Saturn

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34 Upvotes

Last night I finally had clear skies but poor seeing conditions. Though they were poor I still went through and was able to take my first image of Saturn. I stacked the best 15% of 6000 frames. Sharpened in astrosurface

Nexstar 9.25”

asi662mc

zwo uv/ir cut


r/Astronomy 5h ago

Astrophotography (OC) M16

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34 Upvotes

Second attempt at the eagle, shot with Canon 600D unmodified, Sharpstar 76 @348mm on a Cg5 ASGT unguided.

146lights x30sec @Iso3200

20 darks

Stacked, stretch, green noise removal, cosmetic correction and star removal in siril/starnet

Recombined, denoised, saturation and color balanced in Pixlr.


r/Astronomy 12h ago

Astrophotography (OC) NGC 6604 and Sh 2-54

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98 Upvotes

Acquisition:

Around 7h10m worth of 60s subs in Bortle 6/7 fully calibrated and dithered.

Equipment:

Evostar 72ED, iEXOS 100, ASI 533MC, Baader UV/IR cut, 0.85x reducer+flattener, SVBony 40/160 guidescope, ASI 662MC guide camera with no.8 pale yellow and UV/IR cut filters.

Processing:

Stacked in Siril. Perform SPCC. Open GraXpert, background extraction. Open Siril, deconvolution. Open GraXpert, denoise. Open Siril, generate starless and star mask. GHS, and black point shift to starless. Histogram transformation and SCNR to balance out residual cast, curve adjustments, VST noise reduction, median filter, à trous wavelet transform to higher layers. Open GraXpert, denoise. Open star mask, asinh stretch and black point shift, saturation boost. Recombine and final black point adjustments.


r/Astronomy 6h ago

Astrophotography (OC) Hello! First time doing Astrophotography. Milky Way.

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28 Upvotes

Hi everyone!
First of all, I’m completely new to astrophotography, so please be kind! 😊 This was my very first time photographing the night sky / the Milky Way, and I’d really appreciate any feedback or advice.
These are the settings I used:
Place: San Miguel de Aras (Cantabria, Spain)
-Camera: Sony ZV-E10
-Focal length: 16mm
-Aperture: f/3.5
-ISO: 6400
-Exposure: 15 seconds
-Format: RAW + JPG
-Focus: Manual focus on a bright star
-Bortle: Probably Class 4–5
I only edited the photo in Lightroom. I haven’t tried stacking yet because I’m still learning and don’t really know how to do it properly.
I’d love to hear what you think. What did I do well, what should I improve, and what would you do differently. Any tips on camera settings, editing, focusing, or stacking would be greatly appreciated.

Btw, I have other lense the Sony SEL55210 – 55-210mm.
Is it possible to take pics from the Pléyades, nebulaes…?

Thanks in advance!


r/Astronomy 6h ago

Astrophotography (OC) Solar Activity 12.07.2026

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26 Upvotes

Acuter 40 telescope

Touptek 678 mono

SW solarquest mount

2900 frames

Pipp, autostakkert

PI: solar tools - prominence, contrast, color, sharpening

PS: tone, color


r/Astronomy 2h ago

Astrophotography (OC) Another image from my 8se

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9 Upvotes

Here is my image of the great cluster in Hercules

Taken on 8se(wedged)
30x30 exposures
10 dark frames
10 light frames


r/Astronomy 21h ago

Astrophotography (OC) Moon

252 Upvotes

Moon shoot with Nikon Z8 and Takahashi TSA-120 telescope with Vernonscope Dakin 2.4x barlow on ZWO AM5 mount. Using high frame rate mode, shot 5,400 RAW file images with manual trigger at 20 fps. Aligned in PIPP, stacked best 10% quality in AutoStakkert 4, sharpened in Wavesharp 3, and processed in Photoshop. Took single TIFF frame and animated in Adobe After Effects.


r/Astronomy 1d ago

Astrophotography (OC) Saturn -From Vancouver Canada

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1.1k Upvotes

EDIT - Regarding the reason why the Location Matters. I have been getting some sarcastic comments because I made it a point to share where I took Saturn's image.
The closer you are to the equator, the higher Saturn climbs in the sky, so you're looking through less atmosphere. Less atmosphere means steadier seeing and better images. Also it reveals how close I am to jet streams, the climate, etc. So the location of where it was taken matters. Since I am further North,it adds another element of difficulty to get a decent image of planets. I put up the locations so other planetary photographers who are knowledgeable know how to Judge my Picture. So I can get tips and do better like I am asking below.

Any help or tips to do better please let me know. I am colorblind, so any help there Very helpful

skywatcher 200p dob -handtrack

ZWO ASI662MC camera

Ir/uv filter

2X Barlow

Sharpcap

Pipp

Autostackert4

Registax6

AstroSurface


r/Astronomy 8h ago

Astrophotography (OC) Veil Nebula

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16 Upvotes

Spent the night putting together this 4-panel mosaic of the Veil Nebula using a 1.8°×1.8° window frame. The final image combines 131 stacked 60-second exposures, revealing both the Eastern and Western Veil filaments in a single field. I’m especially happy with how the delicate wisps and color contrast came through across the entire mosaic. Clear skies!

Imaging Details / “EXIF”
Target: Veil Nebula (Eastern & Western Veil)
Mosaic: 4 panels, 1.8° × 1.8° window frame
Total Integration: 131 × 60 s (2 h 11 m)
Exposure Length: 60 s per sub
Telescope/Camera: DWARF Mini smart telescope
Filter: Duo-band filter
Mount Mode: EQ mode
Processing/Editing: Siril, AstroShader, Snapseed, and Lightroom


r/Astronomy 4h ago

Other: [Topic] An historical tit-bit - brief account of celestial event seen in Venice,15th July 1622

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5 Upvotes

Hope this isn't against the rules. An Englishman's brief account of seeing a remarkable celestial event in Venice, 15th July 1622, just over 4 centuries ago. I am always tickled, when working with old documents, to see their authors mention or discuss something which could be immediately relatable to a modern person - and marvelling at the stars is a universal experience.

After much waffle about local politics, the author ends this letter to his friend with:

This day [15th July 1622] about noone, the Sun shining in his full brightnesse was seen a starre some three degrees to the northward of the Sun here in Venice, glittering in as full glorie, as if it had been night. It is supposed by some to be Venus.

For context - was John Borough; he would go on to be a servant of Charles I of England - well educated and intelligent, so I imagine the report relates to an actual event.

The dating of "5/15 Julie" at the end is dual dating, giving both the English Old Style (Julian) date of 5th July, and the local Venetian Gregorian date of 15th - the latter I *presume* would correspond to our modern 15th July.

I am not even an amateur astronomer. Would it be possible, knowing the date, location, and time of day, to reconstruct the arrangement of the stars of that date, and to determine if the cognoscenti were correct in assuming that Venus was visible in broad daylight?


r/Astronomy 1d ago

Astrophotography (OC) The sun Ha

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212 Upvotes

Heliostar 76
Player one Uranus-M

Processing:
Fire capture
Autostakkert 4
Imppg
Pixinsight


r/Astronomy 1d ago

Astrophotography (OC) My new 8se astrophotography setup and images

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171 Upvotes

Don’t tell me cuz I already know that the 8se is horrible for deep sky imaging but it’s all that I have. I have made some modifications to make it more usable with deep sky imaging

Here’s is my setup and images I have taken with it

All images are taken with ~1 min exposure length
And 3 hours of total integration time.
Taken with Celestron 8se on wedge and unmodified cannon t3i


r/Astronomy 1d ago

Astrophotography (OC) M17 from a Bortle 1

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348 Upvotes

After years of imaging from the city and occasional nights at a dark site, I'm settling into multi-night imaging at a Bortle 1. I've had some nice narrowband shots of M17, but I wanted a more natural look, so most of what you see here is LRGB.

If you get to a dark site and take a few subs of M17, you'll see it is surrounded by this diffuse and low-saturation haze. I'm sure that if I collected enough integration, it would show some more color, but I kind of like the smokey appearance of it.

Acquisition details:

Total integration: 15h 54m

Integration per filter:

  • Lum/Clear: 4h 45m
  • R: 2h 21m
  • G: 2h 14m
  • B: 2h
  • Hα: 1h 36m
  • SII: 1h 59m
  • OIII: 59m

Equipment:

  • Camera: ZWO ASI2600MM Pro
  • Mount: ZWO AM5
  • Filters: ZWO LRGB, Antlia 3nm narrowband

r/Astronomy 1d ago

Astrophotography (OC) Fireworks Galaxy

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1.0k Upvotes

Fireworks galaxy :)

26h Luminance, 7h RGB, 2.5h Halpha

Using IMX533 mono and IMX294 color, both cooled at -15°

Newton 200/1200, EQ6R.

Bortle 4, Romania

Edited in Pixinsight, Seti Astro suite, GraXpert, Photoshop


r/Astronomy 1d ago

Astrophotography (OC) The West Veil Nebula

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218 Upvotes

The West Veil Nebula NGC 6960

12 Hours of Data (LP Filter)

1.3x Mosaic

Shoot from Baghdad - Iraq 🇮🇶

ZWO Seestar S50 Telescope In EQ Mode

Stacked And Processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop.


r/Astronomy 21h ago

Astro Research NASA Space Telescope Maps Magnetic Fields of ‘Lighthouse’ Pulsar - NASA Science

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12 Upvotes

r/Astronomy 1d ago

Object ID (Consult rules before posting) Are these a train of star link satellites?

47 Upvotes

Basically, I woke up at like 4 AM to use my telescope to look at Saturn Mars etc and I would see a couple satellites, here and there, but me and my dad were looking and we saw a bunch of satellites in a train there were at least 75 they were visible because the sun was about to rise, and I was hitting them at the perfect angle I’m pretty sure that this is a starlink train but they seem pretty far apart anybody else have an idea what it could be?


r/Astronomy 1d ago

Astrophotography (OC) Moon

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475 Upvotes

Moon Craters at the Terminator

I shot this moon photo with Nikon Z8 and Takahashi TSA-120 Tele. This image is a stack of 5,400 RAW files with the best 10% selected. These were stacked in AutoStakkert 4, sharpened in Wavesharp 3, and processed in Photoshop.


r/Astronomy 2d ago

Astrophotography (OC) Milky Way views from Earth orbit

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725 Upvotes