The elephant trunk nebula

[moonshinegnomie]

10. i use a mount to track the stars

these are the actual technical details
williams redcat 51 lens (1 250mm focla length lens) on a sony a7iii
optolng l-enhance filter (a filter designed to greatly reduce light pollution when shooting nebulas)
celestron avx mount to track the stars
asair pro (a small controller to help tracking and locate objects. its connected to an old ipad)
zwo 120 camera (it helps guide the mount to eliminate tracking errors)

the actual exposure is 48 5 minute shots . the individual shots are combined with 30 bias shots which are taken with the lens cap on and teh exposure set to the shortest time possible. this helps reduce noise. i also used 30 flats which are taken against a neutral object. i use the ipad set to a white screen pressed against the lens. these help remove dust spots,light pollution gradients,extraneous objects like airplanes or satellites etc.... some people take another set of shots called darks which are taken with the same setting as the normal shot sbut the lens cap is also on. these can als help reduce noise but i find i dont really need them with my camera.

the whole set of images are stacked using specialized software. I use a package called pixinsight. the software is then used to stretch teh image which prings out the nebula and stars while keeping the background dark.

after pixinsight i use photoshop for final editing