Astrophotography with a 50mm post processing 

That's like taking a patch of land, extracting gold, then making a wedding ring to marry to royalty, but just in image form.

You have such a great channel. I have just started to learn astrophotography and you make it fun and easy. Thanks!

This is one of the best processing guides on youtube. Thank you!

This is the video I needed to see! I was getting so discouraged because my post processing was letting me down. After following your video I finally have images I’m happy with, especially that gradient lasso. Thank you very much!

I'd watched this a while bac, Walt, but have rewatched a couple times this week as it's finally orion season again and a 50mm widefield like this is my biggest goal for this winter. Thanks a ton for your content, it's really fantastic and the "use what you have and get great results" approach is REALLY welcome in a hobby that can get bonkers quickly! Clear skies and keep up the good work!

A Million Thanks! I was having some problems with post and your workflow is perfect for me. Please keep putting up videos, they are a tremendous help, thankx

Just wants to thank you for your videos, I'm really enjoying all of them, learning a lot and the results are stunning. Thanks for your time!

Walt, thanks for all your vids. They have been very helpful, and while I have created my own workflow over the years, this video helped get everything going. Thanks again.

I'm definitely saving this video to guide me when I do my astro image processing. Great video Walt!

Such an amazing, thorough and easy to follow tutorial. Can't wait to follow along using my own images. Thank you!!!

I enjoy watching your videos and listening to you, Walt. Fascinating! And I don’t have a clue what all this is about. But I care for you and love watching your creativity, even in photography and processing! You are multi-gifted!

I really appreciate the way you teach. Your techniques are easy to follow and you give me steps I haven't seen in other videos. I'm new to astrophotography and really new to LR and PS. You are most helpful. Thank you.

Wow. Thank you. I have absolutely enjoyed your tutorials. I have had my gear for over two years and spent most of it just researching and trying to better understand the process. Now that I have time to dedicate to this, it is coming together. I look forward to using your tutorials to help me get through to a final image that I can be personally proud of. Thanks. Narrie (The Nar Side).

I can't wait to follow this with my own pictures. You are so easy to follow while working on own pictures 👍

This is just pure quality content!! Thank you Sir!!

Hi Walt, I’ve viewed a lot of processing videos for Astrophotography. This is the most informative and useful I’ve seen yet. Well done. Please keep it up.

Hey! I never comment on videos, but I wanted to say that I'm a huge fan of yours so far! I found you two months ago or so, after seeing your shooting and processing of Andromeda and immediately subscribed on my main account (which doesn't let me comment for some reason). This video was INCREDIBLY helpful and I really appreciate that you have your stacked tiff file available for us to practice with! A lot of other RU-vidrs don't show their unprocessed images, nor really get into detail and explain everything as well as you did... I think seeing the whole, unedited process is really helpful to absolute beginners to both shooting and processing. I'm no stranger to Photoshop, but I am to astrophotography and stacked images... So when I put mine into Photoshop, it looks like how your stacked image looked initially.... I'm like, "there's nothing here... How do people pull out so much data?" and this video really helped me learn some new techniques and other programs to help me learn how to get a really awesome image! So, thank you! I appreciate you and your videos and that you are serious about it, but you also incorporate humor while educating us :) Astrophotography doesn't seem so overwhelming now! I hope to see your channel grow to the likes of other great astrophotographers who share their work with RU-vid - you certainly deserve it! Clear skies and I look forward to seeing more from you in the future! :)

Great video and workflow! I reprocessed an old image with my first kit lens and I couldn't believe I captured the Witch Head without knowing it! Thanks for spreading your knowledge.

You're a magician. These videos are making me better at editing in general.

Great job 👏. The video is very informative and too the point and the image!!! Wow. The the composition and end result are phenomenal🔥🔥👏

Hey man, awesome video! While i used DSS for stacking, i followed you everywhere else and my shots went from hazy and faded to crisp and clear, a wide field over Cygnus including multiple nebulae! Thanks again! Solid videos, keep it up!

Great stuff. Going to run through this tomorrow.

The best tutorial... thanks mate

Thanks Walt I learned a lot. Merry Christmas

Amazing how much information is hidden in the original photo! Fascinating to watch you bring out the details.

There's a lot of good info here for us beginners, Thank you so much for sharing it. Good content, keep it up!

Awesome and informative content!! Plus... I friggin love the sv-1... miss mine so much.

Dude turned out awesome

Great tutorial, one of the best I’ve seen 👏👏

Thanks so much, i get my Orion soon and this processing i really good.

You have made me aware of how good my Canon nifty-fifty is! Waiting for clear, dark skies.

Love these videos, keep up the great work!

very useful tutorial, thank you!

This video is amazing. Thank you, I learned a lot from this !

I hope you continue to put out videos! I enjoy them, and learn a great deal from them as I just started this new hobby, a couple months ago! Planning on making a DIY star tracker too. Only because I also enjoy fabricating as well. Keep the awesome videos coming!

Great video Walt! You’re a Master! Greetings from Italy!

Fantastic, please keep with these types of videos.

Awesome workflow, a few wee tips in there i haven't seen before.

This was excellent. Thank you

Very informative. Thanks for sharing 🙏

Thank you soo much, keep it up👌👏 love from India ❤🇮🇳😌

Great tutorial. Love from India !!!

Thoroughly enjoyed this. Haven’t done any widefield astrophotography yet but have used Starnet++. Like others, I will definitely use this as a workflow for the future. Thanks for sharing 👍

crazy editng tips over here! great video man.

Made my day💫 Keep it up sir👏🌆

Wow! The technology you have compared to a few years ago, is amazing!!

Amazing Tutorial

Another great video. 👏

So good!

Great video man thanks a lot

Nice I have alot to learn with the processing stacking ect.

Awesome, thank you.

Great stuff and great tutorial. I do like your stile.. :-)

This tutorial is quite good, too.

Excelente!!!!

ty si not a english native talker but your videos and pronunciation its pretty good for my understanding. regards again from Colombia.

great great video!

A dark sky can do wonders! I take pictures of orion from a very light polluted area. So even with 30-60 minutes of integration, I barely see the flame nebula🥲 Amazing video! Keep up the great work.

Thank q so much for the video

wow man... an awesome video very detailed...certainly learned that I have no idea how to edit Astro stuff. liked and followed!

I'm gonna be 100% honest I sat through the entire video and don't even have data to process. I'm going out to a dark sky site tomorrow with the Canon 18-55mm kit lens to have some fun with orion. Then ill come back and re-watch this whole video.

Walt, if you want a black layer mask , click the create layer mask icon and hold the alt key at the same time.

Awesome......

Amazing!

Hi Walt. My name is also Walter! Maybe a little older. Thankyou for the videos of processing astrophotography on photoshop which is a real minefield. I have only started my journey into astrophotography. I will no doubt have some questions. Thanks again

Oh my goodness, those were some incredible techniques... I honestly didn't know you could get so much h-alpha from a stock camera! I'll definitely be trying this next time I'm under dark skies, and will try and get as much detail out as you did here!!

Thanks!!!

Hello Walt! Thank you for making this. This is the best tutorial on RU-vid. Period. A suggestion, the final image needs a hint of dehaze. What say? My 2 cents. Peace.

awesome!

Wonderfully explained! One question, how did you get those beautiful halos around Rigel and Betelgeuse? Did you use any star glow filter?

What total exposure time is needed to start getting this level of detail for the nebulae? Awesome video BTW! Really enjoy your teaching style!

Thanks

Great video, I'm initiating into processing deep sky images and your video is an excellent guide. You should try Topaz Denoise to remove the noise in the images and improve the sharpening.

Nice video. Amazing how many astrophotographers have keyboards including myself, maybe music and the stars go together. 👍

O M G ❤ WoW 🤩

Ok, first I just want to say thank you so much for a very good and useful video. I now see that I need some courses to learn more about editing. :) I never thought a 50mm lens could take such pictures. But I have one question. If I were to print this image in a4 format, would I need to make any further changes to preserve the quality of details? I'm just asking, because I do not know. I'm in the process of making myself an editing room / photo room in my basement. I then intend to print some pictures that I have taken myself, after editing, and hang this on the wall:) (with this video here, I can actually get even better pictures / quality before it is printed) So Thank you very much for you show us how to do this. Hope it will be a lot of nice star weather ahead so we can enjoy ourselves out in the open :) Thank you again, and cloudless sky for you. Norway!

That's a great tutorial, very good job! I like the way you explain things. You are not going too fast and take time to emphasize important points :) Quick question, Why are you using sequator over deep sky stacker? Any particular reasons or just because you like sequator the most?

Love how you did the process I learned a lot, just one thing I feel may be worth retrying the Star reduction after you combine the image. It is causing some halo's in your combined image.

Awesome guide!! Greetings from Greece and sorry for my English first of all!!! I already have the 50mm 1,8,but i have the canon 250d(crop frame) and i dont have star tracker :( Can you tell me how many star photo's i need to take and how many dark frames to have similar results!!! I know that without star tracker the shutter speed must be low to avode the star trail's!! :(

Great tutorial, will definitely be giving it a go!! 😃 did you use an Astro modified camera to take the photos that were stacked together??

Hi! Thanks for this tutorial ! I wait my 50mm for trying to do the same . I just have a question . Im a big fan of this constelation and i want a lot of details from dust clouds and all nebulaes so if for exemple i make 10h exposure with a full spectrum and uv/ir L2 filter . Can i hope having the same result with more details or needed more exposure ? You help me for lot of things in process with only this video so thanks 🙏😊 clear sky !

You probably received this comment before, but what probably happened with that red glow on the right to it turning yellow was probably caused by your DSLR eyepiece not being blocked out with something. Outdoor lights can bleed through your viewfinder and add light to the sensor. I believe Canon includes the viewfinder cap on their straps, its a rubber piece. Anyways, great vid, looking forward to doing some astrophotography myself.

This is so far above and beyond me.. wow Dose your camera have its uv filter still or has it been modified? I have a Nikon d3100 and a 16-55 mm f3.4/5.5. Kit lens . Sometimes I mount it on my 70mm 400mm telescope.. but I can’t get anything like you are once in editing.. I use deepsky. And gimp or Lightroom.. just can’t get it

Do you find better results editing prior to stacking or stacking and then editing. People seem to do it both ways

Hello. Thank you for the video. Question: You tried to remove gradient and did some vibrance/saturation adjustment in all the individual subs. Does this yield different end result compared to when doing the same thing to a final stacked image instead??? Also, your red glow on one side of the light frame is presumably a pollution from some light source outside. I dont think you want to apply that gradient correction (and vignetting for that matter) to your darks, since they have nothing to do with how and what light is hitting the sensor during light frame capture.

Hi Delta AP, did you use a full frame camera and also a modified camera as I see a lot of h-alpha there. Great work !

amazing work!! did you use astromoded camera??

I Walt! Is that canon dslr you used astro-moded? Love your work, and thank you so much for the help with this tutorials!

It looks like some moisture was passing by in the form of faint clouds. Clouds that you can't see but the camera picks them up. I've had this happen many times.

Have a look at the WB of your first and last frame they are different (auto whitebalance). Awesome postprocessing!

Hello walt! Im doing exactly as you did in lightroom and thn sequator.. and once i press start for stacking, the processing shown in sequator indicates that its failing to reduce noise in each picture.. btw im not using a tracker. Only a tripod with a d5300 and a kit lens

Nice video . I might have missed it but how many minutes total exposure? I assume the two minutes mentioned near the beginning is for each sub-exposure. And when you say dark sky, how dark?

Best not tutorial tutorial I've seen man! I'm just starting out but I have a Mac and I'm looking for a decent stacking software. Any ideas?

That glow in the corner could be because you have lens correction on ! It's amp glow from heat on the sensor

I am using AstroFlat which is somewhat like the the GradientXTerminator you use. Unfortunately, when I run Astroflat it works quite well but after smoothing out the image I can't pull any nebulas out of the layer I'm on.

Very nice video Walt ! I have one question - did you shoot this with an astro modified camera ? I can't seem to get these colours from my un-modified Nikon D750 !

Very nice job Walt, inspiring me to quit looking at space with "tunnelvision" so to speak, going for close-ups for most DSOs. I do of course realize there is much to be offered from a widefield perspective, not the least of which is cleaner, smaller stars. As wonderful as the Orion Complex is, taking in more of Orion so as to include Witch Head and Barnard's loop just creates an entirely new image. I see you take the pre-processing approach with respect to stacking, as I saw Peter Zelinka doing...an approach I liked but found didn't work well with my Nikon D850 due to different image sizes based upon real vs. effective pixel dimensions, but I'll not elaborate here on that. So, I stack first, then edit. I do clip shadows more than you, favoring blacker skies but for a widefield image, a bit more color is great and more realistic. I found your approach of a layer mask of your stars interesting and will explore that myself. I made up a batch script to facilitate a "SendTo" front end for running Starnet++ without need for saving a copy of the working file to the Starnet++ folder and instead keeping the file copy together in the same folder as my working image. The convenience of that is questionable, but if you like the idea, I present the idea (with some errors seen that I've finally resolved) on my channel at ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GJysK006f_E.html, or you can just download a zip file I provide at tinyurl.com/dp-RGBstarless and review the readme file regarding installation/use.

Amazing video!!! Thank you, I needed it. I began to edit a picture, but starnet is not available right now, could you share the tool please? 🙏

I got a question! Can we select multiple items in the lasso tool to use with gradient xt ?

Thanks Delta Astro for this video. I followed this carefully, but after the 2nd or 3rd layer merge I could not get the same histogram, I think my histogram was bunched too far to the left. I found your levels adjustment was confusing. Maybe if you could display your final adjustments as your Red/RGB/Blue/Green channel levels adjustments was confusing. Can you also show your curves adjustments more exactly. Why I say this, I followed your video but could not bring out the detail like you and after the 2nd or 3rd layer merge I was lost.