Hi everybody, this is Trevor from Astro backyard and in today's video
We're gonna be looking at your photos on Instagram your Astro photography images
so I'm gonna be going over them and telling you what I like what I don't like critiquing or reviewing them and
I'll say this right out of the gate. I am no professional. That's for sure
I'm also learning just like you guys but by reviewing these images together, maybe we can take away
Some pointers and ways to improve our images. So without further ado, let's get into Instagram and look at some of my favorite shots
Okay, here we go. We are on Instagram. We're gonna go through your photos. I've chosen
13 accounts, I believe - there was just so many to go through so many amazing accounts
we'll have to do another video to go through them all I
Will say and this is the case for posting images online on a lot of sites
The compression will kind of take away from the image unless you're posting to a gallery site like Flickr Astro bin
you're gonna get kind of a
Compressed version of your image and that's definitely the case on Instagram here
So take that with a grain of salt these these images that you're gonna see will look better in their full sizes form
But I mean checking these images on your phone as you're swiping through and just relaxing. That's what Instagram is all about. So
But that's that's everyone knows that about Instagram. So let's get out of my account and go on to the first account
We're gonna review here and this is Astro Stace
So she's got a nice puppy that she shares a lot, too
which I of course appreciate but let's look at this photo of the cone nebula that she shared recently and
she mentioned that this is a
Reprocess because she wasn't happy with her original version who can relate to that I think everybody right?
Also, she's a big Astro pixel processor fan. She's been slightly trying to nudge me in that direction which may happen in the future
But I thought this image of the cone nebula was incredible because I know she's using a small refractor
so this is very wide field and
just the colors and I
Appreciate the softness of this image and the the cool blues
In contrast against the nice Reds and to get the the Christmas tree cluster in there as well as the cone nebula
So if we look at her original version, it's a little more crunchy noisy and she softened it up for this one
Which I think was a great move
I I'm a huge fan of seeing like soft glowy stars as opposed to really tight crunchy ones
But that's personal preference on to the next one. This is Alex Mullins from Delaware, Ohio
This one I thought was really cool because I know from personal experience that the pac-man nebula is
really tough to shoot an RGB particularly with a DSLR camera
you really have to stretch the data and in doing so you pull those stars forward too and
Sometimes you can kind of lose the contrast of the nebula in there, but I thought he just did an excellent job
This is so much better than than my first shots of the pac-man nebula shooting in RGB
But I believe somewhere he mentioned that he was shooting an RGB with the DSLR. Oh it was on the comment
He mentioned how the addition of an H a filter really helped to move things along
so obviously you can you can see he's progressing great and I just thought that
That image of the pac-man was absurd exceptional
So, this is Bryan Bryan Fulda and I have I apologize if I mispronounce any names here
He's got an excellent gallery a really nice balance like as a whole to see the grid here
You can tell he's taken time to really
Master each one of these photos as best as possible before sharing and this one really stood out the 1% moon
How many of you guys have ever shot of?
1% Crescent Moon before it's not it's everything has to come together
You have to have the right conditions, of course, but then you have to find it and needs to be low to the horizon
So you can actually capture it. I
Clouds just made this photo so special with those the beautiful sunset colors. I love this that razor-sharp
Crescent moon, so that's absorbing photons
The absorbing photons Instagram handle and I just thought that was excellent
moving on to Astro night escapes in Australia, so
This is another style of Astro photography star trails. It's not something I've actually done myself believe it or not
I'm always trying to
Compensate for the rotation of the earth and not just let it ride but it's it's a whole new challenge to get a star trail
Shot like this where you actually have to stack
Those long exposure images together and getting the right exposure so you don't blow your highlights out
You can actually see some of those star colors and the movement there and this one was just done so well with the the silhouetted
twisted tree in front
I really love this and I love that you can see the movement of the stars and some of the brighter ones in there and
the star colors
love this
Next up we have this is Steven
Rendell and
He's new to astrophotography and the one that stuck out to me was because he just got started last summer
but he actually got a shot of Comet Wharton and 46 P which comet photography is a whole different ball of wax and
to finding it's one of the hardest parts and then properly exposing it to to get it out and
tracking so I thought this photo was excellent because he got
So much of the the outer details of this of this comet the image is quite noisy as you can see
but sometimes an astrophotography depends on the subject matter what you're trying to accomplish and obviously he was trying to just to capture as
Much of the comet as possible and I think he did a great job
That's exactly the color and what comet 4060 were Tennant looked like so I thought that was a great shot
next up
we have
Dan Sullivan in Connecticut, he put a link straight to this photo
So I believe this is the one he wanted me to talk about and it's the Pleiades and it's absolutely gorgeous
Look at all that surrounding dust
If you saw the photo I took recently with a limited exposure time from the backyard. It didn't have nearly this much dust and
I
Just thought it was it was well done
It's perhaps maybe a little too depending on the monitor you're looking on if it's a little bright kind of see some of that
background noise
But otherwise the razor-sharp you've seen those the different sizes of stars and the cool blues
Just loved it
And also I really like the way he breaks down his gear used and the settings these separate tabs with the icons
That is so helpful
And I might have to borrow that and start adding that to all my photos just the way he's done this ear settings
acquisition and processing
So handy to include those details and it's something you could
You know build beforehand and just copy and paste on to all your new photos. I love that
So a great job Dan Sullivan is the handle on Instagram
And then this is a Eli
so he's in Belgium and
Obviously you can see some incredible images here
Including the lunar eclipse there, but I went straight to this
Orion Nebula because what I loved about this was not only picking it up the faint dust around it and perfectly
Exposing the core of the Orion Nebula here. You can see the trapezium
it doesn't look flat a lot of depth to this image those super tiny sharp stars and
their colors look at the contrast of the cool blue of the running man against the hot Pink's of
Orion just an excellent shot and look how tiny those stars are very sharp and crisp but not overly noisy
And I can about actually I did check it out on Flickr and it looks even better than it does here in the compressed image
On Instagram. Okay next up
we have taped to the skies underscore Astro is the handle on Instagram and
This is from Australia. Very jealous of you southern hemisphere guys, and
Yep. This is a target. We can shoot in the northern hemisphere. This is the Eagle Nebula
Specifically, he's really showcased. Well the pillars of creation I
remember the first time
Capturing the pillars of creation of looking at it and just I was speechless I was talking about it for days
It was I Chi I tuned to my profile picture on facebook to it. I know you guys can relate to that
So not only can you see he had great focus here
This is taken with a reflector and you can see the pillars of creation
But you see some of the contrasting star colors the blues and reds and this is just a canon 600d
so the t3i the camera I use only two hours of exposure time on a Newtonian reflector and those big
Reflectors have their challenges as far as stability and focus and all that
But he was able to to nail it on this one and capture
the pillars of creation in the Eagle Nebula and I thought it was an excellent photo and you can see the
star diffraction spikes from the
From the reflector because it's got those those veins crossing over the mirror
This guy watch our each eq5 mount - that's a very familiar sounding setup to me. I thought this was excellent
So take to the skies underscore Astro in Australia
Next we have
Miroslav Horvat and
Out of all the photos and he's got some really good ones here. So he is in I
Can't remember. I don't think that it says where he's from although I see southern hemisphere stuff
Including the Large Magellanic Cloud, but the photo that stood out to me
was this one because I've shot this region myself and I did not do nearly as good a job as
Miroslav did
Because so this is the sadder region and the butterfly portion of the butterfly nebula a very very wide field area
But what I loved about this photo was look at the different sizes of stars and the star colors
It's so like this section right here
You can see small blue young stars
And then the larger older red stars in there, of course sadder is so bright. It's got a nice glow to it yet
The details of the nebula are sharp
That is you know, that's next-level stuff for astrophotography. Once you master capturing. Well not master
I certainly haven't but you you know how to get these crispy details
sharp details of the nebula
but then you you ruin your stars or the too pale or they're not showing correct color or
They're just blown out, but the stars in this photo. We're just so well done
I love this shot and it made me want to repress
Reprocess my butterfly nebula all over again
Next up we have astro FAR's ography and I think that's how you say it. This guy's very cool
he has a YouTube channel and this is
regime Farsad and
He's very active on YouTube and Instagram so show him some love and follow him and what he's doing
he's in the UK and I had to show him some love for this one because he used the
Astro backyard har GB processing tutorial on his image of the Californian nebula, which is a great target right now
What I love about this image is how he was able to reduce the stars
They are so tiny and so sharp and really showcased the billowing soft cloud
that is the California Nebula and
It just it's it's very soft. It's very natural and those stars
like I said are really small and that's with combining the H a as a luminance layer on top and using a red channel as
H a as well
It's a really great way to process this nebula and he did such a great job and the framing is nice here, too
He's got that, you know centered nicely
Great job and a great
Instagram
page and YouTube channel
Next up we have
Adam who is in New York City?
I've met Adam at the Cherry Spring star party and at Neath because it's right around the corner from him in New Jersey and this
Guy works in downtown Manhattan during the day and then does Astro photography at night?
Can you even believe that what excuse do you have for your light pollution when you're not shooting in New York City?
So he's got it as bad as it gets yet
He's collecting these images like this and I will say some of these might be from
darker skies than the backyard but the majority of these he's taking from his backyard, which is
Horribly light polluted but I know that a lot of these images are taken from New York City. I thought this image of
The Lagoon and trifid was well done the sharp stars the color so soft
Beautiful region and beautifully beautifully framed and he's using very modest equipment to I believe this was the Orion
Sirius or the Atlas mount which I know a lot of you guys are using so follow Adam at space doubt pics on Instagram
Just an incredible guy. I can to see him in a few weeks at Neath
Another really cool guy astra newton. So this is brent newton again, very very active on
Facebook specifically and what an incredible shot of the lunar eclipse that we had back in?
january a composition where he actually shows earth shadows movement over the moon and
just such a creative way to
showcase this event
he obviously
captured it from start to finish and I just thought this was so interesting to see the shape of the Earth's shadow in there and
That's kind of his specialty. He's his composition is is excellent
Dedication. I know he's out all the time. This guy lives and breathes Astro photography
So follow Astro Newton in Wichita, Kansas, Brent Newton great job, buddy, and keep up the great work
This is Samara. I know there's
women in this hobby are rather rare you saw Stacy at the beginning and then Samara who too is but I've seen her around and
Check out this image of the pinwheel galaxy
M101
That is some serious detail. I'm not sure where she's shooting from
I assume it's dark. Scott has to get data this great or or she's just really working for
Backyard Observatory in Ohio, so it could be dark depending on how far out of the city she is
but just the absolutely perfect colors in my book for how that pinwheel galaxy should look with it the
Warmer, yellow and orange in the center coming up to the cool blues and with lots of h-alpha pinks in there
Just really amazing image of m101 that blows anything i've ever done on it out of the water
It looks like she's shooting hyper star. So gotta get on that and then that was it. So we're back to me again. So I
Urge you to share your photos on Instagram. It's a great way to quickly
Keep up to date with keep a pulse on the Hobby see what others are doing get inspired
I hope you follow some of the the people that I've showcased because
It takes take some guts to share your images
Especially if you're just starting out when people can are quick to up to judge your images
But you never know what conditions shooting and which equipment and that's what it's all about for me. I
The fun of this hobby for me is actually working for building your own kit seeing progress. That's the fun not jumping straight to
Downloading data from a remote observatory just processing like you might as well be processing couple data
And that's fun for processing but to work for it and to capture your own stuff from the backyard
That's obviously what what I'm all about
I hope you enjoyed looking at some of these images and Instagram accounts as much as I have
It's really inspiring to go through this stuff and it gives you new ideas and new perspectives and think about new
Compositions and ways to shoot objects and it's inspiring to see some of the imaging conditions some of these photos are shotting
I mean stuff from New York City and outside Chicago and these big light polluted places. So that's really inspiring for anyone
That's wants to get into this hobby
But thinks they don't live in the right location actually take decent deep sky images next time
I'll try to do a better job of diversifying the types of images some more
nightscape
Landscape style astrophotography images in the milky way. I love that kind of stuff
So I want to go through some of those accounts, too
There's a few that come to mind
But I didn't want to go through them on the video because they didn't ask me to yet
So I hope you enjoyed the video and be sure to follow the accounts that I shared in the video to show them some love
Show them that you appreciate their work and until next time I hope you get outside and take some Astro photography
images in your own backyard wherever that may be