I used to think all those deep space pictures were just for scientists

I was scrolling through here a couple nights ago and saw a post from someone who said they took a picture of the Andromeda Galaxy from their backyard in Phoenix. They said it took about 4 hours of total exposure time. That blew my mind. I always figured you needed a giant telescope on a mountain to see anything like that. Now I get that a lot of these photos are from regular people stacking tons of short exposures. It really changed how I look at the stuff posted here. What's the most surprising object you've managed to capture from a city?

2 comments

2 Comments

stellas5611d ago

My old neighbor in Tucson managed to get a shot of the Whirlpool Galaxy, M51, with a basic tracker on his patio. He had to fight the glow from a shopping center parking lot the whole time. It really shows how much you can pull out of the noise with enough stacked frames. That kind of stuff makes me want to drag my old gear out of the closet and just try.

emma_mitchell11d ago

Wow, I got the Orion Nebula from my light-polluted balcony, which still feels impossible.