About Tracking the Stars

My interest in astronomy dates back to my teenage years when I photographed the night sky using a 35mm film camera that I modified to keep the release open manually.

I returned to the hobby more recently with the purchase of a Nikon D750 and the Star Adventurer GTi star tracker.

Most of my images are taken in rural Wisconsin at a class 4 (Bortle scale) site.

Nikon D750 on Star Adventurer GTi
Nikon D750 on Star Adventurer GTi

Equipment

The equipment that I am using is constanly evolving.

The camera is an unmodified Nikon D750 with a Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G telephoto lens on an Oben CT-3565 Carbon Fiber tripod.

More recently, I am employing the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi star tracker connected to iPhone 13 to take longer exposures.

Post-Processing

I am using Siril for post-processing most of my images.

I generally apply the following steps:

  • Stack images using bias, dark and flat files
  • Crop
  • Background extraction
  • Photometric color calibration
  • Stretch star-less image using asign and/or histogram transformation
  • Detail-adjustments in Photoshop
  • Color saturation