Orion widefield (Canon 5D Mk II + Star Adventurer 2i)
This was my first real astrophotography night with my Canon 5D Mark II and first time ever using a Star Adventurer 2i. I barely understood ISO/exposure at the time and didn’t realize widefield tracking could be a lot more forgiving, so I played it safe and kept subs shorter than I could have.
I also didn’t really know what I was looking at on the LCD preview. I did one smaller stack at iso 2000 and wish I had used 2000 for this one
Shot under roughly Bortle 2–3 skies.
Setup
Canon 5D Mark II
Sigma 18–35mm f/1.8
Star Adventurer 2i
150 × 35 sec
ISO 4000
Matched darks
No flats/bias yet
Processing
First time running the full workflow:
Used a mix of YouTube and ChatGPT to learn all 4 programs as I processed this
Siril → GraXpert → StarTools → GIMP
Knowing what I know now, I’m honestly pretty impressed with how this came out for attempt number one. Definitely a lot to improve, but this got me hooked and I’m excited for the next shooting session. Feedback on exposure strategy, color, or noise is welcome.
Starting to plan my next night out with the camera!
by thepriceisright24
3 Comments
I think you wanted a lot of contrast on your image, but there is too much curve stretching here. Also, it might be ok for your camera, but I feel like iso 4000 is very high.
But keep learning, you look very motivated and I’m sure you’ll love all your improvements to come!
Cool first shot! I’d love to try processing this, I can give you my full workflow if you like what I come up with 🙂 feel free to dm !
reduce the iso to about 3200 max, i think getting a normal f2.8 lens would be better than that sigma. And when you edit, don’t push the highlights/brightness too much, good start though