Choosing Objects to Photograph - Forums

Topic starter

Frequent contributor

Mar 12, 2025

I am finding one of the more difficult tasks in astrophotgraphy is choosing what to image, particularly when the moon is very bright. I tried imaging SH2-290 for a few nights using SHO filters, but it was so close to the moon that I abandoned the project. The moonlight, gradients and contrast could be overcome in processing, but the nebula itself is faint, so I gave up.

Any hints from the more experienced people how you go about picking targets? I use Stellarium, NINA and Telescopius but am still wanting to learn more about how to pick targets so I don't waste time..

Thanks,
Jerry

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Rick Krejci

Mar 12, 2025

I primarily use Telescopius which does give moon phase and such, and also look at Sky Safari or Stellarium on my phone to get a better visual sense of where in the sky a target is and where the moon would be.

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ScottF

Frequent contributor

Mar 12, 2025

Gary Imm has a couple of books with a selection of targets. Try to pick bright objects for moonlit nights. Leave the faint stuff for moonless nights. I use sky safari to see where the moon will be.

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Ginge Anvik

Mar 12, 2025

I do the same as @Rick and I also try to always have several projects going simultaneously, gathering light on the one positioned most favourably at any given time, making sure at least one of the areas I'm imaging contains Ha in case the moon is too bright. Clear nights here are few and far between and sometimes my day job may not agree with my spending nights at the observatory, so only concentrating on one object at a time seems quite risky. I might not finish all of them in one season, in fact I feel lucky if I can finish two, but it is not like the objects I'm sooting are going anywhere soon, at least not from my pov

. I'll return for more light when it is possible. Patience pays off, I guess.

Good hunting!
Ginge

AstroCapture325

Mar 12, 2025 · Edited: Mar 12, 2025

Gary Imm also has an Excel spreadsheet that can found on his website Imm Deep Sky Compendium . The spreadsheet list targets along with their current separation from the moon along with an index indicating how successful RGB or narrowband imaging would be.

Jim

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Tobiasz

Mar 12, 2025

I surf through the collections from Gary Imm to get some inspiration and then I do the proper planning via telescopius.

Willem Jan Drijfhout

Mar 12, 2025

I use Astroplanner a lot. It is originally geared towards visual astronomers, but can be highly customised and I use it to plan and document all my photography sessions. It works a bit different than the likes of Telescopius, SkySafari etc. The latter are more: what's in the night sky tonight. Astroplanner works best if you first feed it with targets that you want to photograph at some point. This can be the whole or part of a catalogue, e.g. Sharpless, Messier, Herschel, etc. Or just individual targets. When I see a nice target on Astrobin, I often load it in Astroplanner, so that when the conditions are right, I can photograph it.
To determine which target from your wish-list is best to photograph on a given night, you quickly just scroll through the list. And for each object, the software will show the full range of information, such as visibility graph, visibility graph of the moon, but also distance to the moon in °(very handy especially for what you were referring to), moon phase, etc. Add a custom horizon, and you can customise it even further.
The software has a little bit of a learning curve, but I found it more than worth it. It's my first resource, followed by SkySafari and to a small extent Telescopius.

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andrea tasselli

Frequent contributor

Mar 13, 2025

Point the scope anywhere in the sky and you'll find something.

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mcdadski

Mar 13, 2025

If you have an iPhone or iPad “Observer Pro” is a wonderful little app that tells you when targets are visible above your local horizon, and when viewing them is compromised by the Moon. I use it all the time to map out when’s the best time to capture an object,

Cheers, and clear skies!

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Mike H - Sky View Observatory

Mar 13, 2025

I wish there was nebula of an appreciable size to image this time of year. After imaging the few larger galaxies, the others are very small in my 8" SCT. Also planetary nebula like NGC 3242 are very small. I'm so desperate I'm thinking of imaging the lunar eclipse overnight

Mike

Willem Jan Drijfhout

Mar 13, 2025

I could not agree more. As we're heading into 'galaxy season', another way to describe it is 'lack of nebula season'.

Mark Fox

Mar 13, 2025

a definite +1 for Gary Imm's Compendium Excel spreadsheet. You can easily apply filters, for example, to try to find those narrowband targets that are doable in light polluted skies (although I tried Sh2 290 with my NB OSC filters, and its too dim to capture in B7+ skies - I share your disappointment).

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Mark Fox

Mar 13, 2025

Mike H - Sky View Observatory:
I wish there was nebula of an appreciable size to image this time of year. After imaging the few larger galaxies, the others are very small in my 8" SCT. Also planetary nebula like NGC 3242 are very small. I'm so desperate I'm thinking of imaging the lunar eclipse overnight

Mike

Yeah, Mike. Galaxy season is tough in light polluted skies. I can't even image the eclipse tonight as it'll be raining/snowing all night.

Mike H - Sky View Observatory

Mar 13, 2025 · Edited: Mar 13, 2025

It's not so much the skies (Bortle 4/5) as it is the size of the objects available. You need a lot of focal length to get these small galaxies to an appreciable size. I guess I could try imaging without the 6.3 focal reducer. That would take me from 1200 to 2000. The stars not right in the center would look terrible. It would probably wreck my guiding as well since I use a 500mm guidescope.

Mike

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Rick Krejci

Mar 13, 2025

At 1200 you’re likely seeing limited anyway depending on the camera and your location. So blowing up the object taken with the reducer would likely not be appreciably different than the image without the reducer.

GiffS

Mar 14, 2025

I use all of the above tools but my real go to is Stellarium with my own backyard and the exact spot where my tripod sits as my point of view. The tree line, roof line and all is almost perfect with reality. My process, after I have narrowed the field using Gary's awesome reference materials, is to bring up Stellarium and fast forward to dark. Being galaxy season I am looking for one target I can shoot all night long. Right now for me M81 is such a target. I can get set up, lock on and get 8 or 9 hours. As the season moves on, I can look out in time and plan ahead. For example, I have a 3 X 3 mosaic planed for Markarian's Chain, but I know I won't be able to shoot it all night until about April 30th.

It was a bit of a pain to set up but it had been a complete game changer for me in terms of planning.

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David Cruz

Mar 14, 2025

When I see a image/object that I like on social media I always check with Telescopius if it is good from my location and setup, and then I save it in my list of targets. So when the time comes I can choose which one is best, or multiple ones per night. Also in Telecopius you can switch to Red view and see if your target as Ha signal, so you can collect Ha during moon.

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Kyle Goodwin

Mar 14, 2025

I find one of the more time consuming parts of choosing targets is determining their true extent and best framing. The catalog extents under size many targets with extended nebulosity and there’s frequently other interesting background stuff around.

Mike H - Sky View Observatory

Mar 14, 2025 · Edited: Mar 14, 2025

David, been using Telescopius for some time and did not know about the “red” view. Thanks

How do you enable that?

Mike

Timothy Martin

IOTD Staff

Mar 14, 2025 · Edited: Mar 14, 2025

andrea tasselli:
Point the scope anywhere in the sky and you'll find something.

This. Don't be afraid to f&*% around and find out. A couple of years ago, I pointed my small scope at an area north of Rho that looked blank on the sky surveys. Turns out that I was getting a piece of Sh2-27. So I expanded it into a mosaic and thought it turned out quite nicely. I noticed the star with the bow shock around it and that turned out to be the runaway star Zeta Ophiuchi. So then I homed in on it with the C11. That resulted in my very first IOTD.

Go out and explore. All the tools mentioned here are wonderful--especially for an organized pursuit (e.g., attempting to shoot all the targets in a specific catalogue, which I love to do). But as Frank Herbert said, "Highly organized research is guaranteed to produce nothing new." A Forrest Gump confectionary reference also seems appropriate here.

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Mike H - Sky View Observatory

Mar 14, 2025

Timothy Andrea, pointing and hoping is not my style. I'm a planner. My time under the stars is precious. I'm going to bet anything that the beautiful images posted on this site are 99.9999% planned. Tell Bray Falls that there's no new discovery in organized research. He and the astrophotographers that he works with search, research and plan (organize) to find objects that are new and they have great success. Of course, I will never have their success. But, I cannot be haphazard in what I image. I think about what objects are pleasing to my eye, whether my equipment is suitable for the object and the possible outcome. I will continue to use Astrobin, Stellarium, Telescopius and Sky Safari to search for and plan my imaging sessions. I do however respect and appreciate you both. Andrea, I suspect the images posted are your page were in no way accidental. Timothy, the same goes for you

Your page is equally impressive. May you both continue to wow and inspire.

Mike

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Timothy Martin

IOTD Staff

Mar 15, 2025

Timothy Andrea, pointing and hoping is not my style.

I totally get what you're saying. I only do the completely random faafo thing two or three times a year. I just think it's worth doing from time to time. It has had about a 50% hit rate for me, but it's not for everybody. Right now, for shorter-focal-length scopes, there's really not much out there to go after, so it could be a good time for it.

Tell Bray Falls that there's no new discovery in organized research.

This is a prime example of that Frank Herbert means. We amateurs are out here with no official agendas, no institutionally imposed restrictions, no publish-or-perish imperatives, and no tenure to seek. Being systematic is one thing. Being part of highly organized research is another.

I will continue to use Astrobin, Stellarium, Telescopius and Sky Safari to search for and plan my imaging sessions

A prudent course of action. I use a different, but similar method. Nowhere did I mean to imply that people should spend all their time pointing willy nilly at random areas. But it might not hurt to do that sometimes--depending on your situation, your goals, and your disposition. If one of those goals is to create compelling images, then it may also pay to try to look at even the well-worn targets in a different way sometimes. Your mileage may vary.

David Cruz

Mar 15, 2025

Mike H - Sky View Observatory:
David, been using Telescopius for some time and did not know about the “red” view. Thanks

How do you enable that?

Mike

@Mike H in Simulator click on the tab Survey, you'll see a dropdown with Filters were you'll find the Red one. Survey is also usefull to annotate the sky and brighten it, so you can find objects much easier.

andrea tasselli

Frequent contributor

Mar 15, 2025

Mike H - Sky View Observatory:
Timothy Andrea, pointing and hoping is not my style. I'm a planner. My time under the stars is precious. I'm going to bet anything that the beautiful images posted on this site are 99.9999% planned. Tell Bray Falls that there's no new discovery in organized research. He and the astrophotographers that he works with search, research and plan (organize) to find objects that are new and they have great success. Of course, I will never have their success. But, I cannot be haphazard in what I image. I think about what objects are pleasing to my eye, whether my equipment is suitable for the object and the possible outcome. I will continue to use Astrobin, Stellarium, Telescopius and Sky Safari to search for and plan my imaging sessions. I do however respect and appreciate you both. Andrea, I suspect the images posted are your page were in no way accidental. Timothy, the same goes for you Your page is equally impressive. May you both continue to wow and inspire.

Mike

*There is only one reason why I don't do what I preach (mostly) and it is that my skies suck in more imaginative ways than one. Had I access to B1 skies and unlimited time, as is the case for the OP, who was the one I was answering to, I would certainly do that. And in fact I'd probably do that come later in the season, as Timothy rightly said, short focal lengths got not much to do otherwise...

One fact though. I never look up to my targets' images except insofar they weren't printed in B&W in the now out of print "The Night Sky Observer's Guide".

Monty Chandler

Mar 16, 2025 · Edited: Mar 16, 2025

I use stellarium to plan my imaging - months in advance. I have two rigs, so two different FOV's appropriate to different targets. Stellarium has my yards landscape loaded so it's easy to see what I'll see as the night progresses. Using the DSS and DSS red overlays, even LBN and LDN targets are apparent. The entire Sharpless catalog of Hii areas in the northern hemisphere are listed. Keep a spreadsheet of quarterly targets for your specific site. I've got 179 images published so far with another 100 in the queue. 6 active projects at the moment.

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