This is my attempt at processing James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) data of Sh 2-305. It is an emission nebula usually visible in red (H II emission), but it is displayed here in false-color infrared. Blue areas emit higher-energy photons than red regions. This area is a stellar nursery where gas and dust remnants from supernovae or collisions form new stars. The three versions show the nebula only, with galaxies only, and with everything else.

A great deal of work went into creating a clean nebula image with as few artifacts as possible. After data extraction and initial stretching with #Siril, the single monochrome filter images were combined, processed, and cropped in #GIMP. The combined image was then run through #StarNet++ to remove most of the stars. Since StarNet++ does not work well with JWST data, it leaves artifacts for every star, especially the brighter ones, whose long spikes typical of JWST overlay large parts of the image. I therefore had to remove each star artifact manually using the clone and healing tools in GIMP. This took tens of hours to complete. #GMIC additionally helped reduce banding. As such, this is an artistic interpretation by me and is not scientifically accurate. The full resolution versions can be downloaded from https://www.picturavis.com/index?/tags/1204-jwst (these JWST images are crazily detailed).

The person responsible for this JWST proposal is Mark McCaughrean of the Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie in Heidelberg. He also shared an initial version of the uncropped processed image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/markmccaughrean/55209728128/

Attribution: NASA/ESA/CSA
Telescope: JWST/NIRCam
Proposal ID: 4547
Observation description: The stellar & sub-stellar initial mass function in Sharpless 305: imaging
Release date: 02.04.2026
Filters (mapping): F140M (blue), F150W+162M (light blue), F182M (blue-green), F212N (green), F300M (light green), F335M (yellow), F360M (orange), F444W (red)

#Sharpless305 #Sh2305 #JWST #JamesWebb #NIRCam #Nebula #SpaceTelescope #astrophotography #DeepSky #DigiKam

Milky Aurora Shower 2.0

This is a second attempt at a composite taken during the Perseid shower in 2024, which coincided with a spectacular auroral display. The aurora and the foreground are from one photo, and the Milky Way was stacked from 114 × 10 s exposures of the same series using #Siril, #GraXpert and #StarNet. Twelve meteors that were photographed in the same scene were manually registered onto the composite and scaled up for better visibility. Most of the compositing was done in #GIMP and the RAW processing of the aurora and the meteor images was done in #Darktable.

Compared to the original processing, I increased the visibility of the Milky Way with a new Siril stacking and processing attempt, composited both images differently via GIMP, and increased the size of the meteors so they are actually visible.

The original version can be found here: https://www.picturavis.com/picture?/282/category/37-astrophotography

Nikon D500, Tokina AT-X 11-20 f2.8 PRO DX, 12 mm, f2.8, 10s, ISO 3200, tripod
#nature #aurora #NorthernLights #MilkyWay #perseids #meteorites #photography #astrophotography #germany #digikam

First Star Field

It's terrible, but I'm like a kid here. It's fun to learn a new thing and this is my first time trying to make a star field image. The brightest star here is Polaris. With the naked eye I can just barely make out Polaris if I know exactly where to look.

#astrophotography #siril

Gamma Cygni Nebula

The Sadr Region around the central star Sadr (γ Cygni) in the Cygnus constellation contains the large H II nebula, Gamma Cygni Nebula (IC 1318). This nebula is partly obscured by dust, creating the Butterfly Nebula (IC 1318B) in the lower left of the image, just below Sadr.

Many other objects can be seen, including multiple star clusters and, most notably, the Crescent Nebula (NGC 6888) to the right of the center of the image.

This image was created with 2,984 × 2 s (1 h 39 min 28 s) integration time. Post-processing was done with #Siril, #GraXpert, #StarNet++, and #GIMP.

This time I documented the whole process in my #blog. If you have a camera, this is for you (no guarantees, though; I just fail along until it works for me): https://blog.picturavis.com/astrophotography-without-equipment/

Nikon D500, Sigma 105mm EX DG OS HSM, 105 mm, f/2.8, 2984x2 s, ISO 3200, tripod, no tracker
#Nebulae #Sadr #ButterflyNebula #GammaCygniNebula #CrescentNebula #astrophotography #photography #SilentSunday #germany #digikam

M81 - Bode's galaxy and M82 - Cigar galaxy
Captured on the ZWO Seestar S50 smart-scope and processed in Siril and GIMP using Graxpert, SETI-astro tools, StarNet star removal and SCUnet noise reduction.
289 x 30sec subframes

#ZWO #seestar_S50 #darksky #deepsky #astrophotography #astronomy #siril #GIMP #cloughjordan