TUTORIALS

Below you will find all the Astrophotography tutorials we have written to help amateur astrophotographers progress faster in this hobby. This page will be updated continuously as we create more and more educational content. Whether you own a DSLR or a CCD camera, you should find something helpful below to push your night time photography skills forward. Most of these tutorials also have a video attached, which sometimes offers a little bit more details, so make sure to check them out!

These informational posts will teach you how to get better at Astrophotography in a wide range of topics. You will learn what are the best deep sky objects to image for each month of the year, how to properly set up your telescope, mount and accessories, how to photograph the moon, what settings to pick for imaging with both a DSLR camera and a CCD camera, and much more.

Several of these tutorials also discuss the choice of equipment to use for different occasions, or help you get familiar with your new Astrophotography camera.

We also give you image processing tips using PixInsight and Lightroom, and show you how we process our own raw files in depth. Download our full PixInsight guide HERE.

Below is the Fast Travel menu which you can use to quickly get to a specific tutorial on this page.

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Best targets of the year

PixInsight tutorials

Quick & Easy tutorials

top 15 astrophotography targets for all seasons

Do you have no idea what to image tonight?

You are motivated, eager to go out there and photograph the night sky but find yourself completely lost as to where to aim your telescope? We are here to help! We have compiled what we believe are the 60 best deep sky astrophotography targets to photograph for every month of the year.

Click on the current season below and simply pick one of the 15 deep sky objects listed to image tonight! Each of these astronomical objects are fairly large, bright, and easy to capture for beginner to advanced amateur astrophotographers.

If you would like to own a physical copy of this list, take a look at The Astrophotographer's Guidebook!

If you find this website useful and would like to support us, check out the cool benefits on Patreon!

SPRING
Get ready to image a lot of galaxies in the months of March, April and May!

In the Astronomy world, Spring is commonly known as "Galaxy Season". Besides a few colorful nebulae like Thor's Helmet or the Rosette Nebula, almost all of the best and easiest targets to photograph this season are galaxies! Have fun processing those bright cores and spiral arms!
SUMMER
Here come the hottest months of the year. This warm season also gives rise to the impressive Milky Way core spanning across the night sky.

In June, July and August, some of the most popular nebulae are available to photograph, like the Eagle Nebula (which include the famous Pillars of Creation) as well as the Ring Nebula and the Veil Nebula. A couple of star clusters are also high in the sky!
FALL
The months of September, October and November have a great mix of deep sky objects ready for you to capture.

This season, your camera can feast on the magnificent Andromeda Galaxy, the large Heart Nebula, or the very old Great Pegasus Cluster.

Enjoy the nice temperature of Fall for as long as you can, the next season might freeze your gear!
WINTER
It might be cold outside, but lots of beautiful targets are out there waiting for you!

This Winter, two of the easiest deep sky objects can be photographed, the Orion Nebula and the Pleiades star cluster.

The Orion constellation is home to a handful of bright targets like the Horsehead and Flame nebulae or M78. Barnard's Loop is also one of the best wide-field targets out there!
NO TELESCOPE
You do not need a telescope to image deep sky objects. As a matter of fact, we actually recommend beginner astrophotographers to learn how to use their camera and how the sky moves by doing wide-field imaging!

In this post, we show you targets that don't require a full astrophotography setup to be imaged.

Wix PixInsight Thumbnail General for web

Click the banner above to go to our PixInsight learning page, where we add all PixInsight-related tutorials over time. Because of the software's steep learning curve, we do our best to keep these guides short and easy to follow.

If you would like to download a PDF version of our own processing workflow, step-by-step, you can do so HERE. Included is a 75-page PDF guide and a 1 hour and 45 minutes full walkthrough tutorial video.