u/minas1

My setup:

• Camera: M100 with stock lens
• Focal length: 15mm
• Aperture: f/3.5
• Shutter Speed: 15 seconds
• ISO: 3200
• Took 80 RAW images
• No star tracker
• Stacked and edited in Siril

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After a failure to capture the Sombrero Galaxy, this time I went to a relatively dark location and managed a better shot.

The idea was to blend two sets of photos (one for the foreground and a stacked one of the sky) so that the sea and Rho Ophiucci cloud complex are both visible. I messed up the foreground part so I just cropped a part of picture.

I'm still learning (this is only my 3rd attempt) so please provide constructive feedback.

1. Is this a good photo or bad one?
2. For landscape astrophotography, do you use a single shot of the foreground at higher exposure time than the photos of the sky?
3. The stars at the edges of my photo were stretched (in the uncropped original image it was much worse than what you can see here). Why? I used a tripod of course but it was a bit windy. Should I hang a weighted bag on the tripod's hook? And should the bag touch the ground, or should it hang in the air?
4. Even though I tooke 80 photos of 15s each, I could not make the photo bright enough without also making the dark parts bright. Any tips?
5. Any tutorials or books for beginners?

Thanks for your time.

Hello.

This was my first attempt at astrophotography. I tried to take a picture of M104 (Sombrero Galaxy) but it's nowhere to be found on my image.

My setup:

• Camera: M100 with stock lens
• Focal length: 45mm
• Aperture: f/6.3
• Shutter Speed: 6 seconds
• ISO: 3200
• Took 30 RAW images

Unfortunately there was a lot of light pollution.

I used Siril to stack the images and then streched it.

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* Given that the star in the red box is supposed to be Psi Virginis, where is M104 in my image?

* Would a darker make a big difference?