This site and all content Copyright © 2013 -2020 Ian Russell unless otherwise stated | Terms and conditions | Website Disclaimer
Astrophotography
Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) - huge archive and a new annotated image every day brought to us by Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell
Ken Crawford’s imagingthesky.com - images and detailed video tutorials
Richard Crisp’s narrowbandimaging.com - images and useful technical information including a method for generating synthetic RGB from emission line (narrowband) data.
Russell Croman Astrophotography - fantastic website and home of GradientXTerminator
Bob Franke Focal Pointe Observatory - images, free software, and tutorials including how to create an image in the Hubble palette
Salvatore Grasso Astrophotography - great tutorials including how to generate a synthetic green layer in Ha / [OIII] narrowband, using CCDSharp deconvolution, and free PhotoShop actions
Paul Kanevsky’s website - images and processing tips
Pete Lawrence’s DigitalSky - images from the Sky at Night presenter and columnist
Jerry Logriguss’ Catching the Light - images and tutorials
J-P Metsavainio’s AstroAnarchy blog - with details of the Tone Mapping technique for narrowband imaging
Scott Rosen’s Astronomers do it in the Dark - astrophotography
Joel Short’s buckeyestargazer.net - got some great tips from his processing workflow
Sharpless Catalog - wonderful image archive recording the Sharpless Catalog of (mostly Northern hemisphere) emission nebulae
Online resources
Astronomy Tools - a couple of useful online tools including their version of a field of view calculator
Collimating an SCT - the best guide I’ve found to collimating an SCT by Sylvain Weiller
Field of View calculator - useful service by David Campbell that lets you explore the field of view on common objects with different telescope / reducer / camera combinations
Software - free
Deep Sky Stacker - capable, if slightly slow, registering and stacking software
Bhatinov Grabber by Niels Noordhoek - app to assist focusing with a Bhatinov mask
Polar FinderScope by Jason Dale - a simple but very useful program that helps polar alignment using a polar scope
SharpCap - excellent astronomy camera capture tool with loads of features
Stellarium - excellent free planetarium software
Software - paid
AstroArt 7.0 - image processing software that I use for stacking, among other things
CCD Inspector - very useful utility that shows the field flatness on your sensor
Pixinsight - very capable astronomy image processing package
RegiStar - basic interface and eye-wateringly expensive but useful for combining different image scales, e.g. for images taken with different equipment
Sequence Generator Pro - excellent image capture programme that I use to control my automated set-up
Suppliers
365astronomy - excellent and knowledgeable retailer with fast service and response
First Light Optics - well respected retailer with super-fast delivery who have absorbed another fantastic retailer, Ian King Imaging; very active in the community as creators of Clear Outside, Astronomy Tools, IKI Observatory and sponsors of Stargazers’ Lounge
JTechDesign - manufacturer of custom made bits; a great place to get those impossible to find adapters
Modern Astronomy - very friendly and fast, stockists of the popular QHY cameras, among other things
Rother Valley Optics - another very good and reliable retailer
Teleskop Service - based in Germany but with a huge inventory; useful for those difficult to find bits and bobs…
Weather
BBC Weather - rather variable accuracy
Clear Outside - dedicated astronomy weather forecasting site with iOS and Android apps available
Met Office, UK - including satellite images
Sat 24 - satellite imagery in visible and IR
Other
Atik cameras - reliable, well engineered, and wonderful customer service
Space Warps - from the Zooniverse team
Stargazers Lounge - friendliest forum on the web in my opinion
Zooniverse - home to the internet's largest, most popular and most successful citizen science projects
