Welcome to UnderSouthWestSkies — an astronomy and astrophotography blog helping beginners and enthusiasts explore the night sky. Here you’ll find things like practical guides, deep sky observing notes, astrophotography workflows, and monthly sky events tailored for UK observers. Learning to capture your first long exposure image or planning your next night under the stars, this blog offers clear, accessible advice to support you on your learning journey into the cosmos. Drop me a comment Steve
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My shiny new control box arrived this morning from Rother Valley Optics via DPD.
It took just a day from order to arrival - how impressive is that? Big shout out to Rother Valley Optics for that.
And it works!
No more grinding sound.
No more binding.
No more jamming.
Yes, it is noisy - but it rotates smoothly!
A win.
I'll take it.
Meanwhile, I couldn't resist the temptation to take a peek inside the old one - I couldn't find any loose wires or broken solder points - so it must be some resistor or chip somewhere on the mother board - which is what Adam at RVO initially thought.
"Ooowww ......I wonder what it looks like inside?"
Can't see any loose wires or broken solder areas
Normal astrophotography service is now being resumed - as soon as we get a clear night!
Postscript:
I managed to also successfully update the SynScan handset firmware as well - I had to hunt down a USB a to B type - but son-in-law came to the rescue - as he does on most things to do with IT and me. 😂
Sky-Watcher EQM-35 Pro DEC Motor Fault: Grinding, Binding
and a Lesson in Mount Diagnostics
First of all, a huge shout-out to Adam at Rother Valley
Optics (RVO).
And then to Dave Woods at Dark Frames Ltd.
Late on Friday evening I emailed both about my latest tale of
astrophotography woe. This time the culprit was my Sky-Watcher EQM-35 Pro
mount, whose DEC motor had suddenly decided that smooth tracking was overrated
and had instead adopted a worrying repertoire of jamming, binding and grinding
noises.
As anyone involved in astrophotography knows, strange
mechanical noises coming from your mount tend to produce the same emotional
response as hearing an unfamiliar knocking sound from your car engine. You
immediately fear the worst while simultaneously convincing yourself it's
probably nothing.
Usually, it isn't nothing!
First Checks - Is the DEC Axis Mechanically Healthy?
Early Saturday morning I began investigating.
With the DEC clutch disengaged, I manually rotated the DEC
axis through its full range of motion. To my relief it rotated freely and
smoothly.
That was an encouraging sign.
If the internal casting, main shaft, brass bushings or
synthetic bearings had suffered a catastrophic failure, I would have expected
roughness, sticking, excessive resistance or obvious binding.
Instead, everything felt healthy.
That allowed me to narrow the search area considerably. The
problem seemed more likely to be isolated to one of three areas:
The
DEC motor itself
The
transfer gear assembly
The
electronic control system
In troubleshooting terms, this was my first small victory.
The list of possible culprits had become shorter.
The Internet Rabbit Hole
A little internet research revealed something interesting.
Stepper motors can produce a truly horrible grinding noise
when they electronically stall. Rather than rotating normally, they effectively
lose synchronisation and shake violently.
One possible cause is inadequate power supply.
However, I was running from a fully charged Celestron
Lithium Pro PowerTank, so power starvation seemed unlikely.
Other possibilities sounded rather less appealing.
A broken cable.
A cracked solder joint.
A bent connector pin.
Any of these faults can cause a motor to lose one of its
electrical phases. The result is a motor that appears to have completely
forgotten its purpose in life, vibrating angrily backwards and forwards while
producing noises that suggest expensive things are happening.
Gulp.
Taking the Motor Apart... Slightly
At this point I decided it was time for a little controlled
exploration.
I removed the plastic DEC motor cover and detached the brass
gear mounting assembly, leaving access to the motor and its vertical output
shaft.
Now, this was venturing into territory normally occupied by
braver people than me.
Or perhaps more reckless people.
Possibly both.
My assumption was that the gear should not spin completely
freely. Instead, I expected a firm, uniform, clicky resistance as I rotated it
by hand, caused by the motor's internal magnets passing through their
positions.
Sure enough, that's exactly what I found.
The motor gear felt consistent and healthy.
The mating gear mounted to the metal casing also rotated
freely. The grub screws were secure, there was no wobble, no excessive play and
no signs of misalignment.
So far, so good.
Then came the important test.
With the gear assembly removed, I powered up the motor.
The vertical shaft spun smoothly.
Quietly.
Continuously.
No grinding.
No catching.
No stalling.
No unpleasant mechanical drama.
At that moment things started looking considerably more
positive. The motor itself appeared to be working perfectly.
Then a friend got in touch and suggested it was the motherboard - a common reason why skywatcher mounts will sometimes behave this way, apparently - was news to me - hadn't even considered that option.
Adam's Diagnosis
Later on Saturday morning Adam replied to my email and asked
me to send a video showing the mount's behaviour.
After reviewing the footage, his assessment was impressively
quick and reassuringly logical.
The likely causes were:
A
fault in the DEC cable
A
fault on the mount control board - which my friend had already suggested
A
failure involving the bearings or magnets around the worm-drive motor
assembly
His recommendation was simple.
Before ordering parts or dismantling anything further,
determine whether the problem was electronic or mechanical.
A classic process-of-elimination exercise.
He suggested the following test:
"Unplug the DEC cable from the motor mount box and
plug the RA cable into the DEC motor instead. Then use the hand controller to
command an RA slew."
Simple. Elegant. Effective.
The Decisive Test
There were only two possible outcomes.
Result A
The DEC motor spins perfectly when commanded through the RA
output.
If that happened, the motor and gears were physically
healthy and the fault would lie elsewhere.
Result B
The same grinding and sticking occurs.
That would indicate a genuine mechanical fault involving the
motor, gear train or related hardware.
By this stage I was already leaning heavily towards Result
A.
And that's exactly what happened. The DEC motor ran
perfectly.
No binding.
No grinding.
No hesitation.
No drama.
I then repeated the test using the second cable.
Exactly the same result. Result A again.
Process of Elimination
At this point the evidence was becoming rather difficult to
ignore.
The motor appeared healthy.
The gears appeared healthy.
Both cables appeared healthy.
That left one increasingly suspicious candidate standing
alone under a bright interrogation lamp.
The motherboard.
Which, incidentally, was exactly where Adam's and my friend's experience had
pointed from the start.
Sometimes experience simply gets you to the destination much
faster than trial and error.
The Solution
A replacement controller board has now been ordered from
Rother Valley Optics.
With a little luck, swapping out the board will bring the
EQM-35 Pro back to life and return it to its proper role of tracking galaxies and
nebulae rather than impersonating an angle grinder.
Fingers crossed.
Going forward
At this point, having seen how smoothly my friend's EQM-35-Pro mount operates - it had been rebuilt by Dave at Dark Frames Ltd, I attempted to convince the boss that a rebuild was a good idea and having spent an hour bending her ear about all the advantages of doing it, over a coffee - I was thrilled to get the seal of approval.
A Final Word About Customer Service
Throughout this entire process Adam at Rother Valley Optics has been exceptional.
Multiple emails on Saturday.
Fast responses.
Clear instructions.
Follow-up emails first thing Monday morning.
This is exactly the kind of customer service that keeps
people returning to specialist astronomy retailers.
When things go wrong, it is easy to discover who simply
sells equipment and who genuinely supports their customers.
Rother Valley Optics have certainly done the latter and my
deep thanks and appreciation go to him.
I missed a phone call Monday evening from Dave Woods at Dark Frames Ltd - I'll explain why in a minute. But again, excellent customer service. Tuesday morning, a detailed email in my inbox - outlining what would be done to my mount, how much it would cost, what differences it would make to performance - excellent stuff.
Under normal circumstances I would have immediately contacted him and actually taken the mount up to him in the Portsmouth area. I mean I have seen the difference his work makes to a mount - astounding transformation.
But alas, things have conspired against this.
Welcome to the word of subsidence, unexpected collapsed patio areas, falling walls and lots of unbudgeted for expenses suddenly on the horizon.
It isn't a big hole by cornish sink hole comparisons but the walls are cracked, the patio is a goner - the drain shaft seems intact fortunately. Builders are now on site - concrete is on order and so the process of rebuilding starts. The emergency contingency fund is now down several thousands of pounds. New wall, new drainage pipes and channels, new concrete pad across whole patio area. New fencing. New patio! Ouch!
Sometimes you have years like this one - 2026 has been the year of a new dishwasher, new fridge, new microwave, new car windscreen, new side panel repair to motorhome, two collapsed trees in garden, a new mount control unit and now the patio and wall rebuild. And there is still November and December to go - aargh!
And so, much to my disappointment, the rebuild of my EQM-35-Pro is on a temporary hold. I'm not quite sure how long temporary is at the moment - but probably not this winter season. However, the boss has given it the go ahead - so Dave, it will happen but not immediately - unfortunately!
For thirty years we had decking over the entire area and so never spotted that the patio had started to collapse. When we lifted the decking, an area of it had collapsed about five inches - but it seemed stable. Clearly not - recent heavy rains had been washing down underneath it - and well, the rest, as they say, was inevitable. Five inch thick concrete crazy paving patio suspended over a rather large void. And two hitherto undiscovered manhole covers and drains - previous house owners had covered them over with crazy paving! Thank God we hadn't jumped in that area - I'm surprised it took my weight when I walked across it - so are the builders - cheeky muppets!
Only the Ivy had been holding up the wall - the bottom part had twisted and fractured in several places. The builders touched the wall - and it became very obvious it was unsafe and was going to have to come down as well. Ho hum!
What I Learned from the mount situation
Oddly enough, I have come away from this 'failing mount' experience with
something valuable.
Confidence.
A few days ago, the idea of taking even part of my mount
apart would have filled me with dread.
Now I've inspected the motor, removed components, carried
out fault-finding tests and learned a fair bit about how stepper motors and
mount electronics actually work.
That's probably a dangerous development.
If I'm not careful, I'll start convincing myself that a full
strip-down, bearing inspection and regrease is a perfectly sensible weekend
activity. On the other hand - sending it to Dave Woods seems a far more sensible option frankly and so that remains the plan.
Let's not get carried away with an over appreciation of my 'assumed' engineering skills!
One astronomical crisis at a time.
Meanwhile, I'm back off onto the 'tea and biscuits' shift'. Its very cold outside, there is a brisk chilly northerly wind and our builders are being heroes.
And my deep thanks to Adam at Rother Valley Optics, a couple of members of the Plymouth Astronomy Society and Dave Woods of Dark Frames Ltd.
Distraught. Gutted. Nasty sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
My EQM-35-PRO mount has gone haywire. Last night whilst imaging M31 down at Wembury Beach, the decination bit of the mount suddenly started grinding and binding before coming to a complete halt.
Today, I have just done a simple strip down to try and work out whats happening. These two videos show the issues.
Ho hum. Lets hope there is someone out there who can help.
Brian Cox: Emergence. A Night of Snowflakes,
Galaxies and Cosmic Humility
I’d been waiting almost a year for this talk.
And it didn't disappoint.
As the 2,500-strong audience filtered in from the arena
bars, foyers and cloakrooms, there was a palpable buzz in the air. This wasn't
just another evening lecture. It felt more like the opening night of a major
theatre production, albeit one about quantum mechanics, galaxies and the nature
of reality itself.
Below are my thoughts on the evening, along with a summary
of some of the ideas that stayed with me long after the lights came up.
A Quick Show Overview
Emergence is a two-hour live science and cosmology
show (plus interval) exploring how extraordinary complexity emerges from
remarkably simple beginnings. A heady mixture of cosmology, physics, biology,
philosophy and a dash of history, all wrapped in stunning visuals projected
across an enormous ultra-wide screen. Real-time imagery from the ISS sat
alongside breathtaking NASA footage and the latest telescope images. Add a
powerful musical score and the whole thing felt part science lecture, part
cinematic experience.
At times it was genuinely awe-inspiring.
From Snowflakes to the Structure of the Universe
The central theme of the evening was deceptively simple:
How do beautiful, complex structures emerge from a
universe governed by relatively simple laws?
Professor Cox launched straight into this question with a
stunning visual sequence. We zoomed into a snowy Prague street in 1610,
crossing a bridge during a winter storm. It was an opening that immediately
pulled the audience into the story.
The entire show was framed around a question posed by
Johannes Kepler more than 400 years ago.
Why do snowflakes almost always exhibit six-fold
symmetry?
Why six corners? Why not five or seven? Why order instead
of chaos?
What initially sounds like a curious observation about
winter weather becomes something much bigger. It's really a question about why
the universe contains patterns at all.
Cox discussed Kepler's 1611 essay The Six-Cornered
Snowflake, explaining how snowflake geometry isn't an accident. The answer
lies deep within the structure of water itself. Apparently, the angle between
hydrogen atoms in a water molecule is around 105 degrees. That microscopic
arrangement ultimately dictates the familiar hexagonal pattern of snowflakes.
Who knew?
The striking idea was that the same laws shaping tiny ice
crystals also underpin structures across the cosmos. Nature seems to rhyme with
itself. Patterns repeat across vastly different scales, from snowflakes
drifting through Earth's atmosphere to spiral galaxies rotating hundreds of
millions of light years away.
A Journey Inwards
Backed by superb visual effects, Cox then steered us into
the world of reductionism.
Imagine dismantling a clock to understand how it works.
Only instead of gears and springs, we were stripping a
snowflake apart.
First molecules. Then atoms. Then electrons and quarks.
Smaller and smaller still, descending into the strange quantum realm where
everyday intuition quietly packs its bags and leaves the building.
This section covered some of the fundamentals of quantum
mechanics and Planck's work. I won't pretend I followed every twist and turn,
but I certainly learned a thing or two.
There were moments when the concepts became challenging, but
that's hardly surprising when you're discussing the deepest levels of reality.
Enter Emergence
This led to the evening's central concept: emergence.
The basic idea is that understanding individual components
doesn't necessarily tell you how a complex system will behave.
You can understand every molecule in a hurricane and still
fail to predict the hurricane.
You can study a single neuron and still not explain
consciousness.
Likewise, looking at one particle in isolation doesn't
necessarily explain the astonishing structures that appear when trillions upon
trillions of particles start interacting.
Complexity emerges.
Like countless notes forming a symphony or individual pixels
creating a masterpiece, simple building blocks interacting under simple rules
can create staggering complexity.
And that was only the first half.
Zooming Back Out Again
After the interval, the direction of travel reversed.
Instead of descending into the microscopic world, we
accelerated outwards from it, across the cosmos.
And what a journey it was.
From quantum fluctuations and the birth of structure in the
early universe, we scaled up through galaxies, galaxy clusters and the vast
cosmic web itself. Along the way came black holes, cosmic evolution and the
changing expansion rate of the universe across more than 13 billion years of
history.
The scale shifts were extraordinary.
One moment you were contemplating subatomic particles. The
next you were looking at structures so vast they make entire galaxies seem
insignificant.
The evening eventually arrived at one of cosmology's biggest
open questions: the possibility of multiple universes.
Not a bad place to end up after starting with a snowflake.
The Most Important Message
Perhaps the most powerful idea of the entire evening wasn't
scientific at all.
It was Cox's repeated emphasis on three simple words:
"I don't know."
Kepler couldn't fully explain the symmetry of snowflakes.
Modern scientists still don't have all the answers either.
And that's exactly the point.
According to Cox, this willingness to say "I don't
know" sits at the very heart of science. Progress depends upon
uncertainty. Discovery begins where certainty ends.
Dogma shuts doors.
Curiosity opens them.
As someone who spends many nights under dark skies
photographing objects we are still only beginning to understand, that message
resonated deeply.
Uncertainty is a primary driver of progress and ‘assuming
absolute certainty’ stalls human evolution. We all need to embrace what we don’t
know – a radical necessary strength if we are to evolve further.
Splendid stuff
Yes, The Fermi Paradox Made an Appearance
Naturally, the question of alien civilisations surfaced.
Why, in a galaxy containing hundreds of billions of
stars, have we found no convincing evidence of other spacefaring civilisations?
Cox touched on several possible explanations.
Perhaps there are "great filters" that most
intelligent species fail to overcome. Resource depletion, climate change,
technological risks and even artificial intelligence all entered the
discussion.
But there was another intriguing possibility.
Complex life on Earth required roughly 3.5 billion years of
relative stability. Perhaps that level of long-term cosmic calm is simply rare.
Maybe most planets experience catastrophic interruptions long before
intelligent life has a chance to emerge.
If so, we may be far rarer than we imagine.
The Pale Blue Dot
The evening concluded with reflections on Carl Sagan's
famous Pale Blue Dot.
This was perhaps the most emotional section of the show.
We are, as Sagan famously said, made of star stuff.
The carbon in our bodies was forged inside stars. Every atom
in us has a cosmic history stretching back billions of years.
And yet this tiny world remains the only home we have ever
known.
Given the absence of evidence for other advanced
civilisations, human consciousness may be an extraordinarily rare phenomenon.
The universe has spent 13.8 billion years arranging atoms into a form capable
of looking back and asking questions about itself.
That's quite a responsibility.
The message was simple: if intelligent life is rare, then
preserving it matters. We all carry the shared responsibility, nae duty, to
care for this fragile and very rare planet.
Human consciousness - an exceedingly rare cosmic anomaly.
Science, Truth and a Few Uncomfortable Moments
Somewhere amid the snowflakes, galaxies and multiverses, Cox
also addressed more modern issues - scientific misinformation and denialism; the
challenge of identifying reliable knowledge in an increasingly noisy world.
His argument was that science progresses precisely because
it has developed methods for removing human bias and testing ideas against
observation and mathematics.
As somebody who failed O-Level Maths five times before
finally scraping a pass, I have to admit there were moments during this section
when I was feeling distinctly twitchy – can a mathematically challenged person
step up to his human scientific responsibilities in a meaningful way?
So, What Did I Take Away?
More than anything, I came away loving the "I don't
know" principle. The willingness to embrace uncertainty isn't weakness.
It's strength. It's the engine of curiosity and the fuel of progress.
Too often we celebrate certainty when perhaps we should
celebrate thoughtful doubt instead.
I also found the Pale Blue Dot argument especially
powerful given today's political climate. Looking at humanity from a cosmic
perspective makes our divisions seem surprisingly small, almost petty.
We're all passengers on the same tiny spacecraft, hurtling
through an unimaginably vast universe together.
That is a perspective worth keeping.
And I suspect it will make this winter's astrophotography
sessions a little more reflective than usual.
Oh, and one fact stood out for me – Cox and others believe
that we are the only planet in our entire galaxy that has ‘goldilocks’
conditions to sustain life of this complexity.
Think about it – 100 to 400 billion stars in the milky way.
NASA Kepler telescope data suggests each of these has at least one planet
orbiting it – and billions of these exist within a ‘habitable’ zone i.e. the
region around a star where liquid water could potentially pool on a rocky
surface.
Mind blowing!
Go a little further – NASA estimate 2 trillion galaxies in
our observable universe - multiply 2 trillion galaxies by an average of roughly
100 billion stars per galaxy, the observable universe contains an estimated 10²²
to 10²⁴ stars (more than all the grains of sand on Earth). And remember, the
"observable universe" is only the bubble of space from which light
has had enough time to reach us since the Big Bang (about 93 billion
light-years across). The total universe outside our horizon is likely much
larger or potentially infinite. Mind blown! Official!
Final Thoughts
Technically, the production was superb.
The giant HD LED screen, real-time data visualisations,
deep-space imagery and carefully crafted soundtrack elevated the experience far
beyond a conventional lecture. At times it felt more like an immersive
documentary than a science talk.
Intellectually, it was challenging too. Some of the concepts
required serious concentration, and occasionally I found myself struggling to
process one idea before the next arrived. There was definitely some heavy
lifting involved.
The lighter moments helped. A few references to Cox's D:Ream
days brought welcome laughs and prevented things becoming too dense.
My only real disappointment?
No Q&A session. For a show built around curiosity, it
felt like a missed opportunity.
But honestly, that's a very minor criticism.
This was an evening packed with wonder, perspective and
genuinely thought-provoking ideas.
A Complete Milky Way Composite Workflow (Siril + Affinity Photo)
If you’ve ever stood on a headland in South Devon, Dorset, or Cornwall watching the Milky Way rise over the sea while your camera quietly clicks away, you’ll know the magic of the moment. But you’ll also know the reality: coastal haze, light pollution gradients, noisy foregrounds, and the eternal battle between “what the sensor saw” and “what your eyes saw”.
Today's post is my complete, end‑to‑end SUMMARY milky way editing workflow for producing a clean, natural Milky Way composite using Siril for sky processing and Affinity Photo for blending and finishing. It’s the workflow I used this summer - refined, tested, and now written up so you can follow it step‑by‑step.
As always, I add a proviso - this is my approach - I think everything is in the correct scientific order, and every tool or script includes a short explanation of what it does - but, I'm bound to be wrong somewhere - so please, if you spot an error - drop me a comment so I can correct things.
Firstly, my Milky way editing workflow is based on using affinity photo version 1 and SIRIL version 1.4.4
Secondly - I never take single image milky way landscape photos. Mine are always a composite blend comprising a separate sky image and a separate foreground image.
My normal 'in-the-field' work flow is: blue hour foreground shoot and a later total dark sky forground shot. Between, I take a mix of tracked shots and non tracked shots - ready for later stacking.
Hence my normal milky way images can sort of be described as TRACKED - STACKED - COMPOSITES
You can find details about my new Nomad tracker, by the way, here:
PART 4 — SIRIL MILKY WAY IMAGE STARLESS SKY PROCESSING
9. Hypermetric Stretch (Starless)
Stretches faint Milky Way detail while protecting highlights.
10. Curves (Starless)
Fine‑tunes contrast in linear space.
11. Sculpting (Starless)
This is where the Milky Way comes alive:
Veralux Alchemy — global dust lane shaping
Vectra— local contrast sharpening
Revela— colour separation and richness
SyQon Prism — tone shaping and highlight/midtone balance
SyQon Parallax — depth enhancement and band/background separation
12. Noise Reduction (Starless)
Silentium — detail‑preserving denoise
Nox (light) — smooth remaining noise
What the eye sees vs what my camera sees
A classic example of my struggle using an astromodded camera for milky way landscapes - exacerbated by my personal preference for a warmer rather than cooler tone to a milky way sky
it certainly attracts criticism - ho hum!
PART 5 — SIRIL MILKY WAY IMAGE STARS LAYER REFINEMENT
13. Stars Layer Adjustments
Mild curves, mild colour balance, optional tiny Vectra.
Just enough to make the stars look natural — never sculpt stars.
PART 6 — SIRIL MILKY WAY IMAGE RECOMPOSITION & EXPORT
14. Star Recomposition (Star Composer / Pixel Math)
Merges stars and starless layers cleanly.
15. Export Sky Layers (16‑bit TIFF)
Save Sky Final / Starless / Stars.
PART 7 — AFFINITY PHOTO MILKY WAY EDITING COMPOSITE WORKFLOW
16. Foreground Preparation
Exposure, noise reduction, colour balance.
17. Composite Assembly
Place the sky layer below the foreground layer.
Mask the foreground to reveal the sky underneath.
Linear gradient mask: controls background sky brightness
Invert mask:refine background sky only
These masks give you selective control over the sky without touching the landscape.
20. Global Colour Matching
White Balance → Selective Colour → Curves → HSL.
Unifies sky and foreground so the composite feels natural.
21. Final Milky Way Enhancement
Clarity → Contrast → Dodge/Burn → Unsharp Mask.
Adds the final punch and definition.
22. Foreground Noise Reduction
Denoise → Frequency Separation.
23. Final Global Grade
Curves → Colour Balance → Vibrance.
24. Export Final Image
16‑bit TIFF master + JPEG web.
I rarely take milky way landscape selfies - so quite a bit of new learning and experimentation went into this image. Mastering the right timing of my headtorch illumination - required several attempts!
DEEP DIVE: Why the Sculpting Order Matters (Section 11)
For readers who love the technical detail, here’s why the sculpting tools appear in the exact order they do:
1. Veralux Alchemy → FIRST
Sets the global structure of the Milky Way band: macro‑contrast, dust lane shaping, and initial definition.
You must establish the big‑shape structure before applying finer contrast or colour tools.
2. Vectra → SECOND
Enhances local contrast and micro‑structure.
Vectra works best after Alchemy has already defined the major dust lanes.
3. Revela → THIRD
Refines colour separation and tonal richness.
Colour refinement must come after structural contrast work; otherwise colour becomes distorted.
4. SyQon Prism → FOURTH
Tone‑shaping tool that balances highlights and midtones.
Tone shaping must happen after structure and colour are already established.
5. SyQon Parallax → LAST
Adds depth perception and separation between the Milky Way band and background sky.
Depth tools must be applied last, once structure, colour, and tone are finalised.
This order is the backbone of a natural‑looking Milky Way.
Final Thoughts
This workflow is the result of many late nights on Dartmoor, many coastal sessions in Dorset, and many cups of tea while staring at Siril progress bars. It’s designed to be practical, repeatable, and friendly to real‑world conditions — haze, gradients, noise, and all.
If you follow it step‑by‑step, you SHOULD get a clean, natural Milky Way composites that still feel like the night you experienced.
However, as you can see from my 'evaluate the image' posts - it hasn't quite worked out the way I thought it would in my head or from following this work flow. But, over the winter, it is something I will endeavour to put right - expect some updates to this post work flow then!
If you have any thoughts about the work flow or the way I edit my photos - then drop me a comment in the box below so that other blog subscribers and readers can see it and learn from it - and thank you for taking the time to help me learn further - appreciated.
As always, have fun out there, keep looking up but stay safe.
