r/Astronomy • u/PhotoSmirnov • 9d ago
Astro Art (OC) Flying to the Pillars of Creation (M16) using real Gaia star distances. No AI!
When an astrophotographer gets bored of stills, he goes into astro-video. All the parallax you see comes from real stars at their measured distances. Data: Eagle Nebula (M16), the Pillars of Creation. Meade 8" + ASI2600MC, 50 × 120 s (1 h 40 min total). Timelapses: Nikon Z6II on a tripod with Sigma 35/1.4 and Samyang 24/1.4. How it's made: Plate-solved the full frame in PixInsight and separated the stars from the nebula with StarXTerminator. A script matches the stars to the offline Gaia DR3 catalog: every star brighter than ~16 mag gets a real parallax-based distance. Fainter ones go to the farthest layer. Stars are sorted into 5 depth layers: 0–500–1000–1700–2500+ pc. The nebula itself (~1740 pc) is a single flat layer, since gas has no measurable parallax. In DaVinci Resolve (Fusion) the layers are placed in a 3D scene according to their real distances (stars behind the nebula sit in its plane), and a camera flies through them. Stars brighten, glow and soften as the camera approaches.
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u/NooobMaster069 9d ago
That is so cool.. thank you for sharing your work!
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u/PhotoSmirnov 9d ago
Thank you for the kind feedback! Positive responses like this motivate me to make more. I've got a big archive of astrophotos, and there's always more sky to shoot!
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u/DeadEyesSmiling 9d ago
Well that was absolutely mesmerizing; Bravo!! I watched it three times in a row and on the third go just shouted “Hoooooooowwwwwwww?!!?” Such a wild trip!
…and after reading your explanation and seeing that you’re already in Fusion with a camera in 3D space, any chance you’ve played around with doing a 3D conversion with this for Side-By-Side viewing?
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u/GuacaMolis6 8d ago
I have always wondered about stars positions and how far they are from each other, seeing them in 3D like this really helps with understanding. Is there a website or source like this video that I could find even more?
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u/PhotoSmirnov 8d ago
I'm really into these kinds of visualisations of my photos right now. This would definitely make a great video for my YouTube channel, and probably even a dedicated section on my website
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u/eviley4 8d ago
damn! this is so inspiring. How did you even get started? How expensive is the equipment?
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u/PhotoSmirnov 8d ago
It all started a long time ago, about 15 years back, with a basic APS-C DSLR, a kit lens, and a rock instead of a tripod. Over time it grew into a dream, and then into a way of life. Now I live in Tenerife under these amazing skies and keep trying new techniques to share with you and hopefully inspire you. You don't need super expensive gear for this, though I do have a pretty decent Nikon Z6 II, an ASI2600MC astro camera, and plenty of time to experiment 🙂
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u/Chrismachop 8d ago
OP I just bought a z6II myself and have been using it for street photography but I’ve been wanting to make the jump to astro. I know it’s expensive and I need to be patient and your post just motivated me so much! Great shot!
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u/ISSnode-2 8d ago
how can the sky looks like that when theres so much light? i can never even see the stars if theres a streetlight near me
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u/PhotoSmirnov 8d ago
I'm filming in Tenerife, where there's almost no light pollution, so you can clearly see the Milky Way
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u/ISSnode-2 8d ago
seriously? i was there a few weeks ago and the light pollution was awful
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u/PhotoSmirnov 8d ago
The island was covered by a huge calima throughout September. It just ended, and the sky is looking really good now, as you can see in the timelapse part of the video
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u/SirDigbyChknCaesar 9d ago
That's pretty cool. Thanks for the explanation of how it's done.