Top ten tips for improving your astrophotography images

Astrophotography is a world of patience, precision, art and discovery. Whether you're aligning your first telescope to the pole star or refining years of exposure techniques, good practices remain good practices. These tips aren’t watered-down advice—they’re the foundational insights that even experienced astrophotographers come back to.

M16 The Eagle Nebula - image by Tom McCrorie - Founder of Picastro

Know your sky


Understanding what’s overhead saves time and produces better images. Use astronomy apps like Stellarium, SkySafari or NightSky to simulate the night sky. In the early days, I spent countless nights hunting for Andromeda by eye—only to find I was looking at the wrong region. Now, every session I embark on begins with an exact plan based on moon phases and target altitude. I first started out with countless books, Turn left at Orion, Practical Astronomer, StarFinder for Beginners are actually very good books for starting out.

Invest in the best mount you can


Even a basic DSLR can produce incredible images if your mount is solid. When I upgraded from a second hand mount to a slightly more capable equatorial mount, my images transformed overnight. The lesson? Tracking trumps sensor quality. Start there. Of course guiding will improve on this even more but good tracking is a great place to start to imrove image quality.

Calibrate everything


Darks, flats, and bias (dark flats) frames aren’t optional—they’re essential. My first stacked image was full of dust rings and sensor noise. I learned the hard way: skipping calibration leads to disappointment. Take time to capture proper calibration frames, and you’ll save hours in post. Some of the best advice I received was to do flats and darks. I used to think my images were pretty decent, till I started to use these calibration frames. The details that are punched out when using these is mind blowing.

Don’t chase gear! Master what you have


It’s tempting to chase the next best scope, camera, or filters and sure those can sometimes make good imaged great, but every upgrade has a learning curve. One of the best images I’ve taken was of the moon with a very simple DSLR, the Nikon D5000 and a second hand equatorial mount, I’d learned how to push it to its limits (and my limits). Stability, focus, and tracking matter more than your hardware wishlist. This is of course fully depenedent on the kinds of images you want to take.

A mineral image of the moon taken with a NkonD5000 DSLR and stacked in photoshop.

Plan, then image

Sessions that start with a checklist always end better. I use Clear Outside and Astrospheric to get hyperlocal cloud forecasts, and of course checking by poking my head out of my back door! Planning is more critical if you are travelling to different locations of course.

Getting polar aligned just after sunset means I’m imaging while others are still maybe troubleshooting. Yeah, crazy, but in even in the summer months I make sure I am polar aligned so I can just push the button on my plans. Sometimes gives me an extra few subs here and there, and living on the west coast of Scotland, every little helps!

Shoot in RAW, Not JPEG


When using a DSLR imaging in RAW files preserve dynamic range—crucial for bringing out faint nebulosity or balancing star brightness. JPEGs compress and discard this data. A friend once asked why their stacked image looked flat. The answer: they shot in JPEG. Once they switched to RAW, the difference was literally night and day. Of course the Picastro social media app preserves your hi resolution data even more when sharing it.

Keep your optics clean—but not obsessively


This is a really careful one to undertake as flat etc can removes some of these dust bunnies etc, but I am obsessive about cleaning my optical train. A speck of dust is not a disaster. Unless you see smudges or image artifacts, leave the glass alone. When needed, use an air blower first, then clean gently with proper optics fluid and lens cloth. I also keep my primary mirror clean on my Newtonian telescope.

Align properly (and re-check often)


Polar alignment is probably one of the most important things to consider nailing exactly in the hobby. When I first started out I used to do it manually and using some clever little astronomy apps like Polar align Pro etc, but even if you do it manually or use automated tools contained in your software, NINA, ASI Air etc, make sure you get it as exact as you can, as it will help reduce walking noise and field rotation, meaning you can retain all of your image without trimming off too much image in post processing.

Stack thoughtfully


More isn’t always better. I once stacked 45 hours of data (445 subs) and ended up with a worse image than stacking 25 carefully selected ones. Use Deep Sky Stacker’s scoring  system or sub frame selector in Pixinsight or simply eyeball each sub (time consusming though) to discard poor frames. Better input equals better output. Watch for tracking errors, clouds, and satellite trails. Honestly this will pay you dividends in the long term.

Stay curious, stay honest


Share your raw images as proudly as your finals. The community learns from your journey, not your perfection. Some of the best advice I’ve gotten came after posting an image I wasn’t proud of. Astrophotography isn’t about Instagram likes—it’s about documenting your window to the cosmos.