Aki's AstroGallery | Astrophotography Portfolio

Featured Captures

My flagship astrophotography shots

The Orion Nebula (M42)

The Orion Nebula (M42) is a massive stellar nursery about 1,344 light-years away, spanning 24 light-years across.

This was my most recent "tracked" capture in Simsbury, CT. Only a 10-minute drive from my home, the open horizon of a local farm helped immensely. The perfect new moon, along with the extremely late hours, contributed to the quality of the capture.

However, the night initially started off extremely cold and partly cloudy, preventing me from polar aligning my star tracker with Polaris for the first hour. The night felt unhopefulit seemed as if I wasn't going to get lucky. Thankfully, I waited for an opportunity between two clouds to quickly align with the North Star and successfully calibrated my tracker.

Even though it remained partly cloudy, especially near the horizon, looking straight up I spotted the Orion constellation. While the skies in a Bortle 4 zone (an indicator of light pollution levels) aren't ideal for stargazing, the power of trackinga device that moves with the Earth's rotation to keep the target in frame during long exposuresalong with careful post-processing, allowed me to capture this beautiful nebula. With a magnitude of 4.0 (for reference, the lower the magnitude, the more visible the object; a full moon is -12.7, and Mars is -1.29), the details of this celestial wonder came to life.

Capture Details

Date December 29th, 2024

Location Barn Door Hills, Simsbury, CT

Camera Canon EOS 6D (20.2 MP)

Lens Canon EF 28-350mm f/3.5-5.6L IS USM

Settings ISO 800, f/5.6, 350mm, 30s

Integration 60 x 30s = 30 minutes total

Tracker Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi

Processing DeepSkyStacker, Adobe Lightroom

The Andromeda Galaxy (M31)

The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is a spiral galaxy located about 2.5 million light-years away, spanning an incredible 220,000 light-years across. It is the closest major galaxy to the Milky Way, predicted to collide with our galaxy in about 4.5 billion years.

Taken in my own backyard, this was the first deep sky object I captured after purchasing the Star Adventurer GTi. Surprisingly, despite only having about 15 minutes of usable (and unfortunately unfocused) exposure, this shot took many hours to complete.

On a cold December Saturday night, I spent from 7 PM to midnight going back and forth between my backyard and the family roomprobably 15 times or more. It took several long, and at times frustrating, hours in below-freezing temperatures to learn how to properly calibrate and polar align my new tracker, all while trying to keep both my computer and hands warm.

By the time I got everything aligned, Andromeda was already dipping below my backyard's high tree line. When I finally took a test exposure, I was surprised to see Andromeda perfectly framed between the bare branches of the winter trees. However, because everything in the sky moves, many exposures had to be tossed due to tree branches creeping into the frame. After about half an hour of shooting, I was left with just 15 minutes of usable data.

At 2 AM, I uploaded the images to my computer, only to realize that all of them were slightly out of focusa tough lesson learned the hard way. Still, as my first-ever deep sky capture, I was thrilled with what I managed to produce and excited by the possibilities of what I could achieve going forward.

Capture Details

Date December 26th, 2024

Location Barn Door Hills, Simsbury, CT

Camera Canon EOS 6D (20.2 MP)

Lens Canon EF 28-350mm f/3.5-5.6L IS USM

Settings ISO 1000, f/5.6, 350mm, 30s

Integration 30 x 30s = 15 minutes total

Tracker Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi

Processing DeepSkyStacker, Adobe Lightroom

Milky Way from Mauna Kea, Hawaii

My first-ever astrophotography experience, captured from one of the world's premier astronomical observation sites.

Taking a trip to the renowned Mauna Kea observatory with my family, this was my first ever experience with astrophotography. Being on top of a volcano in the middle of the largest ocean in the world, Mauna Kea was the #1 best star gazing I have experienced in my life.

The glow of the Milky Way being visible to the naked eye, and being above the stratocumulus clouds, there is no doubt why this is a renowned observatory. Using my Canon Rebel T7 I took my first ever exposure of the stars with instructional help of a local guide. This is where I discovered the rush of capturing the night sky.

Capture Details

Date July 6th, 2023

Location Mauna Kea Observatory, HI

Camera Canon EOS Rebel T7 DSLR

Lens Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III

Settings ISO 2500, f/4, 30mm, 8s

Integration Single 8s exposure

Tracker None (untracked)

Processing Apple Photos

Gallery

Going out with a friend who has smart telescope called Vaonis Stellina

View Details

Lagoon Nebula (M8)

Nebula

View Details

Trifid Nebula (M20)

Nebula

View Details

Pinwheel Galaxy (M101)

Galaxy

View Details

Omega Centauri (NGC 5139)

Globular Cluster

View Details

Ring Nebula (M57)

Planetary Nebula

Behind the Scenes

In the field: setup, calibration, and the pursuit of the perfect shot

Calibrating my Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi using polar and two-star alignment. Precision is critical for long-exposure tracking.

Camera screen displaying one of the many 30-second exposures of the Orion Nebula during a cold December night in Simsbury, CT.

Polar aligning the tracker in my backyard during my first deep-sky session. Photo credit: my brother.

A single raw 30-second exposure of Andromeda (M31) before stacking and processingshowing the raw potential hidden in each frame.

Gear & Workflow

The equipment and process behind the captures

Cameras

Canon EOS 6D Full-Frame DSLR (20.2 MP, DIGIC 5+ processor)
Canon EOS Rebel T7 DSLR

Lenses

Canon EF 28-350mm f/3.5-5.6L IS USM Telephoto Zoom
Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III Telephoto Zoom

Tracking

Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi Equatorial Tracking Mount

Smart Telescope

Vaonis Stellina (borrowed)

Software

DeepSkyStacker (image stacking)
Adobe Lightroom (post-processing)
Apple Photos (basic editing)

My Workflow

Each deep-sky capture follows a meticulous process: I start by polar aligning my Star Adventurer GTi tracker using both polar and two-star alignment for precision. Once calibrated, I take dozens of long exposures (typically 30 seconds each) over the course of 15-30 minutes or more, depending on conditions. These "light frames" are then brought into DeepSkyStacker, where they're aligned and combined to reduce noise and enhance faint details. Finally, I use Adobe Lightroom for careful post-processingadjusting contrast, clarity, color balance, and noise reductionto bring out the intricate structures and colors hidden in the raw data. It's a process that requires patience, precision, and a willingness to learn from each session.

About

Hi, I'm Aki Bhabad, an 19-year-old amateur astrophotographer and a curious college freshman. Since I was a kid, I've always been fascinated by the night sky, and now, through astrophotography, I can pursue this fascination.

What draws me to astrophotography isn't just the beauty of the cosmos it's the challenge. Each capture requires planning, precision, patience, and often involves long, cold nights troubleshooting equipment in the dark. It's the kind of hard problem that forces you to learn constantly, adapt quickly, and persist even when conditions aren't ideal.

I shoot primarily from Connecticut often from my own backyard or nearby farms working within the limitations of a Bortle 4 zone and unpredictable New England weather. With my Canon EOS 6D, telephoto lenses, and Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi tracker, I've been able to capture nebulae, galaxies, and wide-field Milky Way shots that reveal details invisible to the naked eye.

This gallery represents where I am now, but there's so much more I want to explore and capture. Each session teaches me something new, and every image is a step forward in understanding both the night sky and the craft of astrophotography.