Posting Guidelines and Rules Explanation
Community / Posting Rules
Rule 1: Post Types
Image posts must be embedded as part of the post itself and not linked to external sites, with the exception of Astrobin. When sharing via Astrobin, the link must go directly to the image, not to landing pages, personal galleries, or blogs; no other sites are permitted. Videos that follow the other rules are permitted as long as they are embedded in the post and not linked to external sites.
Links to blogs, articles or external websites must be interesting and promote discussion about amateur astrophotography. Self-promotion is not permitted. Discussion posts must be have flair set to 'Discussion' to avoid removal.
Questions are permitted if they are regarding and accompany an allowed astrophotography image, but all other questions are not permitted and should be posted to our sister subreddit, /r/AskAstrophotography.
This sub celebrates amateur astrophotography and will primarily focus on sharing and discussing the work of our members. We're allowing discussion of astrophotography articles as long as they're interesting and promote discussion about astrophotography, but promotion of items for sale or self-promootion of your own website or other extenral channels falls outside of this and will be removed as spam. Equipment posts are allowed in order to allow our members to get feedback about their gear and help others to learn what works well for this hobby. Simple/beginner questions (e.g. "should I get this telescope") should be asked in /r/AskAstrophotography.
Embedding images in the post makes it easier for both mobile and desktop users to view without leaving Reddit, and allows our users to avoid off-site advertisements and bad website design. Astrobin in particular is permitted to be linked to because astrophotographers often include considerable additional detail about their work there, but links must be to the specific object page so users can view it without effort.
Rule 2: Real Astrophotography and Equipment Images Only
Astrophotography refers to images of astronomical objects or phenomena exclusively. We define this to mean objects that are at or above the Kármán Line (boundary separating Earth’s atmosphere and outer space).
Images must be an accurate representation of a real astronomical object. No AI-generated, artistic representations, memes, man-made objects, or composites of astronomical objects along with annotations or other images will be allowed.
Images that include landscape in the foreground will be permitted as long as it is a small portion of the overall image and the astronomical objects are the primary focus and follow the other rules. Images with people or buildings will not be permitted. Such images must include flair 'Landscape'.
Images captured by cell phone will be permitted as long as they are not low-effort and follow the other rules, including acqusition/processing details. Simple starfield images without an obvious focus on an astronomical object besides individual stars, or casual single-shot images will not be permitted.
Equipment posts are allowed as long as they are of the equipment alone and the 'Equipment' flair has been applied.
All other images will be removed.
This rule was enacted in order to keep the community focused more on the astrophotography and less focused on artsy lit-foregrounds of dead trees and barns. While we may allow certain wide field shots they should be able to stand on the merit of the astrophotography alone and any terrain left in should be either extremely unobtrusive, or necessary to show the astronomical object, for example an eclipse that is extremely low in the sky and would otherwise be blocked by trees. That said, images should generally be cropped to avoid terrestrial objects. This rule also applies to "faked" images depicting phenomenon which are physically impossible to capture on film, such as animated deep-sky pictures, or the moon superimposed over star trails. In essence, images should be an accurate representation of the object.
Images captured with cell phones will be permitted, but only if they follow the rest of the rules of this sub, and clearly represent real effort. While individual shots of a generic starry sky may technically be "astrophotography", they are not broadly interesting to this community. At the same time we recognize that many people get started in this hobby with a cell phone on a tripod using stacking and processing apps on that device, so as long as there's a clear astronomical target represented in the image and all other rules are followed, they are welcome here.
Rule 3: Original and Amateur Content Only
Image posts can only be images that you have captured and processed yourself, or discussion about an image you are posting that you have captured and/or processed yourself.
Images acquired from public sources, professional observatories, other professional services, or anyone other than yourself are not allowed.
If you have done a drastic alteration or reprocessing of a prior submission, you may repost your edit - but only after a minimum of one week has passed.
A major objective of this community is to foster constructive feedback on images, and that goal is negated by a poster who hasn't actually made the image they have submitted as they will not be able to reply or take feedback into account. This is the only dedicated amateur-only community. There are countless other space-related communities that let you post an image you found online.
The time limit on reposting an edited version of a submission you made is to keep people from spamming the sub with 18 different versions of the same picture. We would love to see your edit, all we ask is that you wait before posting it. If you made an edit and found your image to be better immediately following your post to the sub, feel free to delete the first post and repost.
Rule 4: Post Titles
All astrophotography object image posts must include the name of the object being photographed in the title, and it must not be 'clickbaity' or excessive.
Do not indicate the equipment used, acqusition details, processing details, or other superfluous information in the title. Instead, these details should be in the body of the post or a comment made immediately after posting.
Posts with titles that deviate from these rules will be removed. If your post is removed, try reposting with a different title.
Posts with flair 'Equipment' or 'Discussion' have no specific rules regarding title format other than also not being 'clickbaity'.
Simply put, bad titles are annoying. We want to encourage users to upvote posts based on the quality of the image, not the story the title tells. This hopefully leads to better images getting the recognition they deserve. While this may not always appear to work in practice, it has helped significantly over the period it has been in place. Stories about the images belong in the comments section along with your acquisition and processing details, not in the title. Also please keep your list of equipment in a comment on your post per rule 5.
Rule 5: Acquisition and Processing Information
All astrophotography object image posts must include acquisition and processing details as a top-level comment. All such posts without this information will be removed after a period of time. Posts with partial details (i.e. no processing info) may be given a warning, and if not updated will be removed.
Acquisition details include the telescope, mount, camera, accessories, and any other pieces of equipment you used to capture the image, as well as number and exposure of subs.
Processing details include the programs you used and a general rundown of the workflow/processes you used within those programs. “Processed in Photoshop” is not enough.
Acquisition and processing details are important for much the same reason given in rule 3; the community can't give feedback, new users can't research equipment or replicate the image, and discussion is reduced and simplified as a consequence. We don't want to see an image with a bunch of posts saying "nice" in the comments -- we want to see "nice, but this could have been done differently". Acquisition details refers to any hardware used (i.e. telescope, mount, camera), the exposure count/length, and software used for hardware control (e.g. PHD2, backyardEOS). Processing details refer to software used to stack and edit the images (e.g. deepskystacker, PixInsight), and, at a minimum, a basic rundown of processes done. While we don't expect exact number settings for a PixInsight process, we do expect the process itself to be mentioned. Posts will be removed without warning if no details have been added after a reasonable amount of time has passed. We know that if you processed an image, you probably used one of several processing programs such as PixInsight or Photoshop, Gimp, etc, to name a few. We want to know what you did. Simply saying "processed in PixInsight" is like saying I breathe air. It doesn't add anything to discuss.
Rule 6: General Etiquette
Keep discussion on topic and focused on astrophotography. No discussions regarding politics, religion, UFOs, conspiracy theories, or other non-astrophotography topics will be permitted.
Treat each other with respect.
This community encourages and welcomes constructive criticism of images. If you think an OP can improve in any way please don't be shy and speak up!
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