Picking Orientation for your Astrophotos

Which Way Does It Go? Picking Your Orientation.

Have you ever noticed that certain objects seem to always be oriented in one or two directions when directions are arbitrary when it come to space? Have you ever seen an image that was jarring because the object wasn't oriented in a certain way? Now that I have you thinking about it one of the things that goes into a pleasant image is how it is oriented, and that orientation is purely up to you!

An example that comes to mind is that M31 always seems to have one end down and to the left, and the other end up and to the right. Some people think it should always go with M110 down and M32 up, but for me it goes whichever way I shot it. Another instance is with images of the Great Orion Nebula it always seems to go horizontal with M43 to the left and M42 to the right. M104 always seems to be horizontal. I am sure you can think of many other examples.

What it all comes down to is that you, as the person who is processing the image, can change that up. You can get your creativity flowing and change which way an object is going in your image. Play around with it and see what you can come up creatively! You might even post something that catches a person's eye because it is outside of what they normally see. Remember, where your object is and which way it is going is up to you. You can even set an object off center if you want!

Speaking of setting an object off center, here is an Advanced Request I did of CG4. I moved it so I could also get NGC 2427 in the shot too. That is the power of an advanced request and why it is a good idea to take advantage of them at Telescope Live.While you may not be getting what I did with it, there is an ongoing series of One Click Observations of CG4, and they can be found here: https://app.telescope.live/click-grab/all?target=CG4 But remember, there are more of that set coming in so it may pay to wait until there are at least 4 or 5 up!