 In a previous video, which I'll link right here, I shared how to find deep sky objects in the night sky based on some techniques like star hopping and an online plate solving called nova.astrometry.net. A lot of times when we finally find the object we're looking for, we don't pay much attention to framing that object. And by framing, I mean where you put the deep sky object in the field and how you have that field rotated. And for some objects, that might not be a big deal. But there are two very good reasons why I think paying attention to framing is important. The first reason is framing is one of the creative aspects of astrophotography, but one that can really change the impact of the photo and elevate a photo from being just sort of so-so to something really special. And I'm not going to go into all the compositional tactics in this video, but composition is something that applies just as strongly to an astrophoto as any kind of visual art. We should strive for finding compositions that have a nice balance and ones that lead the eye in a way that's satisfying. And sometimes that means centering the main deep sky object, but not all the time. A lot of my favorite astrophotos of all time don't have the main object centered in frame. The second reason framing is important is for multi-night shoots. One of the big advantages to astrophotography over normal photography is that we can add to our photos to make them better by gathering more data over multiple nights. But that only works out well if your framing is pretty close night after night. Because if you have even a 20-degree or 30-degree rotation, that could mean throwing out half the photo. So the best way to deal with framing is to use a connected computer to a go-to mount and then that's stored the framing that you want to use and then you can plate solve until your telescope is perfectly aligned with that framing. But the thing about that ideal solution is that it requires a lot of specific gear and for you to already figured out all the software and be pretty well along with astrophotography. But what if you're just using a DSLR or mirrorless camera and a camera lens on a tripod or maybe a Star Tracker? In that case, here's what I do. First, see if you can get a lens collar or some kind of ring that fits around your lens so that you can rotate it easily and then lock down that rotation. And this will always help to be able to get the framing that you want. And then second, my low-tech solution to get perfect framing is to print out a custom finder chart based on the gear and the framing that I want to use. So for the rest of this video, let me show you how I made this. And we're going to start with a website called Blackwater Skies Imaging Toolbox, which I will link in the description. And this website is a good way to visualize the night sky before you go out and shoot. It's an essential part of my planning process. And tonight I'm planning to shoot with the Canon EOS RA. So I'm just going to pick that from the list and click Calculate. And if your telescope is listed, you can pick it from the scope list. But if you're using a camera lens like I am, then you just go here to the second button and type in a custom focal length. So I'm going to use an 85-millimeter lens. Click Calculate. There we go. And if you are not shooting Orion, you could type in any object here, or you can browse objects. So there's lots of different ways to find things in the night sky. But we're going to shoot Orion tonight. So let's use this. And just looking at this, what I can tell that I want to do is I want to include the Brightstar Beetlejuice. I want to include Rigel. I want to include all of Barnard's Loop. So let's rotate our field here until it looks like we have that done. And compositionally, I want basically Beetlejuice and Rigel to be straight up and down, centered the same way, left to right. So they make a line with that middle belt star. And it looks like I can do that like this. And then I know that Barnard's Loop is right there. So I want to include all of that. Now, just to simplify this a little bit and make it easier to read, I'm going to click into this fourth button down and turn off Maximize and Annotate. And then I'm just going to zoom out just a little bit. There we go. OK. And you could just take a screenshot of this and for something as simple as the Ryan's Constellation, you know, a screenshot on your phone might be good enough. But sometimes, you know, it's better to simplify this a little bit and invert it and print it out. And I really enjoy having a printed Finder chart. So I'm going to show you how to do that. Let's go ahead and take a screenshot and bring it into Photoshop. OK, the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to just crop it down to just the field of view. OK. And then I'm just going to rotate it. So we'll just do image, image rotation. 90 degrees counterclockwise looks good. All right. I'm just going to fill those corners by making a new layer and filling that with black. There we go. And now let's go ahead and invert this since we're going to print it out on white paper. So I'm just going to find the adjustment here that says invert and click on it. There we go. And you can see this is good, but it is leaving a lot of unnecessary stuff that's not going to help us in framing using live view. For framing on live view, we really just need the bright stars. This one down here, this one up here, and of course, Beetlejuice and Rigel. So I'm going to go ahead and add a threshold adjustment. And that's pretty good, just the default. But I want to include just maybe a little bit more. I want to see the actual field of view indicator that box around. So I'm just going to move the little threshold level thing until the rectangle shows back up. And that's it. That's our finished Finder chart. You can see that it has the bright stars that we're going to use for framing up, but no extraneous information. And it's perfect for printing out on my black and white laser printer. So I can just go File, Print, and choose Scale to Fit Media. And go ahead and print it out on my brother laser printer. And here is the result. And I'll just show a little clip of me using it in the field. And until next time, this has been Nico Carver from nebulaphotos.com. Clear skies.