Persi navigated the massive lobby of the unfamiliar station. She watched as countless people quickly moved and shoved their way through the dense, heavy crowds. She had never seen so many non-humans. Shouting echoed from a nearby ship bay. It sounded like a dispute over fuel calculations. Thick, dark smoke billowed out from another bay a few hundred meters down. Alarms followed, but travel and commerce continued. She didn't know if interstellar stations were always like this or if this was just an especially frantic day.
Persi peered down at the documents she had been sent the paylang prior. Sol-Secondary, Epsilon-71. That was where she needed to be before liftoff. Persi had found this job a standard ago when browsing some less than legal forums. The pay was fine, and the accommodations were subpar, but that wasn't what Persi really cared about. The stint was long, the distance was great, and you couldn't beat the obscurity. That's what she was after–obscurity. Persi figured the ideal scenario for her was to get as far away as possible, as quickly as possible. She counted on finding this on the… what was it called again? Persi checked the documentation, searching for the name of the vessel she'd be spending the next few standards on. Dead Reckoning. Persi rolled her eyes. What an obnoxious name for a privateering vessel. It was highly irregular, really. How little information she had here. Persi had no way of knowing the standard procedure, but any work she'd done previously would've come with a stack of information, agreements, and dotted lines to sign. This was a one page document with scraps of useful information sprinkled among spelling errors. She read into the ship's information a bit. A Toren Carevall owned it.
Persi pondered over the kind of person that Toren could be. He was a criminal, after all. She wondered about the kind of childhood one endures to end up running contraband and untaxed trade for a living. Did he know his parents? Were they criminals too? Did they attend services like she and her parents did? The words she'd been looking for dangled above her head.
“EPSILON”
Written in New Latin Standard, followed by a dozen translations in far smaller fonts, the illuminated words hung above a spacious passageway. She stared down the corridor. This was a single concourse–of a single terminal–yet it was larger than any station she'd ever seen before. The scale of it all made her feel microscopic. Epsilon 71 she recalled, meaning there were at least 71 bays in this concourse alone. She choked down the knot in her throat. The uncountable crowd dwarfed her. She hadn't left her home solar system before, and the scale of the space in which she found herself made her wonder if she'd made the right choices that found her here. She batted these thoughts from her mind. Of course she made the right choice–it was the only choice. She decided against taking the train about to depart, making its last call. There was something about walking to the bay on her own two feet that offered her a sense of control in a position where she had none.
Persi could account for most of what she passed. A concourse of this size needed fueling gantries and maintenance crews to support them, food and bathrooms engineered for a dozen anatomies, and help desks for the lost and underdocumented. It needed low-tier CHR security in the name of peacekeeping, and currency exchange fleecing the baffling few that only valued physical tender. Fine. Those are fixtures of a place for passing through. What she didn't account for were the all-hour pharmacies offering the kinds of medications no doctor would prescribe. Glimmering hotels adorned with warm-toned bulbs that spelled out names like THE STARGAZER towered over the hallway that appeared more like a city street at this scale. Brothels, loan agencies, and guns-for-hire–these sights surprised her. These were fixtures of a place where people stayed. Entire lives took place here in the spaces between worlds–and nobody seemed to think that was strange.
“Hey beautiful, where ya headed?” a human woman's voice called out.
Persi tried to keep her head down when walking through the chaotic midpoint of the concourse. So it took her a moment to realize the query was directed at her. Persi met the woman's gaze with an anxious wordlessness. Her outfit was–in every sense of the word–breathtaking. A shimmering turquoise bodysuit glistened in response to the electrified bulbs of noble gasses in the window behind her. It appeared impossibly tight, to a degree that Persi felt a gasp forming in her lungs just looking at her. She was, however, indisputably beautiful. Persi envied her sleek platinum hair that framed the sharp, symmetrical face she wore. Her piercing blue eyes adorned with extravagant makeup made Persi feel like she was in the presence of a celebrity.
“Got a few? I'll make it worth your while,” she uttered, eying Persi up and down.
Naive to exchanges like these, Persi laughed. She laughed. It wasn't that she found humor in the questions or the woman who posed them–she was simply at a loss. The nameless woman started toward her, chipping away at the gap between them.
Persi realized she must've made a mistake somewhere to let this exchange go on so long.
“I'm okay. Thank you. Wellness be with you,” she said, after taking a moment to gather herself.
The woman fired back with a look of displeasure–akin to disgust, but closer to frustration.
“Then keep it moving?” She spat, with an inflection that made the phrase sound like a question.
Persi found momentum again, rapidly erasing herself from the encounter she inflicted on the woman. What a sorry start to her new life, she thought, chuckling again. Her interest was nothing more than a sales pitch, but still–Persi couldn't help but feel flattered. She called her “beautiful.” People didn't call her beautiful back home. They mostly called her “Persi” or “Persephone” if she hadn't yet had the chance to correct them. But the flattery didn't survive a second thought. She'd been picked out of the crowd because she looked lonely. Desperate. The woman was right, Persi thought. She was desperate.
Persi regretted not taking the train. 71 bays was a lot, to be sure. But it sounded like a manageable trek. But the distance from the Epsilon sign to her new employers was far greater than the width of 71 bays added together. After all, she hadn't accounted for the space to be interrupted so frequently by the likes of nightclubs and callhouses. She figured there must've been a way to get onto the train at this point. But the signage was unclear and overwhelming, and she'd sooner throw herself out of an airlock than ask a stranger for help. Distracted by idle thoughts of exhaustion, and whether anyone had died of heat stroke on a space station before, her steps were interrupted by an obstruction. A person.
“Sketha-roh!” they grunted at her through a polysynthetic breathing mask.
Persi didn't have to speak to Heptaphagean to know she'd pissed them off. She noticed the dozens of small canisters that had tumbled out of the person's grasp. Feeling awful, she bent down to help, gathering each chrome cylinder she could find. The countless shoes, wheels, boots, and appendages that drove by had kicked and scattered each container in a different direction. Still, she managed to snatch them up. Helping this stranger made her feel good, even though it was her fault they had dropped the canisters in the first place. When she had found all she could, she sought their owner.
Standing on the tips of her toes, Persi only now realized how much shorter she was than the average person here.
“Hey! Hello! Um, I have your uh, I have your things!” she shouted to no response.
She circled the area. She circled a few more times, each more frantic, more hurried than the last. She doubled back, walked a dozen bays in the wrong direction. All she found was the same endlessly flowing, uncaring swarm of people that seemed to come before. She hated that she had to do it, but she asked around. She approached the security guards that seemed to have nothing to do. She questioned the smaller vendors devoid of patrons. But no one seemed to notice where the Heptaphagean had gone, and her vague description of them proved unhelpful. She didn't know what to do with the containers–nor what they contained–so she dropped them in her bag, hoping she'd find their owner before departing. A feeling of unease washed over as soon as the canisters had settled on her person. Suddenly her bag carried a weight exceeding that of its contents. Not yours, not ours, not his. The doctrine played back in her head like a song she couldn't stop humming. She told herself these weren't her thoughts, but echoes of someone else's. She didn't find that self-assurance as comforting as the idea of returning them to their owner. But she was exhausted, growing weak, and almost late for work.
Not long after her failed search, having waded through an ocean of travellers, she had arrived at Epsilon-71. Following the anticipation that built inside her as the numbers began to climb into the upper 60s, relief came over her as she read the number “71”. She examined the ship that occupied its space, the so-called Dead Reckoning. As silly as the name was, Persi found some appreciation for it. A navigation technique used to estimate the unknown location of a vessel starting from a known location and working backwards with speed and direction. Dead Reckoning. Persi was a navigator afterall, and this was a nod to her craft.
Persi was no expert in engineering. Hell, she couldn't even tell you the manufacturer, but the ship looked fairly unassuming. It was, however, massive; at least by her account. Smaller than a commercial liner and larger than any personal vehicle, it sat squarely in the category of “huge.” Far from where she stood, behind the bulk of the vehicle, sat two massive jump thrusters–one looking worse for wear, the other nearly brand new. The hull of the beast wore a subtle shade of tangerine. The color choice appeared to be a fruitless attempt at hiding countless laps of burn damage. Looking around at the vehicles that occupied nearby bays designated for the same size class, it became abundantly clear that the ship she was about to board–soon to call home–was a piece of shit. Before she could make any more judgments about her new home and workplace, the inner door of the airlock gave way. Her nerves crept up on her. The outer door swung open. Her racing mind was brought to a halt by the person standing at the threshold. They couldn't have been taller than a meter, but their presence was palpable. The small creature removed their mask and hopped off the last step leading out of the ship.
“Howdy!” they shouted, much louder than they needed to.
“Hey there,” Persi responded at an appropriate volume.
“What? Hang on.”
They removed four plugs of different sizes from holes on the sides of their head. Persi was not well-traveled, but she recognized this person to be Gnoecian. One of 20 or so billion semi-aquatic bipeds from the planet of Gnoecia, roughly 900 lightlaps away. She was disappointed in herself that she didn't know more.
“You must be Persi!” Their outstretched arm remained fixed and pointed towards her. She shook it like she would when meeting a human. She noticed a look of satisfaction on their face, as if relieved that they had performed the foreign tradition correctly. Persi didn't know how Gnoecians greeted one another.
“Yes. It's very nice to meet you. What's your name?” Persi desperately hoped her discomfort wasn't apparent to them.
“Call me Cal!”
Persi felt relieved. A normal name. Relief turned to guilt when she realized how terracentric that was.
“Your NLS sounds great, by the way.” Persi offered.
“My NLS? Oh. Yeah, everyone speaks Nelse. Can't get around without it. One of the consequences of working under a humanity-driven intergalactic trading system, we've all gotta make compromises to work with your archaic vocal organs.” Cal jeered. Persi got the impression that Cal didn't speak earnestly most of the time–a quality she wasn't used to in her peers.
“So, obviously, I'm one of the mechanics on The Reck,” Cal said, gesturing to his garb, which to his credit, was clearly that of someone who fixed things all day. Thick layers of grease, flux, and oil coated his once-red coveralls.
“And you're doing navigation, right? Very cool stuff. Baustin will probably want to meet you as soon as you're able, but I can show you around. And you, Persi–you've done interstellar travel before? What am I saying, of course you have! I'm sure Toren was impressed with you. He's very picky. Well, picky's not the word. Discerning? Exclusive, maybe? Either way, you get the idea. Something about you caught his eye. If Toren has any talent to speak of, it's finding good people. And I don't imagine you're an exception!”
Cal spoke like he could do it forever. So long as he drew breath, he could find something to say. He walked around the ship, making what looked to be the final checks before take off. Persi followed close behind, observing his work. She recalled the question in his monologue before distracting himself with his duties.
“Well, I have done work for interstellar vehicles before, but that kind of thing is typically done remotely these days. Of course, this isn't a typical vessel.”
Cal chuckled, “Right you are.”
He continued measuring, wrenching, and finagling. It looked like the kind of work you'd do to seem busy when there's little meaningful to do. His work began to slow when he thought of something new to say.
“So you've never been on an interstellar vehicle for navigation work? What about school?”
Persi pressed her lips together tight. She knew what was coming; and she dreaded it.
“No. I studied in-system. Venus has the best navigation school in the CHR.”
Cal hesitated, “Vacation? Study abroad? Visits with family or friends?”
Persi fell silent. Here it comes, she thought.
“So are you saying that you, Persi, personally, have never been to another star?”
“Well, no, but I'm more than qualified. I've done work like this before, I'm just never on the ship.”
Persi paused. She felt sweat seep from her palms.
“I actually think that my experience lends itself tremendously well to this job. I've been trained to work under extreme time constraints, and I am used to worrying about way more than one vessel.”
Cal listened, appearing skeptical.
“I'm sure you're qualified, I'm certainly not here to vet you.” Cal emptied his hands of his instruments, filling and closing his toolbag.
“But you aren't a Terrarian or anything, right? You aren't going to preach to us about how we should all go back to the planets we came from? That the resources our stars provide are all we deserve?”
Persi tried not to correct his misconception of what a Terrarian was, and tried even harder not to be offended, but instead answered his question.
“No. I am not a Terrarian. For one, I just told you I've been to other planets. A terrarian doesn't leave their home world. I wouldn't be standing in front of you if I were Terrarian.”
Cal struck a nerve with that last line of questioning. Persi hadn't ever known a Gnoecian before, but even she could tell from the look on his face that he knew it too.
“Have you met a Terrarian before, Cal?” She regretted her tone as it left her. But conversations like these had a way of setting her off.
“Not to my knowledge, no,” he responded.
Persi sank a little. Cal wasn't being cruel. He had no way of knowing the weight of the words he carried.
“Sorry, I didn't mean that like a ‘all untravelled humans are Terrarians’ kind of thing.”
“I'm sure you didn't.”
“I just don't know anyone who has never been to space before!”
“I've been to space, Cal. We're in space now.”
Cal chuckled. “I'm sure it feels that way.”
]]>Before you is not a recipe, but rather, a methodology. A philosophy. I’ll show you what it takes to create that nostalgic, pizzeria dough; along with the oven conditions that yield perfect crispy crust, and ideal browning. I’ll tell you what tools you need, and which ingredients you might not know about that will soon become essential in your pantry.
Whenever I send someone a picture of a pizza I’ve made, I usually get the same question. “Did you buy a pizza oven?” If you’ve ever tried to make pizza at home, you know why this is. A conventional home oven usually tops out somewhere between 450 and 550 degrees fahrenheit. The ovens used in pizzerias can reach a blistering 900. This is by far the biggest gap we need to overcome. I should say, you could just buy a pizza oven. Outdoor, indoor, gas, wood-burning, and electric pizza ovens are all the rage these days. If you love pizza, and you’ve got the space and disposable income, I say go for it. But I live in a one bedroom high rise apartment, and I can’t dedicate a third of my counterspace or half my balcony to an appliance used to make one thing. We’re going a cheaper, easier, and simpler route.
A pizza steel is an essential tool for dramatically increasing the heat we can inflict upon our pizza. It’s basically a thick baking sheet that’s going to soak up an hour’s worth of heat at ~500 degrees, then transfer that to our crust when we bake our pie. I’ve heard of people using a pizza stone rather than a pizza steel. I’d advise against this. Pizza stones retain and transfer less heat than a steel, and they are prone to cracking. Some aspects of my methodology are a touch frivolous and not strictly necessary. The pizza steel is not one of them.
A cheese grater is a cheap tool you probably already have in your kitchen. If not, it’s necessary for this endeavor. “They sell pre-shredded cheese, why can’t I just use that?” a great question that you’re asking at the perfect time, as I’m just about to tell you. Two reasons. For one, grating the cheese yourself gives you far more options. No longer are you beholden to the three or four brands of shredded cheese found in your dairy aisle. Now, you’re someone who buys cheese by the block. Congratulations, and welcome to the rabbit hole. The other, arguably more important reason, is that shredded cheese contains more than just cheese. You’ll notice this when you start grating it yourself. A bag of pre-shredded cheese contains preservatives to keep it from drying out, and anti-clumping agents to, well, prevent it from clumping. They also prevent it from melting as well.
A pizza peel is the big wooden paddle used to slide the pie into the oven. You’ve probably not needed one in the past for making home pizzas if you weren’t using a pizza steel. But there is no other safe way to transfer the pizza onto the steel. They make wooden and metal peels. Metal peels are a bit easier for removing your pizza from the oven, but I highly, highly recommend a wooden peel for placing your pizza into the oven, as I’ve found them less likely to stick to the pizza. I cannot stress enough what a headache it is when your pizza gets stuck to your peel. I hope to shield you from that fate.
A kitchen scale is necessary, as I will not be using volumes when it comes to making the dough. I will only offer weights. I don’t do this to gatekeep, I do this because it isn’t my intention to steer you wrong. I’d like you to have a great pizza on your first try. Measuring by weight offers far better precision and consistency.
A cooling rack is another tool you’re likely to have. If not, it’s worth it to keep your undercarriage crisp. No one wants a soggy undercarriage.
A pizza cutter unless you want to fold it up and eat it like a taco. No judgement.
Now that you have the tools, it’s time to discuss the ingredients. This is the portion where I leave the most up to the reader, but that won’t stop me from making my own suggestions. You need not know a single thing about cooking to understand the importance of good ingredients. This guide is intended for home cooks of any experience level, but I do hope that it goes without saying — this is what your food will be made out of, so what we use is crucial to the final product. We’ll discuss these from top to bottom.
Pepperoni is the only topping I’m going to call out. I do this because it’s important. If you want pineapple on your pizza, put pineapple on it. If you like peppers, then pep it up. I trust you to solve these problems on your own. But pepperoni should be purchased as a whole log, and sliced in your own kitchen. Do not purchase pepperoni in a package pre-sliced. Pepperoni is just higher quality when you buy it as a log. I didn’t decide that, food supply chains did. It also has a key feature that helps pepperonis to form that classic cup shape, a true casing around the sausage. The casing shrinks, which forms the shape you’re familiar with as it bakes. It tastes better, it looks better, offers better texture, doesn’t take long to slice, and if we’re honest, it feels a bit fancier. You’ll be glad you did this.
Cheese is one of the best inventions. I think it goes: calculus, writing, the wheel, the combustion engine, and then cheese. If you disagree, write your own pizza bible. I live in Wisconsin, so I’m fortunate to live within walking distance of not one, but five cheese shops. We’ll need three cheeses to start.
Mozzarella — I’ll speak plainly here. Buy Grande brand whole milk mozzarella. Whole milk mozzarella is 100% necessary for the best final product. Every pizza shop uses whole milk mozz, and most of them use Grande. It can be hard to find since nearly all of their business involves direct sale to restaurants, but Wisconsin Cheese Mart ships nationally.
Pecorino — there’s no “secret ingredient” to great pizza, but if I had to pick one, pecorino might be it. It’s the scarcely used, saltier and tangier cousin of parmesan. I like to use a pinch just after adding the sauce, and it makes a world of difference. It’s also the only cheese I use that I don’t think makes a difference whether it’s freshly grated or pre-grated. It just matters that we get it on there.
Parmesan — buy a wedge, it’ll last you ages. It’s hard as far as hard cheeses go, and keeping it wrapped in plastic wrap is ideal for opening up, and grating directly onto your finished pizza. Some people don’t like parmesan, and that’s fine I guess.
Sauce is more important to make yourself than I originally anticipated. I’m no elitist, so if someone can manage to make a better sauce, jar it, and sell it at Pick n’ Save, I’ll happily change my tune. But for now, this is something I highly recommend taking on yourself, and it’s probably easier than you think. I’ll make a suggestion for volumes of each ingredient, but I can’t emphasize enough that this is a vibes-based exercise. Depending on which tomatoes you buy, along with your own personal taste, you’re likely to find a different endpoint here than I do. I don’t measure a thing when I make this myself.
Tomatoes — when it comes to making pizza sauce, canned tomatoes are actually better than fresh. Thank god, right? Which tomato you pick does matter. You can absolutely make a delicious pizza with a generic can of 89 cent crushed tomatoes. I recommend taking it a step further. Cento makes a great can of crushed tomatoes, Bianco DiNapoli does it even better. The former is a bit cheaper, and far easier to find at your local grocer.
Herbs — elect to use dry herbs, as they incorporate better into your sauce. Basil, oregano, and crushed red pepper is all you need here.
Garlic powder — used to add garlic flavor. Who doesn’t like garlic?
Salt & Sugar — core enhancers of flavor, and cheat codes for the receptors in your mouth. I use both in basically everything I cook.
Dough is critically important to pizza. To say that is like saying wheels are important to a car. It is quite literally the foundation of the food. I think dough is called the most important part only because it’s the easiest to mess up. This is only true because the cheese and sauce are so simple. This recipe is very forgiving.
I was surprised to learn how many people think flour is flour is flour — that they are all basically the same thing. And to their credit, they are almost right. Chemically, all flours you find in the grocery store are nearly identical. But the slight variation in protein and gluten content, along with the quality of the grain and milling process, all result in wildly different experiences in both the cooking process and taste of the final product. I highly recommend King Arthur Bread Flour. It is one of the best tasting, one of the easiest to work with, while being one of the more affordable and widely available premium flours.
Semolina flour — you can use cornmeal or regular flour for this, but I prefer semolina. You’ll spread it onto your peel to prevent the dough from sticking.
Olive oil — of course we need a fat. There are few things that pizza makers in Rome, New York, Detroit, and Chicago all agree on, but this is one. Olive oil is the way to go.
Active dry yeast — it’s good to use this rather than fast rising yeast due to the cold fermentation process we’re electing to use. Get a jar rather than packets.
Salt & Sugar — I’ll say it again; cheat codes for your mouth.
Water — ideally filtered.
I have tried a couple of dough recipes, some of which were pretty great. This is an iteration of amalgamations of combinations. The endpoint is not radically dissimilar from those you could find elsewhere. But I’ve found a slightly sweeter, slightly fattier dough gave me the best result in terms of browning and flavor.
| Ingredient | % of dough weight | Baker’s % |
|---|---|---|
| Bread flour | 58.61% | 100.00% |
| Water | 36.17% | 61.71% |
| Olive oil | 2.13% | 3.63% |
| Salt | 1.48% | 2.53% |
| Sugar | 1.38% | 2.35% |
| Dry active yeast | 0.23% | 0.39% |
“Claire, what the hell?” you’re probably saying. “Claire, I don’t wanna do math,” you interject. “What is this, Claire?” you shout before I get the chance to explain myself. I know, that’s an ugly table, and frankly, I’m sorry you had to see it. But since I don’t know the size of pizzas you want to make or how many pizzas you plan to make this week, I can’t give you exact weights. “But you just said I don’t have to do math, isn’t there any other way?” Yes. I’ve made a dough calculator. Please no more interruptions, I worked very hard on this.
Dough calculator
Total dough: — across — balls at — each.
| Ingredient | Weight |
|---|
You’ll notice a slider for size and a slider for the number of pizzas. I never make dough for just one pizza at a time. Since it has to ferment in the fridge for a few days, and is good for up to 6 days, it’s easier that way. It’s better to have dough and not need it, than need it and not have it. I always say that. I’m literally always saying that.
Once you mix the ingredients together, you’ll take it out of the bowl and knead it for 10–15 minutes. Before separating your dough into dough balls, let it rest in a covered bowl for 2 hours. Then separate, into equal size balls, pinch the seams, and place into an oiled container in the fridge for 1–6 days. I think it’s best around the 2–4 day mark.
Remember when I said this is vibes-based? First, taste your tomatoes. At this stage, I’m encouraging you to understand your food. Understanding your starting point helps you infer what to do next. Plain, crushed raw tomatoes won’t taste like pizza sauce. But make note of why it doesn’t taste like pizza sauce.
It’s bland, so add a teaspoon of each herb.
Taste it again.
It’s bitter, so add a teaspoon of sugar.
Taste it again.
It’s flat, so add garlic powder.
Taste it again.
The flavors are muted, so add a teaspoon of salt.
Taste it again.
Now that you understand what is missing from plain tomatoes, and how to make the sauce taste more like sauce, continue to add ingredients, mix them together, and taste your sauce. If you’ve ever wondered how to become a better cook beyond learning new recipes — this is it. You’re doing it right now by understanding your food rather than following a set of instructions. In my experience, when making a sauce for the first time, you’re at a greater risk of underseasoning the sauce, rather than overseasoning it. If it tastes good, but a bit salty or boldly seasoned, you’ve probably nailed it. A bland sauce is worse than a loud one.
This is straightforward, so you might wonder why it gets its own section. I just have a bit of advice. I mentioned that pre-shredded mozzarella is a no-go. While I stand by that, it doesn’t mean you can’t shred your cheese in batches and use it over the course of a couple weeks. Give it a look, give it a sniff, and finally, give it a taste. It will be very obvious if it’s time to grab the block and start anew.
Speaking of your block of mozzarella, it’s important to keep in mind that low-moisture mozzarella is neither a soft nor a hard cheese. Wrap it in plastic wrap in the fridge when you aren’t using it. By the second time you shred it, you might notice hard sections on the block — do not be alarmed. So long as they aren’t significantly discolored, this isn’t mold. It’s probably just normal dehydration. Perfectly safe to eat, but not what we want on our pizza. Just cut those parts off. They likely aren’t very deep, so you won’t need to cut far. But always shred fresh parm. It’s actually easier than storing grated cheese. You’ll just take out your wrapped wedge, and grate directly onto the pizza.
Cut your pepperoni in a food processor or by hand. Cut them a bit thicker than you think looks correct. This isn’t something you need to perfect.
I hope my recipe serves you well, but more than that, I hope you find this document to be a useful reference as you iterate and improve your pizza making. If I were to dump everything I know about pizza into one article, we’d be here a lot longer. I may do that, but until then feel free to reach me at clairejordyn20@gmail.com with questions & comments.
]]>The sky moves about 15 arcseconds per second. The whole craft divides by how you answer that. Each step up buys exposure length and costs setup time.
| Rig | What it does | Frame length | Targets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fixed tripod | Nothing. You work inside the trailing limit. | 5–25 s | Milky Way, constellations, landscape skies |
| Star tracker | Turns the camera at sidereal rate on one axis. Needs polar alignment. | 1–4 min | Bright nebulae and wide deep-sky, camera lens |
| Telescope + guiding | Tracks, then corrects its own error from a guide star. | 2–10 min | Galaxies, small nebulae, planetary nebulae |
Shoot RAW in manual mode. Fix white balance around 4000 K, turn off long-exposure noise reduction and image stabilisation, and use a 2-second delay or electronic first-curtain shutter so the shutter itself does not shake the frame.
Autofocus cannot see stars. Switch to manual, put a bright star in live view at maximum magnification, and turn the ring until the star is at its smallest and dimmest — that point is sharper than anything the focus scale claims. Lock the ring with tape. Check it again halfway through the night: lenses contract as they cool and focus drifts with them.
Frame with a throwaway test shot at ISO 12800 and 5 seconds. It is faster than squinting through a viewfinder, and it shows you the light pollution you will be fighting.
On a fixed tripod your exposure is capped not by brightness but by motion. Beyond the cap, every star becomes a short line. Tracking removes the cap; nothing else does.
Two formulas set the cap. The rule of 500 divides 500 by your full-frame-equivalent focal length: quick, generous, fine for web-sized output. The NPF rule also accounts for aperture, pixel pitch and the target's declination, and lands roughly 40–60% shorter — use it if you inspect at 100%.
| Focal | Rule of 500 | NPF, f/2.8 |
|---|---|---|
| 14 mm | 36 s | ~14 s |
| 24 mm | 21 s | ~9 s |
| 35 mm | 14 s | ~7 s |
| 50 mm | 10 s | ~5 s |
Aperture and ISO
Open the lens wide, or one stop down if the corner stars grow wings. Then set ISO 1600–6400. ISO doesn't collect light; it trades highlight headroom for lower read noise. Expose so the sky peak sits about a quarter in from the left of the histogram — off the wall, nowhere near the middle.
Random noise averages out; signal does not. Stacking n identical frames improves signal-to-noise by roughly the square root of n — sixty frames are about eight times cleaner than one. Total integration time is the number that matters, so 60 × 30 s and 6 × 300 s are comparable. Shoot the whole set at one ISO, one focus and one temperature, then add calibration frames.
| Frame | How to take it | What it removes |
|---|---|---|
| Lights × 30–200 | The target, back to back, no gaps | — |
| Darks × 20+ | Lens capped, same exposure, ISO and temperature | Thermal signal, hot pixels, amp glow |
| Flats × 20+ | Even light source, focus untouched, mid-grey exposure | Vignetting, dust shadows |
| Bias / dark-flats × 30+ | Capped, fastest shutter (bias) or the flats' exposure | Sensor read offset and pattern |
Stacking software does two jobs: it aligns frames on matched star patterns, then averages them with a rejection rule that throws out pixels no other frame agrees with, like satellites, aircraft and sensor noise. DeepSkyStacker is free, powerful, and intuitive.
Calibrate→Debayer→Register→Normalise→Integrate→Crop
A fresh stack looks black. That is correct: the data is linear, and almost all of it is crammed into the bottom few percent of the range. Stretching applies a monotonic transfer curve that lifts those low values into the visible middle while leaving the black point and the star cores intact.
Order matters, because most of these operations are only valid on linear data:
Aim for a background around 20–25 out of 255 and neutral grey. A neutral, slightly-above-black background is what lets the reds and blues in the frame read as colour rather than as cast.
Starting settings
24 mm · f/2.0
15 s · ISO 3200
60 frames + 20 darks
135 mm · f/2.8
90 s · ISO 800
80 frames + full calibration
600 mm · f/6
300 s · ISO 400, guided
40+ frames, several nights
Treat these as first exposures to judge from, not answers. Read the histogram of the first frame and adjust from there.
Focus drift as the lens cools — recheck hourly.
Dew on the front element. A cheap heater strip solves it.
Darks taken at a different temperature than the lights.
Stacking JPEGs, or anything already stretched.
Clipping the black point to make the sky look clean.
A tracker that was never properly polar aligned.
Wind, a light tripod, or the shutter's own slap.
Shooting through the worst of the light dome — wait for altitude.