Began trying astrophotography maybe 5 or 6 years ago. Photography itself was always a passion but the stars were with me long before I picked up a camera. I'm not saying I had aspired to be an astronomer but as a kid the sky fascinated me. My parents, along with some of their church friends had purchase some land in southern Missouri, deep in the woods where the night was black with no light pollution. I remembered many a summer weekend playing and swimming there but the night skies were unbelievable. You could lay back look up and the sky was white with millions of stars and you could watch satellites and meteors transvers the sky with the naked eye. I started taking shots in my backyard but in the city there was so much light pollutions it didn't go well.
So the next step was of course the moon, but this is tricky also. Even though the moon is bright there is limited light with the night sky and this will throw off the camera's exposure system as well as the autofocus. Best shots are made with manual mode and don't forget the moon moves faster than the stars.
Getting better, so practice makes perfect. Will keep plugging away.
My next challenge was light. Yes as I said the night sky has limited light and light pollution. Too make it worse there are many types of astrophotography. There is the Solar System, Wide Angle, Deep Space/Sky and Time-Lapse Astrophotography. The Solar System type I've dappled in with the moon above and unsuccessfully so far with the planets, although when trying to photograph Jupiter I did get 5 of her moons.
Next I tried some Wide Angle Astrophotography which is using a super wide lens and large aperture for the Milky Way , star trails and night landscapes, it is the least technical and easily accessible form of astrophotography. For this I only needed to purchase a Rokinon 2.8/14mm lens for my Canon D6, which is an excellent full frame camera for astrophotography with its 20.2 megapixel sensor and ISO range of 50-102400 which is simply huge. It performs very well across the range and there is little image noise when shooting at night, noise is a huge problem in night photography.
Had to get away from the house and find some dark sky but I came up with some rough shots of the Milky Way.
Then after many other attempts got some decent shoots when my wife and I spent a weekend in Estes Park next to Rocky Mountain National Park. I wanted to see how dark the sky was even though you can see the glow of the moon below the mountain to the right. Around midnight we were in the park (open 24 hrs) with nothing but my new lens and my trusty D6, didn't bring a tripod, I got these shots by placing my camera on the hood of my truck on a blanket and set the timer to take vibration free pictures of the sky.
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This all led me to Deep Space/Sky Astrophotography. I'll be adding more soon I hope, on how and what I used to get these shots which I hope to improve. This is the most complicated and technical aspect of Astrophotography and is what really fascinated me. Images of far away objects in the night sky like nebulae and distant galaxies. Problem here is you have to think about star trails, light pollution, editing software, telescopes or big lens, software to control and focus the camera and a tracking system to mount your camera. So simple put, I had a 2.8/200mm Canon lens I used for sports, I got EOSBackyard software to control my camera, was using Lightroom and just purchased Affinity software (my Adobe substitute which I'm learning), downloaded DeepStar Stacker and got a Star Adventure Star tracker to track objects. Not to mention I moved to Texas and outside the city. Darker skies now.
With my new dark sky I also got some nice Star Effects on some bright stars which look cool.
My first target was the Neowise comet discovered March 27,2020 before it leaves for over 6000 years are so. It gave me the opportunity to use my wide angle and deep sky technics. When I looked for the comet I couldn't see it well with the naked eye but knew where it was. Using my wide angle lens off the back porch I found it. Now I could focus my bigger lens and track the comet.
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Finally after several hours outside and a few more at the computer. Will try to bring out some color later.
This brings me to Deepsky. First I located the Andromeda Galaxy
Processed with Lightroom.
Then with Affinity that I'm learning to use. Notice the other galaxies above and just below and to the right. May have to take more shots and further process. This one picture was 77 10 second shoots or a 12.8 minute shoot of the galaxy with 2.8/200mm lens at 1000 ISO. There are different methods of stacking the shots and processing, plus camera settings on how they're taken. The process continues and so does learning and experimenting. This is where I'm at. Just a brief glimpse of the journey. Not too technical.
My first shots of the Pinwheel Galaxy, dimmer than Andromeda. You can barely make out the swirl.
Hope you enjoyed.
Dont forget my comment page.
Hope you enjoyed.
Dont forget my comment page.