Astrophotography for beginners

[Stosh]

I went to shoot a few deep sky objects and found out my motorized mount had stopped working. For those unfamiliar with astrophotography, since the objects are so dark, exposures are measured in the seconds and minutes instead of fractions of seconds. To take an exposure that long you need a motorized mount to counter the rotation of the earth. I had taken a vacation from the hobby for about 12 years and the last equipment I used was film lol. I knew DSLRS had some serious advantages so I decided to shoot without a mount. These shots were taken on a tripod.

Pretty much everyone knows you can take milky way shots on a tripod:
I know color balance isn't quite what I want it. Anyone feel free to edit if you'd like. It was difficult battling hazy clouds and some light pollution.

16mm
f/2.8
ISO 3200
30 seconds

But not many people realize you can take some deep sky images from a tripod. I'll be the first to admit these aren't great images, but considering what I'm working with, they're at least something to look at. The noise was difficult to deal with. You can see why there's lots of noise: I shot at ISO 25,600. If you tried this same trick with film, you'd work 10 times harder and have NOTHING.
These were all taken on my 5D II, but you certainly wouldn't need a full frame body to take any of these. They were cropped extremely heavily. You do however need high ISO and decent low noise capability.

Andromeda galaxy:

200mm
f/2.8
ISO 25,600
2.5 seconds
stack of about 25 exposures

Pleiades open star cluster:

200mm
f/2.8
ISO 25,600
2.5 seconds
stack of about 25 exposures

Nebula in Orion:
The blue recorded well here, but the red was horrible. If you've ever seen "real" pics of this nebula, there is much more red than blue. The reason it doesn't record well is because the red is so deeply red, it's almost in the infrared spectrum and DSLR's IR filters happen to remove most of it. You can send your camera away to be modified to allow this deep red to record, but then your normal everyday pictures will be slightly wrong on color balance.

200mm
f/2.8
ISO 25,600
2.5 seconds
stack of about 25 exposures

 

[D-B-J]

thats amazing!!! Those shots are beautiful. Why not try lowering the ISO and lengthening the shutter? If you have the little moving thing on your tripod to counteract the rotation, cant you take longer shots than 30 seconds? Still, galaxy shots are amazing!

 

[reznap]

Awesome work!

 

[pgriz]

Very nice. What kind of motorized drive were you using? I used to take my astro photos with a camera piggybacked onto a reflector telescope which was used for guiding. You're reawakening my desire to try those photos again, but now with modern equipment. Thanks for posting!

 

[ChevyBaby]

I find these amazing because of what they are, this is the stuff that you can sell to magazines!

 

[Stosh]

Why not try lowering the ISO and lengthening the shutter? If you have the little moving thing on your tripod to counteract the rotation, cant you take longer shots than 30 seconds? Still, galaxy shots are amazing!

I do have a motorized mount, but it broke and I need to fix it. I took these shots on a tripod. The milky way is 30 seconds, but the other shots are only 2.5 seconds.

 

[Stosh]

Very nice. What kind of motorized drive were you using? I used to take my astro photos with a camera piggybacked onto a reflector telescope which was used for guiding. You're reawakening my desire to try those photos again, but now with modern equipment. Thanks for posting!

Well if you used to do this, then you'll really appreciate how I did these. My G-11 mount broke. These were taken on a tripod - absolutely no moving mount at all. The exposures were 2.5 seconds! Just try that with film.

 

[ChevyBaby]

Not to sound cheeky but can anyone run me through how these photos are done? I've never done it before, it's never crossed my mind but they're amazing.

 

[Stosh]

It's no problem. Some day I should do a web page or something. I also know there's a forum member AstroStu or something like that who has written some stuff on it. He probably has a blog or site. Maybe somebody could link that for me.

#1 most important thing - dark skies. If you can count how many stars you see at night don't even try to take these shots. You need to be far, far away from light pollution.

When you find that, get a map of the night sky and find out where these things are. The equipment you need is a high ISO camera (hopefully with low noise) and a fast lens. A motorized mount will be a HUGE help so you can get deeper exposures without your stars trailing, but since this thread was for real beginners, you can do what I did without a motorized mount.

We already covered lens speed and ISO. The remaining exposure factor is shutter speed. Your focal length will determine how long you can expose without getting star trails. There are lots of "rules" out there, but I used a rule from long ago that you can't exceed 1000. Multiply your focal length times shutter speed and it can't go over 1000. If you crop heavily or are very particular in your images, then don't go over 500. Since I shot at 200mm for 2.5 seconds, that's 500. If you look closely you can still see small star trails on my shots. The stars are short lines, not dots.

Focus can be very tricky. Live view can be very helpful. At the very least try several settings and zoom in on them to the max on your LCD screen. If you take your laptop, there are programs that can communicate with your camera and find the best focus for you.

Take many images (the more the better) and get a free program like AVIStack or RegiStax that will stack your images. After that spend about 50x more time processing your images than taking them lol. Processing astrophotos is a serious learning curve. You have to deal with huge amounts of contrast stretching, noise, color casts, etc.

 

[fridil]

ok so here it is. I am not really all that new to photography in general but the idea of astrophotography has always intrigued me. my question is what is the best telescope that you would recommend for an amature astrophotographer??? i am looking for something that can get me some good pictures my camera is a canon rebel t1i. i am looking for a telescop that isnt to expensive!!!

 

[KmH]

Go to www.telescope.com.

Find what fits your budget.

With telescopes, the name of the game is aperture. For quality deep sky work, try to stay above 12 inches of aperture.

 

[pgriz]

In addition to the above, here's a link that will give you some guidance: SkyandTelescope.com - Choosing Your Equipment

If you want to shoot piggyback, you don't need an elaborate system, but to avoid star trails, you do need a system that is capable of tracking the stars, either with an equatorial mount, or a computerized altazimuth mount. If you want to shoot the moon and the planets, a refractor is usually the telescope of choice. However, if you want to shoot the "faint fuzzies", then aperture is the thing that determines your success. Realistically, the equipment that will allow you good captures of deep-sky objects will be in the $5,000+ range, as you need a good sized reflector, a very solid and smooth equatorial mount, a tracking mechanism, etc. etc.

 

[scotch59]

did you stack for the milky way one? or was that just a single shot? and Excellent photos!!! :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

 

[Stormchase]

lol thanks for posting this. I was looking into this a few months back and came to the conclusion that I will not have the 3k to drop on a set up for astro. I hear a little about this using a 200L lens with great results. This shows possability. You have reinspired me!

 

[Stosh]

ok so here it is. I am not really all that new to photography in general but the idea of astrophotography has always intrigued me. my question is what is the best telescope that you would recommend for an amature astrophotographer??? i am looking for something that can get me some good pictures my camera is a canon rebel t1i. i am looking for a telescop that isnt to expensive!!!

I'm going to not answer your question on purpose because it would be a mistake to look at a telescope at this time. If you think it's confusing shopping for a camera lens, it's much worse with a telescope.

If you're not interested in dropping $1000 (minimum) on a decent motorized mount, then you shouldn't exceed 200-300 mm focal length anyway. Your exposure times will be cut so short that you need to concentrate on *FAST* lenses, probably primes. I wouldn't bother with anything slower than f/2.8. Telescopes are much, much slower (f/4.5 - f/15) and require long exposures which requires a motorized mount.

For now stick to tripod mounted fast prime lenses taking short exposures (not to exceed the 1000 rule I talked about above). Then learn processing. If you enjoy what you're doing and want to advance and spend more money, by all means shop for a telescope and mount.