First astrophotography attempt!

Traveltom2406 · Jan 16, 2018

hello everyone! This is my first time using a forum so bear with me

I went to blue ridge observatory and star park last night to try Astrophotography for the first time. I’m also a complete beginner and new to photography. I was wondering if anyone could give me feedback and tips on how to get the best astrophotography shots possible

I often see images with galaxies and nebulas shining bright and dominating the picture. How do I get these shots? Is it through editing or can you capture these in camera?
I’ve included 4 photos, the first 3 have no editing whatsoever but the last is slightly edited. What could I have done to make these shots better? Thank you all!

I’ve slightly edited the contrast and exposure of this photo.

KmH · Jan 16, 2018

The last is technically known as a nightscape, not an astrophotograph.
http://clarkvision.com/articles/nightscapes/

If you really want to get into astrophotography, particularly if you want to image deep sky stuff I highly recommend the book The Deep-sky Imaging Primer, Second Edition.

480sparky · Jan 16, 2018

By the last image, you've got boat-loads of light pollution. What you're trying to emulate was probably taken in an area known for lack of such pollution.... truly dark skies.

Traveltom2406 · Jan 16, 2018

KmH said:
The last is technically known as a nightscape, not an astrophotograph.
http://clarkvision.com/articles/nightscapes/

If you really want to get into astrophotography, particularly if you want to image deep sky stuff I highly recommend the book The Deep-sky Imaging Primer, Second Edition.

Thank you for the reply

I’ll have a look into that book

I’ll see if they do a digital copy as I’m currently travelling and can’t carry too many things.

Traveltom2406 · Jan 16, 2018

480sparky said:
By the last image, you've got boat-loads of light pollution. What you're trying to emulate was probably taken in an area known for lack of such pollution.... truly dark skies.

The last photo was taken just after sunset so it was still pretty light I was just experimenting

I’m heading to the Pogue Pickett dark sky park this week to try get better shots

KmH · Jan 16, 2018

In the US the few areas that have truly dark skies are west of the Missouri river.
DarkSiteFinder.com - Light Pollution Map

Traveltom2406 · Jan 17, 2018

KmH said:
In the US the few areas that have truly dark skies are west of the Missouri river.
DarkSiteFinder.com - Light Pollution Map

Thank you for the help and replies

! Its appreciated!

480sparky · Jan 17, 2018

You might consider purchasing a motorized camera mount to counter the earths rotation. This would allow much longer exposures.

Traveltom2406 · Jan 17, 2018

480sparky said:
You might consider purchasing a motorized camera mount to counter the earths rotation. This would allow much longer exposures.

At the moment I’m travelling the world for a year so I can’t afford or carry much equipment with me. I currently have a dslr camera and basic tripod. I’m hoping to take good nightscape and astrophotography shots with the equipment I have and learn as I go. But I’ll definitely be looking into more advanced gear as I progress

thank you

KmH · Jan 17, 2018

Not having a tracking mount limits the exposure time you can use to make the stars points of light rather than streaks of light.
As lens focal length increases the shorter an exposure needs to be to prevent star trails.
So we get the longest possible exposure without star trails with short (wide angle) focal lengths.

Sportrunner · Jan 18, 2018

What camera and lens are you using? I can give you a starting point from there. Light pollution can make night photos tough but you can also try using it creatively. Keep in mind some of the images you see are composite images where the foreground and shy are shot separately.

Light Guru · Jan 18, 2018

480sparky said:
You might consider purchasing a motorized camera mount to counter the earths rotation. This would allow much longer exposures.

Or you can try doing star trails. Those don't require a fancy camera mount.
How to take great photos of star trails | EarthSky.org

rosh4u · Jan 18, 2018

This is actually not astrophotography.

Sportrunner · Jan 19, 2018

Yes, I assume he meant night scape photography.

birdbonkers84 · Jan 22, 2018

Hmmm I've been posting my star trails in the wrong gallery it seems?

If you are wanting to shoot the stars, try and get a sturdy tripod nothing fancy, mines £50 off of amazon and it seems to do fine; a wide lens, I use a 18-55 kits lens on a crop body. You want to set the lens f-stop to as wide as it will go, on my kit lens that is f/3.5. You then want to set your ISO to 3200 as a starting point.

There is a thing called the "500 rule" whereby you divide you lens focal length by 500 to get the shutter speed. i.e 20mm is 25 seconds, some people follow this, some don't it's up to you, but you will find anything longer than 30s the stars start moving.

Also a wireless/wire remote works a treat and stops any camera vibration.

Then once you have your shots you can take them into LR and mess around with the temp, exposure etc to get the desired look.

If you want to try star trails, I find setting your cameras internal interval thing works fine. I set it to intervals of 34s with 30s exposures this allows the camera to successful save the shots and not miss any out. Same thing applies, camera on tripod, with wide lens set as wide as possible. For star trails the ISO can be anything between 100-800 depending if the moon is out etc. Setup up your interval shots, e.g 120 x 30s, click and sit back and wait. Once its finished sort them in LR then bring them into a program called StarStax (free) and it will comp your shots on together for you.

Hope this helps.