Astrophotography

[Jill Morgan]

My hubby bought himself this super duper telescope so I thought I would love to take a whack at some astrophotography.

 

Any of you guys do that? I wouldn't even know how to attach the camera to the telescope.

 

Saturn is always visible during the winter, so it would be fun to get some shots. And living way out in the country, we have almost no light pollution at all.

 

And is there any market for it on Alamy?

 

Jill

[Sultanpepa]

You may quickly find that little web cams fair better than DSLR's when talking astrophotography. Images are normally stacked to create clearer images. Some images I managed of the moon haven't sold and images I got of jupiter aren't good enough to submit. I have very little experience though. Good luck with it anyway. 

[Malcolm Park]

Hi Jill

 

One of my specialist areas is astrophotography. There is a very strong market for it, though sadly (in my experience) not so greatly at Alamy - except for the occasional newsworthy astro events. It’s a fairly complex area, but relatively easy to start out with many digital cameras.

 

DSLR cameras fit to a telescope with easy-to-obtain tubes, simply research the telescope type on the web and you should find something. Very deep space images require a telescope mounted on a driven equatorial mount (GEM). Popular and marketable images are very long exposure star trails - they only require a digital camera with good low light capability, bulb mode, tripod and programmable cable release and reasonably fast lens. I shoot a great deal of deep space imagery from London suburbs where light pollution necessitates the use of light pollution and narrowband filters greatly increasing exposure times so you are in the dream position, for me, of being in dark skies.

 

If you both require further info, please mail me. There are one or two good books on the subject (also a lot of out-of date ones) and some very good, informative, websites. Good luck!

[Jill Morgan]

Hi Jill

 

One of my specialist areas is astrophotography. There is a very strong market for it, though sadly (in my experience) not so greatly at Alamy - except for the occasional newsworthy astro events. It’s a fairly complex area, but relatively easy to start out with many digital cameras.

 

DSLR cameras fit to a telescope with easy-to-obtain tubes, simply research the telescope type on the web and you should find something. Very deep space images require a telescope mounted on a driven equatorial mount (GEM). Popular and marketable images are very long exposure star trails - they only require a digital camera with good low light capability, bulb mode, tripod and programmable cable release and reasonably fast lens. I shoot a great deal of deep space imagery from London suburbs where light pollution necessitates the use of light pollution and narrowband filters greatly increasing exposure times so you are in the dream position, for me, of being in dark skies.

 

If you both require further info, please mail me. There are one or two good books on the subject (also a lot of out-of date ones) and some very good, informative, websites. Good luck!

 

Thanks Malcom. It's a Meade LX90 I think with tracker. I'll look up the tubes required for the telescope. Next night its not freezing with high winds here (I hate wind in the winter) I will try it out.

 

Always great to expand the knowledge.

 

Jill

[dustydingo]

In the absence of a telescope and/or equatorial drive, a wide angle, tripod and DSLR, and clear skies are all you need to photograph the Milky Way. With good foreground silhouettes such can be quite stunning . . . or, add an intervalometer (of course, we Nikon users have one already built in to our cameras    ) and suitable software (LR4) and the world of time-lapse astrophotography opens up.

 

dd