Astrophotography

I was recently given a new telescope for my birthday that just passed. Since then I have rekindled my love for astronomy.  My last telescope came as a Christmas Gift when I was about six years old. This new one is certainly a step up from my old one.

Read on for some examples!



I think my first proper attempt at photos through it will be of the moon. Anything else and I would be setting myself up for failure. We have a few days yet until its bright in the night sky again.  On the other hand, I did try out my Canon 70-200 f/4L lens on some astrophotography with some other techniques and the follow image is my result.


Canon EOS 50D w/ 70-200 f/4L Lens
ISO 1600 @ f/4  w/ 10 exposures at 4" each.

This is a technique I will be trying again ; stacking exposures. It works well for astrophotography because its very dark outside. Leaving the shutter open too long in one photo will cause the star to draw lines, which can be appealing. Not what I am looking for though. By stacking your exposures you can take each pinprick of light from each star you have, and align them on top of one another to 'compound' their brightness.  Eventually after these 10 pinpricks you have enough light to make more than just a speck of light. 

The hardest part of astrophotography is nailing your focus. I would call this photo borderlining on "acceptable". When everything is so dark in your viewfinder it makes it very hard to see when something is in sharp focus. Rings displaying focal distance on some lenses can take a little bit of the guessing out, but its still no easy task.

The image above is of the star, "Altair" in the Aquila Constellation. It is the 12th brightest star in our night sky and is at a distance of 16.8 lightyears away from our solar system.   

 
Expect more on Astrophotography soon, especially once I have made a few attempts at 'coupling' my camera to my telescope to get some real deep space views! Maybe even a stacked wide angle view on the Milky Way. The stars have disappeared for this evening, and I am hoping for another clear one tomorrow night..