Budget Astrophotography Imaging with Your DSLR or Webcam PDF
Preview Budget Astrophotography Imaging with Your DSLR or Webcam
Imaging with Your DSLR or Webcam The Patrick Moore Practical Astronomy Series More information about this series at: h ttp://www.springer.com/series/3192 Budget Astrophotography Imaging with Your DSLR or Webcam Timothy J. Jensen Timothy J. Jensen Mebane , NC , USA ISSN 1431-9756 ISSN 2197-6562 (electronic) ISBN 978-1-4939-1772-3 ISBN 978-1-4939-1773-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4939-1773-0 Springer New York Heidelberg Dordrecht London Library of Congress Control Number: 2014948460 © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. Exempted from this legal reservation are brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis or material supplied specifi cally for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the Copyright Law of the Publisher’s location, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Permissions for use may be obtained through RightsLink at the Copyright Clearance Center. Violations are liable to prosecution under the respective Copyright Law. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication, neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) Dedication To my wife Mary… For all her support and encouragement… in all things… Pref ace Almost everyone that has looked up at the night sky (with or without a telescope), or at a photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, and has wondered what it would be like to take a portrait of the stars of their own for all to see. Astrophotography is almost as old as the invention of the camera itself. In 1840, John Drapper made the first known astrophotograph. It took him 20 min to expose a metal photographic sheet to produce an image of the Moon. Today’s cameras, especially digital single lens reflex cameras (DSLRs) have radically changed the photography world, espe- cially in the realm of astrophotography. Capable of high resolution with a wide spectral response and large, sensitive detectors, today’s cameras can reproduce Drapper’s extraordinary feat in as little as one two thousandths of a second… over two million times faster! The digital photography revolution has changed the paradigm for astrophotog- raphy as well. Hour-long exposures with an eye glued to a cross hair eyepiece are a thing of the past. We can now record in minutes what took hours in the past with film without the worry of reciprocity failure (the failure of film to respond to light with increasing exposure time). Computer controlled guiding using a web cam and lap top can completely automate the imaging process. All one needs is a small computer and some software.1 By learning a few simple techniques, a whole new photographic world can open up before the lens of your DSLR. That lens can be anything from your standard issue 50 mm, to a 30″ telescope. What makes DSLRs so appealing to the budding amateur astrophotographer is quite simply, price. These cameras are very modestly priced 1 Different software programs will be referred to throughout the course of this book. The author is not affiliated with any software manufacturer, developer or distributor. If a specific software package is mentioned, or used as an example, it reflects the author’s personal choice and should not in any way be considered an endorsement. vii viii Preface and for an investment of few hundred dollars (assuming you don’t already own one), the wonders of the night sky are yours to explore and capture. Wonderful wide field vistas full of star clouds, dust lanes and nebulae are just a few exposures away. With a telescope, faint galaxies come into reach. You can explore the surfaces of the Moon and Mars, follow the changing clouds of Jupiter and Venus, see spokes in the rings of Saturn, study asteroid light curves, follow the decay of a supernova, measure the elements in a star. All of these fascinating wonders are within your grasp. There are a myriad of different types of digital cameras on the market today, ranging from simple fixed lens point and shoot, to expensive professional level single lens reflex models. This book will focus on astrophotography using moder- ately priced digital single lens reflex (DSLR) style cameras as well as simple “web- cam” style video cameras. Both Canon and Nikon have DSLRs that are suitable for astrophotography. Though Canon is more popular in the DSLR astrophotography field. Which camera is preferable is left to the reader’s personal bias. DSLRs are not only good for taking stunning portraits. Real science can also be accomplished with these cameras. I hope to introduce you to the world of astropho- tography and touch on the both the art, and science, that can be accomplished by the amateur astronomer using these cameras. This book will provide an introduction to some of the basic theory as well as some of the general techniques required to capture, process, and analyze astronomi- cal images. With a little practice, you’ll soon be hanging eye catching images on the wall for your friends to admire. A word about software… There are almost as many different software programs for amateur astronomers to choose from as there are types of telescopes. In the DSLR astrophotography world, a few stand out. Being a Windows person, I use Backyard EOS for DSLR camera control and image capture, ImagesPlus for file conversion, calibration, stacking and initial processing, and Photoshop for final processing. For webcam image process- ing, Autostakker!2, AVIStack and VirtualDub are essential. I am most familiar with these programs and will refer to their unique features along the way. Macintosh and UNIX users may have different software needs and wants. It is left to the reader to determine what software they prefer. When referring to software command paths, italics will be used to define the path: d ropdown menu|submenu|command . OK, let’s get started… Mebane, NC, USA Timothy J. Jensen Acknowledgements I would like to express my thanks and gratitude to the people that helped make this work possible through their conversations, suggestions, enthusiasm for astronomy and of course, the use of their images… (in no particular order): Barry Clark Mike Phillips Paul Jones Darryl Milika Pat Nicholas ix
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