Getting started: budget astrophotography PDF
Preview Getting started: budget astrophotography
Copyright © 2014 by Allan Hall 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below. Allan Hall 1614 Woodland Lane Huntsville, TX 77340 www.allans-stuff.com/bap/ Although the author and publisher have made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at press time, the author and publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause. Any trademarks, service marks, product names or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if we use one of these terms. 'Adobe'. ‘Adobe Photoshop’, and ‘Adobe Photoshop Lightroom’ are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All cover images: Copyright Allan Hall Section title page images: Copyright Allan Hall Acknowledgements: The following persons/companies have graciously agreed to allow reprints of their screens in this publication. Adobe product screenshot(s) reprinted with permission from Adobe Systems Incorporated. Star charts printed from AstroPlanner V2, used with permission, Paul Rodman, Author AstroPlanner & AstroAid screenshots used with permission, Paul Rodman, Author Stellarium screenshots used with permission, Alexander Wolf, Developer Star Walk screenshots used with permission, Olga Shtaub, Vito Technology Inc. Clear Sky Chart screenshot used with permission, Attilla Danko, Author Images Plus screenshots used with permission, Mike Unsold, Author C2A screenshots used with permission, Philippe Deverchere, Author Deep Sky Stacker screenshots used with permission, Luc Coiffier, Author DSLRShutter/PHD screenshots used with permission, Craig Stark, Author Orion Telescopes logos and brand names appear with permission, Mary Caballo, Orion Inc. SkySafari screenshots used with permission, Tim DeBenedictis, Owner NASA HD App screenshots used with permission, NASA App Team Registax screenshots used with permission, Cor Garden SharpCap screenshots used with permission, Robin Glover A Better Camera screenshots used with permission, Sergey Malykhin Gorillacam screenshots used with permission, Stephen Cheng Table of Contents Introduction Section 1: Understanding Problems and solutions Field rotation Light pollution Push-to/Go-to/Manual Tracking mounts Seeing conditions Imaging methods Direct Prime focus Afocal Eyepiece projection Types of astrophotography Lunar Solar Planetary Widefield Deep space Cameras DSLRs MLCs Bridge cameras Point & Shoot cameras Phone/Tablet cameras Film cameras Video cameras Telescopes Refractors Newtonians Dobsonians Schmidt-Cassegrain & Maksutov-Cassegrain Focusing Bahtinov mask Hartmann mask Software aided focusing Focusing with camera lenses Mounts Tripods and tables Altitude Azimuth Equatorial Barn door trackers Navigating the night sky Celestial coordinate system Section 2: Doing Finding targets Stellarium C2A Tablet software Capturing images Camera settings Exposure settings ISO, dynamic range, bit depth and signal to noise ratio Lights/Darks/Flats/Bias Raw versus JPG Methods of firing the shutter Video capturing Cellphone/Tablet specific issues Processing images Stacking Conversion Image editing software Layers Stretching Simple selections as masks Noise reduction High dynamic range images Video processing Section 3: Building Do-It-Yourself Projects Modifications Dovetail extension to balance a scope Balancing a Dobsonian Improve focus capabilities Stabilizing your mount Modifying a webcam for astrophotography Dark adapting your laptop screen Creations Building a custom flat box Simple barn door tracker Glass solar filter for camera lenses Making your own dew heaters 36Ah field power pack The Denver chair Cheap and easy solar/dew hutch Targets to start with Where to get more information Glossary Introduction It’s hard not to be impressed when you look at a picture of a beautiful nebula or galaxy in a magazine or online. If you are impressed enough, you may want to take up astronomy as a hobby. That seems to lead a great number of people to look for ways to capture their own images of celestial objects. In today’s instant gratification society it is a bitter pill to swallow when we hear that you can’t just point your camera up and get a picture of a galaxy. So what do we do? You have already taken the first step in buying this book! Knowledge is the first great hurdle in astrophotography, the second was always the cost. Fortunately, in today’s digital age and worldwide market it has never been cheaper to capture images of the heavens. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I have seen people with a genuine desire to try their hand at astrophotography hear about the thousands, or tens of thousands of dollars in equipment an astrophotographer has spent to get their images and see that gleam in their eye fade and disappear. But you don’t have to spend that to get started, or for that matter to get some pretty impressive images. This book will show you how. Every piece of equipment and software I talk about is readily available. I try to steer clear of solutions for only one particular thing (one brand of camera for example) and give you choices. Much of what I discuss is more about getting you to understand the how and why of the techniques rather than a simple “buy this and click here” approach, although it can certainly be used that way. A large portion of this book is dedicated to do-it-yourself (DIY) projects to help you save even more money with a wide range of projects. There are some things however that you just really need to spend the money on even if it hurts, like a good light pollution filter which we will discuss later.
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