Tag: Night photography

Tutorial: Stacking Night Sky Images in Adobe Photoshop

From widefield images shot with your camera to deep space images shot with a telescope, all astrophotography can benefit from stacking. Windows users benefit from free tools readily available online such as DeepSkyStacker, as well as some fantastic, albeit expensive, paid applications.

Mac users are left out, as all they have available to them are the expensive, paid options.  However, most photographers already have Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, the most common image editing tools on the market. And you actually can align and stack your astro-images using these tool!

This video will give you a step by step guide into preparing your images in Lightroom for export and stacking in Photoshop. Continue reading “Tutorial: Stacking Night Sky Images in Adobe Photoshop”

R.I.P. iOptron SkyTracker (November 2013 – November 2016)

Back in the fall of 2013, I had a decision to make. I had been into astrophotography for about a year at this point, and I already knew winter seriously put a kink into my astrophotography plans. My only telescope and mount at the time was my 8″ Meade LX90 on its fork mount. I had owned this telescope for 3 years at that point, and there were 2 things that were quite clear about it already that worked against me in the cold of winter:

  1. Setup took quite a long time, so I was frozen by the time I was ready to start imaging; and
  2. Once temperatures hit 0ºC and colder, the display on the handset controller didn’t work any more, making navigating to anything impossible.

I had to do something!

Continue reading “R.I.P. iOptron SkyTracker (November 2013 – November 2016)”

Enter the LensMuff™ from Digital After Dark.

LensMuff™ – Affordable Dew Control For Your Camera Lenses or Telescope

If you’re into night photography or astrophotography, you’ve likely already encountered the scourge that rapidly puts an end to any photo session – dew. It’s a problem that has plagued night photographers and astronomers since these pursuits have existed. Over the years, many techniques and products have been developed to help combat this problem. Many are quite effective, but have their drawbacks. Continue reading “LensMuff™ – Affordable Dew Control For Your Camera Lenses or Telescope”

Star Trails at Shawmere Cottages

Getting Started in Astrophotography

Getting Started

One of the questions I get asked the most often is how one gets started in astrophotography. More specifically, what kind of equipment is required in order to take images like I do. In this article, I’ll try to clarify that. Note that this won’t be covering technique or procedures in any way, but rather just what you need to get into it.

The first thing to mention is that there are 3 types of astrophotography:

  • widefield / landscape;
  • solar system; and
  • deep sky.

Each of these types will require vastly different equipment and techniques, as well as software and technique for post processing. I’ll be covering each of these 3 types and what is required to get the best results.

Continue reading “Getting Started in Astrophotography”