First go at night sky photography

I haven't done this before, and I knew that in an urban area it would not be easy.. but I attempted to take photos of starry skies at night, I feel it would have been even better somewhere rural, and by no means are these photos perfect but Im fairly happy with them for a first attempt.

 

The sky colour is deceiving Stephen, roughly what time were they taken?

 

Nice one Stephen

Jupiter's bright in that second one

 

They re fairly good and you have to practice somewhere, so if that is in a urban area with light pollution, then so be it.

What camera and settings where used?

Steve...

 

Time was about 9-10pm, I added filters on to give that affect, otherwise it turns out orange.

Camera setting where between 10 and 30 second exposure, ISO was anywhere between 800 and 1600 and (unfortunately) f/5.6. Manual focus was switched on because it's impossible to shoot with auto focus at deep night.

Best settings in this light polluted places were 10 seconds exp. and 1000 ISO.. any longer on exposure and the photos got that star streak effect.

 

To help with focussing at night, which can be difficult look to see if your lens has the following symbol on the focus ring ∞ this number eight on its side is the infinity symbol and setting your focus to infinity will help you with that, obviously you will want to be in manual focus mode to stop the lens from "hunting" around trying to focus.

If you do not have this infinity symbol, then in full daylight and manual focus mode again, manually focus on something in the extreme distance off towards the horizon and mark the focus ring on your camera using a pencil, chinagraph pencil or even tippex, so that you can easily return to this focus spot when needed in the dark at night. Obviuosly mark it using something you know you can remove later.

You have worked out for yourself the best exposure length (which in my opinion is the best way to learn) so I wont offer anything on that, but when you get a chance to get to darker skies, higher ISO's will give you less noise and so clearer photo's overall. But a damn good effort in all and you've probably learnt loads more just by trying the technique.

Steve...

 

I thought that lower ISOs gave less noise - does this not apply to astro-photography Steve?

 

Unfortunately in this type of photography noise is unavoidable, but yes I would have though higher ISO gives you more noise. I tried to bring the ISO down, but noise was still visible. Practice makes perfect of course!

 

Here are some more taken the other night. These are a lower ISO photos

 

Yes, I always consider higher ISOS to be 100,200 etc...just the way my brain works. But an iso of around 400 should suit in this application.

One thing that can help with astro work is the shooting of a black frame. Take your shot as normal then with the same settings, replace the lens cap and take another shot. Feed both into astro photography software and the soft will be able to minimise the noise, this works especially well when doing star trails shots for instance.

Steve...

 

A basic guide to astro-photography here >

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zgwpcdm