Taking Pictures of the Night Sky

Beginning Astrophotography

My friend Joe has a telescope. When we’d go over to his house for dinner, he’d take us out in the back yard and we’d look at the moon, or Jupiter or Saturn if they were out. We’d check out the Pleiades or Orion’s belt, and I’d get all shivery thinking back to grade school and the ridiculous National Geographic coffee table book Our Universe. Now, though, he has two daughters and less room, which means I get to play foster home to his telescope. I like photography so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I wanted to merge these two. I had no illusions that I’d be coming up with shots to rival the Hubble Telescope:

But I figured I could at least get better shots than with my 200mm lens alone:

For me, it was a matter of getting a few accessories for my D300 and my borrowed Orion telescope. The instructions that come with the adapter are minimal, since it works with many models. The telescope I have is completely manual, so all focusing is done by hand, and it takes a bit of work to overcome the shake. In addition, the camera body is considerably heavier than a single eyepiece, and the SkyQuest’s springs aren’t always the strongest, especially when aimed nearer the horizon. Choosing the right eyepiece for the job isn’t exactly intuitive, either. For telescopes, smaller numbers do not translate to wider angle of view. The Luna Shard photos on Flickr were taken with a 10mm eyepiece. I have a few shots of the entire moon that were taken with a 25mm eyepiece.

With these shards all together, I’d stitch up a complete photo, David Hockney-style, using an application called DoubleTake.

Tips

• Aim high. With the camera body attached, you’ll be putting more weight on the viewing area than it is probably rated for, and it will pull the telescope down.

• Additionally, city light pollution is problematic for anything but the brightest bodies in the night sky, and rules out most anything near the horizon. So if you can, head out to the country and let the telescope acclimatize for a while before shooting.

• Experiment with your camera’s settings. I found quite a lot of conflicting advice online for proper settings for ISO and shutter speed, and remember: aperture won’t help you here, as there isn’t one to adjust.

Shopping List

Here are some things you’ll need if you want to get into amateur astrophotography:

• A camera. I use my Nikon D300. One incredibly useful feature on it is the Live View mode, where the LCD monitor on the back becomes a giant viewfinder. Not good for fast action shots, but for relatively stable subjects, it works perfectly, and lets you keep the telescope and camera a bit steadier when focusing.

  Nikon D300 DX 12.3MP Digital SLR Camera (Body Only)

• A T-ring. This is an intermediary attachment that couples the adapter’s threads to your camera body’s bayonet mount.

  Orion T-ring, Nikon or Orion T-Ring, Canon EOS (including Digital Rebel)

• An adapter. I went with the variable adapter to get the widest range of motion to work with a wide variety of eyepieces. Joe lent me two eyepieces, a 10mm and a 25mm.

  Orion 1.25” Variable Camera Adapter

• A telescope. This is the same telescope I’m using. There are more modern versions that include electronically controlled bases and the like that would probably help keep the telescope steady, as well.

  Orion SkyQuest XT8 Classic Dobsonian Telescope