Learning How

[namelockram]

So glad that I found this forum, a wealth of information in here!

Here's a couple of my first attempts at astro-photography. I have been using a bridge camera (Nikon P600) which although it has phenomenal zoom is limited in the settings, but I have pushed it hard to achieve some relatively decent imagery. All the images attached below were taken as single photos, and lightened/adjusted in windows.

Things should get more interesting later this week after my new acquisition arrives, a Nikon D5100. I want to try for some Milky Way photos, so being able to control ISO, shutter speed, and f stops completely will hopefully make me happy :)

Any local knowledge about where to go from Brisbane to get low light pollution levels would be greatly appreciated too. Actually, any advice would be good, I'm a total noob at this:lol:

[bkm2304]

Hi Mark,

Great effort. To get good milky way shots you will very soon need an equatorial mount for your camera or you will get significant trailing of stars - which is an art form in itself - but I imagine you want "clean" shots.

There are excellent portable small mounts such as the Polarie (http://www.vixenoptics.com/Vixen-Polarie-Star-Tracker-Mount-with-Tripod-p/35517.htm) star tracker that are exactly suited to this task.

The best advice for starting out is to read lots of stuff especially on forums and take lots and lots and lots of pictures! Also get a basic photo processing program if you don't have one already. There are some free ones for Nikon as well as Aperture for macs which I use. Then there are the up market ones pixinsight and of course photoshop and its children.

Get familiar with the idea of stacking images using free but powerful programs like Autostakkert and Registax - they are amazing and can transform a dud set of pics into quite stunning images!

Good Luck.:thumbsup:

Richard.