Hello & Advice Appreciated Re: Photography

[babelfish]

Hiya all,

Recently discovered Ice In Space and decided to join the forums after much browsing of the site and its links - very slick indeed, well done to all those who put in the time and effort.

As a complete amateur who has spent many, many hours out in the cold just looking up, I could do with a bit of advice regarding photography. I have finally dived into the realm of digital cameras and, although not having particularly fantastic gear (Fuji S9500) and being a complete beginner with cameras, I have fumbled my way through attempting to take some shots of the night sky (I say fumbled because I know I wasn't using the cameras full potential - wrong settings and the like). Despite my best efforts which, truth be told do need work, I was really quite impressed with the amount of detail and light that the camera captured.

So, if anyone feels inclined, please feel free to offer me some of the basics. I can provide whatever camera details you like if needed.

Once again, slick site & nice work. :thumbsup:

[DJDD]

bump.

sorry I cannot offer advice as I am a newbie. I am also very interested in this topic as we have a nice new Nikon DSLR.

Some questions I have are:

- what are the minimum specs for a mount for a camera?

- would a simple camera mount, from any camera store do the trick?

- would you need an equatorial mount or could you get by with an alt-azimuth mount and manually track the objects in two axes?

- depending upon the mount, what could you reasonably be expected to take photos of, either tracking manually or just with short exposures?

- would you use a wide angle lens, either 24mm or 28mm? or a telephoto lens, say 200mm or more?

there are lots of photos out there with descriptions of the equipment used (e.g. cameras only) but sometimes I think I might be missing crucial details. Trial and error is fun but some extra pointers from those that have been-there-done-that would be great! :)

looking forward to the lunar eclipse.

cheers,
DJDD

[ving]

hi djdd and babbelfish,
took this with my nikon d40 and kit lens. the details are in this thread :)
hope it helps for basic stuff.
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showpost.php?p=235220&postcount=1

longer exposures require eq tracking.

[Lee]

The best first step would be to try some star trails, or medium length constellation shots (like 10-20 sec) from a static mount or tripod.

[DJDD]

thanks for the link and comments. the photos look great for "basic stuff". :)

did you use eq tracking when taking those shots in the link? i assume so as you the exposure was for 30 sec.

cheers,
DJDD

[DJDD]

thanks, plasmodium. I have never been a fan of the star trails but i do like photos of constellations and stars without constellation trails. I will just have to go out and give it a go.

cheers,
DJDD

[jjjnettie]

You could take heaps of 10 second photos and stack them in a program like DeepSkyStacker. (free off the web)

[DJDD]

hi jjjnettie,

thanks for the reply.

that sounds like a good idea. I will have a look at the program today.

cheers,
DJDD