The first Astrophotography book you need to consider is Michael Covingtons "Astrophotography for the Amateur". Even though it deals with film phography it really does contain all the basic information on Astrophotography. He has recently bought out a complementary book of DSLR imaging but I didn't find it anywhere near as helpful as his original book.
The first Astrophotography book you need to consider is Michael Covingtons "Astrophotography for the Amateur". Even though it deals with film phography it really does contain all the basic information on Astrophotography. He has recently bought out a complementary book of DSLR imaging but I didn't find it anywhere near as helpful as his original book.
I agree. I was a bit disappointed at first with the DSLR book, but after a while I realised that the reason was that I had learned a lot of it by experience, so it would still be good for someone starting out. Also very good is Jerry Lodriguss's e-book on a cd.
Hi Matty
I'll give HAIP another plug here.
Check out the willman bell website.
You can download chapter 1, the preface and index to check it out.
The AIP4WIN software is also included.
Manual is over 683 pages.
I think this book alone is worth 99USD and IMO far better than any of the previously mentioned books.
The manual has a big math component but easy to understand and the word descriptions will suffice if math is not your thing.
Highly recommended.
Regards
Steve
Put it this way Matt. I have all the above mentioned books along with many others. Some are great, some were a waste of money. Not that they weren't good books, but it depended on my level of skill and knowledge as to how useful they were to me.
If you have limited experience with the underpinning knowledge of astrophotography; ie do you know the difference between prime focus, afocal, positive projection, negative projecting and how they effect your exposure time, f ratio and image size, how long you can expose with say a 100mm lens at -75 deg dec and not get star trails using a fixed tripod, how to determine angular field of views based on chip size, how to select the right lens or telescope for the object you are trying to image etc, then I would suggest the original Michael Covington book (Swinborne Uni use it as their prefered text for the HET609 Astrophotography and CCD Imaging subject). If you have all these down pat (and more) and want to really get deep than go for the HAIP book.
It comes down to a one point really, which book will you keep coming back to to get information from. For detailed CCD testing and the science behind it, then HAIP, for Photoshop tutorials - Photoshop Astronomy, for general astrophotography how to, and mine is starting to get pretty dog eared, Astrophotography for the Amateur.
None of the others give the basic foundation of Astrophotography in a straight forward easy to follow way as Covingtons first book.
JMO
What about this book: Introduction to Digital Astrophotography?
I had that book and sold it. Once you read it you will never go back to it again, after you have been imaging a bit you will know most of its contents; a good beginners book. It has some useful info but is not very deep.
Agree with the above...The 'Photoshop Astronomy' book is the logical extension (if you want hard copy rather than on-line)from the basics of "using a DSLR for Astrophotography" that you'll find in some books.
I thought it was well written and accessible for the beginner (wot I is!)
Cheers
Doug
ps...I've also googled Imaging, Astrophotography, Photoshop, DSLR etc and come up with many excellent, informative, helpfull articles and tutorials which have saved me the cost of a book - only paper and printer ink!
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