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View Full Version : Tips for shooting the sky tonight

jamesravenwood
1st of December 2008 (Mon), 15:56
As some of you might know several planets and a crescent moon are going to be in a nice bundle tonight. Any tips for shooting this? I prefer not to put the ISO too high, but leaving the shutter open too long with create a blur as everything moves....Thanks in advance, im a bit of an amateur, and I dont want to screw up a good opportunity...
vincent_su
1st of December 2008 (Mon), 16:04
James, I don't know much about astronomy shoots but you can check out the Astronomy and Celestial (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=136) section of the forum. I'm sure there will be good tips there.
Have fun.
timeasterday
1st of December 2008 (Mon), 16:19
You'll need about 200mm focal length to get a tight shot of the grouping. Just start snapping different exposure lengths until you think it looks good. More than 15 seconds with a wide lens starts to show movement. A 200mm lens will show movement very quick, so use shorter exposures.
fritzd
1st of December 2008 (Mon), 16:40
tripod astrophotography limits you to use wide lenses to have 30secs or more for exposure. Longer lenses will require tracking which is a specialized telescope mount that can track the movement of the stars because of the Earth's rotation. I have some good results with just tripod astrophotography (check out my flickr). But the main problem is simply just light pollution.
jamesravenwood
1st of December 2008 (Mon), 18:17
Excellent, thanks to all. Its still foggy here, so I might not even get a chance at it....
Thanks vince for showing me the Astronomy forum!

James
BlindGuyTakingPictures
1st of December 2008 (Mon), 21:16
James, I don't know much about astronomy shoots but you can check out the Astronomy and Celestial (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=136) section of the forum. I'm sure there will be good tips there.
Have fun.


They had plenty of nice shots. I wish more people would include their settings.
All I kept getting were a haze around each object and no pictures were as crisp and clear as the other seen in some of those threads.
jamesravenwood
2nd of December 2008 (Tue), 16:24
I was completely clouded over last night, hopefully I can get the shot tonight...But knowing my luck I doubt it.