Stationary tripod & Deep space

[NeverSummer]

I'd love to shoot some deep space photo's, but don't have a star tracking rig. Does anyone have a link to a tutorial, or some tips on doing it? Is there a way to stack 30 second exposures as to not get star trails in result?

All help is greatly appreciated, links to similar threads are great (I searched, but maybe I just suck at finding things :P )

Thanks!

[chris.bailey]

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=674569

Have a read and if anything does not make sense come back. Helpful also to post what you have got. Wide angle is a good starting point as the rotation will be much less visible.

[Adrena1in]

I've captured the Milky Way relatively nicely at 18mm and lots of 30s shots stacked, but the overall result will have weird bits around the edge, though these can be cropped out. You'll be able to get large DSOs at wide-angles, but zooming into anything over about 30mm and you'll struggle to be honest, as exposure times will drop pretty quickly.

If you're handy, take a look at the Wiki on "Barn Door Trackers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_door_tracker)". Relatively simple and very cheap things you could probably whip up to allow you to take slightly longer exposures.

[NeverSummer]

Thanks, those links are great. I think I got the jest of it from that thread, and I'll probably try and make a barn door tracker here soon.

I have a sigma 10-20 that's I'd suspect would be used most likely. Now I just have to wait for that pesky moon to stop being so bright, and all those clouds to go away :P

On a somewhat related note, does anyone know of any freeware like DeepSkyStacker for mac? It's not to big of deal to just go to windows for it, but it'd be a little bit more convenient.

[chris.bailey]

DSS is the only one I know of period. Luc could easily market it commercially.