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Astrophotography
Astrophotography refers to photography of the night time sky. It has become far more
familiar to us due to the incredible images recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope and
shared by NASA with the public over the past two decades. But astrophotography didn’t
start with the Hubble Space Telescope. In fact, it started more than 100 years ago and has
been done in large part since that time by amateur astronomers.
With
Star Adventurer 2i
, astrophotography is now something you can do, too. You won’t
be able to produce photographs that have the same image scale as those taken by the
Hubble, but you will be able to make beautiful portraits of constellations and large regions
of the Milky Way galaxy showing star clouds, star clusters, and light and dark nebulae.
You’ll be able to record time-lapse videos of auroras, and the stages of a lunar eclipse.
First, however, there are two challenges to overcome that you don’t encounter in typical,
terrestrial types of photography. One is the need to use long exposures (e.g., greater than
30 seconds) to record dim night sky objects. The second is the need to have the camera
follow the sky as the exposure is taking place.
The Milky Way Galaxy revealed through a
long exposure astro-photo with precision
tracking
Unfortunately, you can’t just set your camera
to AUTO, aim it at the night sky and take a
picture. The night sky is far too dim for that
to work, and any attempts you make will
produce seriously underexposed results. But,
you can overcome this challenge by selecting
BULB mode on your camera and using Star
Adventurer 2i’s SNAP cable connection
to create much longer exposures – like a
minute or two – or ten! With a sufficiently long
exposure, your camera will collect enough light
to reveal hidden details that are much too faint
for our eyes to see. But then, quite literally,
you’ll see the second problem!
Astrophotography and Astro Time-Lapse
The Need For Long Exposures
