Cameras

You can do it

You can take astrophotography photos to be proud of with any camera you have access to. You might be surprised at how well cellphone cameras, or sports cameras, older handycam's and DSLR cameras can perform. The first thing that you will want to do is to take photos of anything you are interested in. Brothers, sisters, friends, family, pets nature. Just have fun with the camera for a while.  

Once you are familar with the camera you can go to the next level and learn 4 things that are critical to understanding any camera:

• The sensor is the digital chip that senses light. Most will be CMOS, but some older cameras may have CCD's. Both work great 
• The objective Lense is the lens at the end of the camera. It's closest to the object that you are pointing at.
• Aperture is the diameter of the objective lens. A larger apeture lens will gather more light so that pictures can be taken in darker settings. 
• Focal Length is how far away the objective lens is from the sensor. The longer the focal length, the more zoomed in the picture will be. The shorter the focal length, the brighter the picture will be. 

The three most important settings

1) Exposure time

The exposure time is how long the sensor spends taking a single picture. This can range from a fraction of a second to several minutes. 

Short exposures are needed in bright daylight. The sensor in bright light only needs a little time to be able to collect enough light to get a good image. A long exposure in bright daylight will collect too much light and all you will see is a white picture. This is called a "Blown Out" picture, or over-exposed.

Long exposures are needed when taking pictures of very dark things. These are needed when taking photographs of dim celestial objects at night. 

2) ISO 

ISO is a light sensitivity setting for the camera sensor. It ranges from 1 to some high number like 65000 or more. 

Low settings in the range 1 to 600 give sharper more detailed images, but are less sensitive to light so exposures have to be longer

High settings range from 2000 and more will make more grainy pictures with less detail, but will be more sensitive to light so shorter exposures are needed.

A rule of thumb is to favor low ISO settings, but choose a number that is high enough to be able to capture an image that you can see some detail.

3) Aperture

Many cameras have an adjustable aperture that can restrict the amount of light. For night shots you generally will want to let in as much light as possible. The settings are indicated by "F Stops" as either fractions or decimals with lower numbers letting in more light. You'll want to set the aperture to the lowest setting available. 

Camera cheat sheet 

Other than the basic features that most cameras support, some cameras will have a large variety of extra settings and features. Many of them are not required, and many of them are critical to achieve a particular shot. It can be quite a challenge to find the right settings so it's best to figure it out before going out to take your special astrophotography shot. Once you find the best settings, or a particular shot note them down, print them out, and laminate the cheat sheet. You can then use that sheet as a checklist just before going out in the dark to take your shot. This can be a nice quiet activity. Bring in your camera when we meet and I will help you find the important settings along with their values, and we can make the cheat sheet together. 

Some of the things to look for in the settings:

• Raw file support
• If you camera has this, use it. Raw images contain much more information that can be used once you get the pictures on your computer.
• Focus
• Auto focus mode generally does not work on stars, but many cameras have features that can help manually focus on stars and objects in the dim light of night. 
• Time lapse
• You can make some amazing photos like star trails, or movie clips showing an entire nights's worth meteors during a meteor shower.