Now that we know the camera and astrophotography basics, it's time to look up and know the night sky. This is a key motivation for shooting the night sky as the possibilities of what you can shoot are vast and that's what makes it so interesting and intriguing. I classify the object through the different types of photography i.e. wide-angle shots of the night sky, nearby objects planetary/lunar/solar, and Deep Sky.
Wide-angle shots of the night sky
Wide angle shot refers to where we capture a large section of the night sky with short focal lengths ( low magnification or in colloquial language - zoomed out.
Thankfully all we need to capture these are a DSLR camera and a tripod to get started.
The Milky Way galaxy - It's amazing to be able to shoot our galaxy where we live. While we cannot see our galaxy in its entirety as we are within it, we can see some of the spiral arms of our galaxy. They appear as a relatively bright glowing band across the night sky.
Photo by eberhard 🖐 grossgasteiger on Unsplash
Constellations - These are patterns of stars in the night sky that humans have made up to identify the night sky. The below image is that of the Orion constellation.
Photo by Johnny Kaufman on Unsplash
Multiple DSOs ( Deep Sky Objects ) on one screen - Zooming out also lets us capture multiple objects in one frame.
Nearby Objects
Planets - All of the solar system planets are within our reach to capture. Jupiter, Mercury, Saturn, and Venus are easily visible to even the naked eye.
We need a telescope with high magnification to see surface details of planets.
The Moon
All we need is a DSLR camera and ideally a tripod to get started.
The Sun - First of all, never look at the sun directly through a telescope. YOU WILL LOSE YOUR EYESIGHT!
Specialised solar filters fitted on the telescope and DSLR at minimum is needed.
Deep Sky Objects ( DSO )
Nebulae - These are beautiful clouds of dust and gas in space.
Emission Nebulae - When stars die or are being created, their heat source excites atoms ( predominantly abundant in Hydrogen ) and they are ionized and emit light.
Planetary Nebulae - It is a type of emission nebula consisting of an expanding glowing ionized gas after a red giant star explodes. Our sun will explode forming a planetary nebula.
Reflection Nebulae - They are also a region of a cloud of dust and gas but they don't have their light, instead, they reflect the light from nearby stars. The below image is that of a reflection nebula and a star cluster.
Supernova Remnants - When massive stars die, they leave behind shock waves and gases caused by a supernova explosion.
Galaxies - A galaxy is a system of stars, planets, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter bound together by gravity. Astronomers believe that supermassive black holes lie at the center of all galaxies.
Star Clusters - These are a large number of stars held together by their gravity.
Almost all deep sky objects will at least need a star tracker, and a DSLR camera. They will also need to be processed through specialised software.
Stars - Sometimes we just photograph stars. Although they may seem not so interesting at first, they have different colors from red, orange, yellow, and blue-white to blue, red being relatively cool and blue being the hottest.
Finally, here is a fun way to enjoy many of these objects from the comfort of your bedroom
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