The Sky Calls To Us

– Carl Sagan

Astrophotography has become very accessible in the past several years. The technology for making exposures of the night sky, tracking the stars, and processing images, has improved in leaps and bounds, allowing nearly everyone to take part in this amazing aspect of photography. From its beginnings in the 1800s, photographers have made photographs of the night sky and the science of astronomy would be very limited without photography as a component of space exploration and analysis. Many discoveries of comets, asteroids, even new nebulae and galaxies, are made by amateur astronomers every year. Join Mike Shipman under the dark rural skies of Idaho to learn the basics of terrestrial astrophotography. Terrestrial astrophotography refers to featuring landscapes and landscape features in night photography. A lot of terrestrial astrophotography is centered around wide angle views of the dramatic and beautiful spectacle of the Milky Way, but also includes star trails, time lapse, aurora, meteor showers, the moon, and other aspects of the night sky, even deep sky objects like the Orion Nebula and Andromeda Galaxy. Terrestrial astrophotography can be done using just a camera on a tripod or relatively inexpensive star/sky trackers. I will have a selection of these to demo during the class and for you to try, if desired.

In this three-day class, I’ll cover some basic and fundamental information about process of astrophotography, such as equipment, exposure considerations, setup, safety, planning a session, celestial orientation (how to find stuff in the night sky), and basic image processing. The first night is a class session, the second night is in the field making photographs, and the third session is back in the classroom for processing. During the field session, I’ll discuss setup, safety at night and astronomy protocols, and we’ll make a set of exposures to process the following day.

The basic equipment set up is a DSLR/Mirrorless camera capable of manual operation, a cabled remote shutter release, a lens 18-70mm is a good range, either in a single lens or zoom, with a wide aperture to provide the most light-gathering (f2.8 or larger is best, but f3.5-f5.6 will do as well), and a tripod. A camera with a flip screen works very well at low angles, but is not necessary. A telephoto lens reduces the angle of view, enlarges features like craters on the moon, but requires a sturdy tripod and a tracking mount for most applications.

When you register, I’ll send you a list of suggested equipment. For the last class session you’ll need a laptop (I use a PC and the applications we’ll be using are PC-based, but there are also Mac versions available and the versions are similar. However, I may not be able to be of in-depth assistance with any particular issues on Mac systems). The applications we’ll use are free, so there is nothing additional to purchase for this class.

The first and third sessions will be in Boise at the Art Source Gallery. The first session is a 3-hour evening class, and the third session is a 4-hour afternoon class. The second session is in the field at night beginning an hour before sunset and may last until midnight or later.

If you have any questions, please Contact Me.