Where does it start

[happy-kat]

Astrophotography

Does the range start from taking an image of the stars on a static mount right up to the glorious multicolour deep space objects?

I often see amazing milkyway single frame image full of stars with dramatic landscape. Is this not astrophotography?

Or is it only astrophotography if you have a tracking equatorial mount for your DSLR?

[Marky1973]

Taking a picture of the night sky?

It starts where you want it to start I guess....

[laudropb]

Just by taking a photo of the sky.

[MarsG76]

If your lens/objective/mirror is trained above the ground and its imaging of anything that astronomy related in the sky than its astrophotography. So any image from wide field single shot on a static tripod of the Milkyway to autoguided multi meter focal length tracked long exposure images is Astrophotography.

[toxic]

any picture with anything astronomicle is an astro photo aint it  

[kalasinman]

Yes, all of the above are astrophotography.

[goose35]

I started with a 130EQ as a christmass gift. All ready had dslr kit so i married the two.

Thats when my wallet realy started to open lol

[happy-kat]

Thank you, my thoughts too, point it upwards is the start.

It appears by all accounts to be a slippery slope but I know how far I want to go (not very) but it is still astrophotography.

If only the clouds would go.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

When the camera is pointing up rather than down is a good place to start. One thing that isn't strictly required is night. Not only is it possible to image the Moon, the planets up to Saturn and the occasional comet, but the brightest stars are also visible through a scope. It's even possible to image the Orion Nebula after sunrise. Even during the day you can get out of the solar system.

[ollypenrice]

If planetary photography is astrophotography why not point the camera downwards as well?

lly

[Stub Mandrel]

 It's even possible to image the Orion Nebula after sunrise. Even during the day you can get out of the solar system.

One thing that fascinated me as a boy, watching the Apollo missions, was the way the sky darkened as the rocket climbed and the camera zoomed in.

is this a real effect caused by directional scattering, or illusory?

[Thalestris24]

Where does it start? Where does it all end, that's what I want to know!!

Louise

[Pete Presland]

No end just a beginning and a very looooooong middle!

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[beamer3.6m]

It starts when your wallet cries out in pain!

In ends when your wallet collapses in on itself.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

If planetary photography is astrophotography why not point the camera downwards as well?

lly

Well, we do live in space after all.

One thing that fascinated me as a boy, watching the Apollo missions, was the way the sky darkened as the rocket climbed and the camera zoomed in.

is this a real effect caused by directional scattering, or illusory?

It's real, the higher you go the darker the sky is as there is less air up there to scatter the light. You can see it clearly in this shuttle launch video at about the 1:30 mark:

[Stub Mandrel]

Awesome video, but I meant the ground-based shots - like this:

Well like this would be if I could embed it properly... ground camera zooms in as rocket rises away from it and sky gets darker...

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NJAS8I0NNhA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[ronin]

It starts by having an idea of what you want to accomplish.

You can get a wide field of the milky way by putting a DSLR on a tripod at a dark site and taking a 25 second exposure, and that does not need a telescope.

If you want a Ha image of the Rosette Nebula, it is a bit different, and different again if you want something showing the details of the Jovian atmosphere.

It also starts by having an idea of what you need.

A 10" dobsonian will show you the Veil Nebula, a WO Star 71 will obtain an image of it. Neither will really do the other. Sometimes I think this it the hardest aspect to get across.