Astrophotography book

[Tomjo59]

Many, many times on here, I’ve seen recommendations for ‘Making Every Photon Count’ by Steve Richards.

As getting into astrophotography is something I have considered for a long time, as a natural extension of my lifelong visual pursuits, I bought a copy. It is indeed an excellent book, and I’m very glad that I spent the twenty quid on it, but not for the reasons you might think. Having read it, I decided that I would have neither the time or the patience required for acquiring and processing (especially the latter) deep sky images. Consequently, it may well be that spending twenty pounds now has saved me vastly more in the future!

The book only deals with  deep sky imaging, and it may be that I still have a go with webcam imaging of solar system subjects, which looks a lot less faff.

Just my opinion, of course, and I have the greatest admiration for those who do take the time and trouble to produce the breathtaking deep sky images we all enjoy seeing.

 

[carastro]

I have never read the book as I got into astrophotography long before I heard about it and as is usual with me I tend to dive in at the deep end, make lots of mistakes but learn by them and this includes having bought the wrong equipment in the first place, but that was before I decided to start imaging.  

I have heard it recommended many many times so it looks like in your case it will save you the expense and the long learning curve.  

Speaking personally I enjoy the processing, and find planetary imaging more difficult than deep sky imaging so I gave it up, but every-one is different so don't be put off by me.

There is also great satisfaction once you have managed to produce something decent.

Carole 

Edited June 9, 2019 by carastro

[Gina]

Processing deep sky images is a steep learning curve and DSS imaging needs an enormous amount of patience but the results can be highly rewarding.

[barkis]

Even the Hubble telescope data needs processing before the gems it captures can give us such pleasure. I know Steve R. will understand where you are coming from, and certainly won't mind at all.  His books are primarily targeted at Deep Sky imaging, and they do that very adequately. There is of course the use of one shot colour CCD cameras, which ease the burden of processing somewhat, also there is the Mono route, and personally, I really like the Mono images, they seem more dramatic on many Deep Sky targets.

Best of luck with your AP, I'm sure you will do well.

Ron.

[tomato]

Contrary to a lot of imagers, I don’t get a buzz from the processing, I breath a big sigh of relief if my raw subs are of sufficient quality that I won’t have to delve too much into the deep and dark art of image processing. This invariably means that my end results are never as good as they could be than if they were in the hands of a capable processor and maybe this will change when I have more time on my hands, but at the moment, image capture is what it’s all about.

[Demonperformer]

It depends on what you want to achieve. I have found that the 'live stacking' option in Sharpcap has helped me tremendously. It not only puts all your subs together as you are going along (so you can see the picture developing), but also allows histogram adjustments to be made at the same time. I can save a 'finished article' and also the stacked data for further processing later if I wish. Saves a lot of time and disk space. OK, they are the astro equivalent of holiday snaps, but they are good enough for me.