Can someone lead me to an astronomy exposure tutorial? Dawn sky?

New member, I did several searches and reviewed the promising results but they didn't address the pre-dawn sky.

Specifically, it's October 11, 2015 and looking upward from the horizon at dawn Mercury, Jupiter, Mars and Venus are in the same sky. They fit in the frame landscape with an 80mm mounted to a D5100.

This morning I witnessed, but didn't capture a crescent moon just below Mercury too. Obviously I'm lamenting the loss of a very special composition, 4 planets and a very thin crescent moon!

I'm thinking manual exposure, manual focus, self-timer on a tripod. But Mercury is so dim. Does just it come down to trial and error?

--Thanks

A specific predawn tutorial? I am not aware of one. However full manual and trial and error are probably what will happen.

That being said, I went out yesterday to do a shot, it was too cloudy for mercury on the horizon, but I got the moon, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus. And as a guideline for you to start with, here are my settings:

8seconds, 35mm, f11, ISO 3200, manual focus to infinity (live view focusing on a star).

This is the photo and I took it around 7am yesterday. Jupiter and mars are there, you just can't see them in this photo of my camera screen. Oh and I shot in Raw format. I went with the high ISO so the sensor would pick up more, quicker. I stopped the aperture down so little light would get in...thus letting the high ISO and shutter speed to work together...if that makes sense.

I hope this helps!



Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk

Essentially it's trial and error to fine tune things. I start with a spot meter reading and an underexposure setting of - 2 stops and place the spot just above the horizon. That usually ensures I'm close.

So much depends on the local sky conditions and how much muck is floating around to catch the predawn light and how high above the horizon it stretches. Your latitude will also effect things at different times of the year. Winter in high latitudes will be different to winter at 25-30° latitude. Ditto summer etc.

Tripod and remote release definitely needed.