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Nikon DSLR Cameras
D3100
Newbie question on shooting the stars
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<blockquote data-quote="starg33ker" data-source="post: 42358" data-attributes="member: 8106"><p>Hey Nick,</p><p>I'm an experienced astronomer and do a little astrophotography on the side (with Nikon D3100). First and foremost, you need dark skies. If you're shooting in the middle of town you won't get results.</p><p></p><p>When doing astrophotography, your camera needs to be on manual with all noise filtering and after effects OFF. The only thing that needs to be on auto is your white balance. This includes auto-focus. What you need to do is to do a full-zoom on the brightest star you can see. Right now Jupiter is high up in the south at sundown and Venus is also quite high in the west. These are great targets to focus on. Also if you photograph later in the night, you'll notice the brightest star in the sky, Sirius, also hanging down in the South. Do a full-zoom so that you can see the star in your viewer (NOT ELECTRONIC VIEWER) and manually focus on it so that it looks a sharp and pinpoint as the end of a tack. Now zoom out, place the camera on a tripod, and do an exposure up to 30 seconds (without polar-alligned tracking) and ISO1600. 800 will work if you have high light-domes and 3200 will work if you really want to pull out more from a dark sky. The Nikon handles exceptionally well. Do the exposures with a timer and remember to never use flash. If you want to "pretty" up your pictures, put a tree in the FOV and light it up with dim flashlight for a few seconds.</p><p></p><p>With practice, you'll get results like these.</p><p></p><p>I took this on at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. 30 seconds @ ISO3200</p><p><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y61/zoeytycoony/DSC_0764copy.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>An experiment with my screw-on fisheye lens 30 seconds @ ISO1600</p><p><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y61/zoeytycoony/DSC_0540.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>And when you hit the bug, you'll invest in a telescope and tracking mount. Then you can do stuff like this! This is about an hours worth of exposures that was stacked. Subs were between 30 seconds to 2 minutes. This is of the Andromeda Galaxy.</p><p><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y61/zoeytycoony/M31rev.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="starg33ker, post: 42358, member: 8106"] Hey Nick, I'm an experienced astronomer and do a little astrophotography on the side (with Nikon D3100). First and foremost, you need dark skies. If you're shooting in the middle of town you won't get results. When doing astrophotography, your camera needs to be on manual with all noise filtering and after effects OFF. The only thing that needs to be on auto is your white balance. This includes auto-focus. What you need to do is to do a full-zoom on the brightest star you can see. Right now Jupiter is high up in the south at sundown and Venus is also quite high in the west. These are great targets to focus on. Also if you photograph later in the night, you'll notice the brightest star in the sky, Sirius, also hanging down in the South. Do a full-zoom so that you can see the star in your viewer (NOT ELECTRONIC VIEWER) and manually focus on it so that it looks a sharp and pinpoint as the end of a tack. Now zoom out, place the camera on a tripod, and do an exposure up to 30 seconds (without polar-alligned tracking) and ISO1600. 800 will work if you have high light-domes and 3200 will work if you really want to pull out more from a dark sky. The Nikon handles exceptionally well. Do the exposures with a timer and remember to never use flash. If you want to "pretty" up your pictures, put a tree in the FOV and light it up with dim flashlight for a few seconds. With practice, you'll get results like these. I took this on at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. 30 seconds @ ISO3200 [IMG]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y61/zoeytycoony/DSC_0764copy.jpg[/IMG] An experiment with my screw-on fisheye lens 30 seconds @ ISO1600 [IMG]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y61/zoeytycoony/DSC_0540.jpg[/IMG] And when you hit the bug, you'll invest in a telescope and tracking mount. Then you can do stuff like this! This is about an hours worth of exposures that was stacked. Subs were between 30 seconds to 2 minutes. This is of the Andromeda Galaxy. [IMG]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y61/zoeytycoony/M31rev.jpg[/IMG] [/QUOTE]
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Newbie question on shooting the stars
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