An open star cluster is a young bundle of stars, irregularly shaped and found in the galactic plane. They contain hundreds of stars unstably bound together, and they’re visible from earth. The Pleiades (M45) is an example of an Open Cluster. Open star clusters are small collections of young stars, irregular in shape and numerous…
The M106 Galaxy (also known as NGC 4258) is an intermediate spiral galaxy located in the northern constellation Canes Venatici. This galaxy lies approximately 23 million light-years away from Earth. In the amateur astrophotography image below, you can see the gas and dust of the spiral arms spreading outward from the core of the galaxy….
Nightscape photography involves capturing a landscape-style image at night. It can include the beautiful Milky Way, a starry sky, or your favorite constellation. This is a type of astrophotography where long exposure images are taken to reveal the beautiful light of a seemingly ‘dark’ sky. Star photography requires quality optics, and some camera lenses are better…
The Sigma 24mm F/1.4 lens is an interesting choice for astrophotography, particularly wide-angle Milky Way photography. With an f-ratio of F/1.4, this Sigma art series lens can pull in a lot of light under a dark night sky. While a few lenses in their art-series line-up are well-suited for low-light photography, I consider the 24mm…
The Radian Raptor 61 is a triplet apochromatic refractor telescope for astrophotography. It features a compact design with features custom-suited for wide-field, deep-sky astrophotography. Since the Raptor arrived in September, I have taken some of my best astrophotography images to date with it. In this review, I’ll share all of the image examples I have…
The Lobster Claw Nebula (Sharpless 157) is a bright emission nebula. It lies near the edge of the northern constellation Cassiopeia, bordering on Cepheus. As you’ll soon see in my long-exposure image, this bright HII region is surrounded by many more interesting deep-sky objects. It sits very close in the sky to another popular emission…
Last week, I photographed the Wizard Nebula with my camera and telescope in the backyard. The final image includes 24 individual exposures of 4-minutes each, for a grand total of 1.5 hours. Despite a bright moon interfering, it is by far my best image of the Wizard Nebula to date. In this post, I’ll explain…
The Optolong L-eXtreme filter is now being used in backyards across the globe, which is great news for those that take astrophotography images in heavy light pollution. This astrophotography filter features even narrower bandpasses than last year’s L-eNhance, making it perfect for nebula photography from the city. The Optolong L-eXtreme filter isolates the H-alpha (Ha),…
There are four distinct types of galaxies in the universe, elliptical, spiral, barred spiral, and irregular. Although these are the four main types, there are various types of galaxies and the way in which they are classified is by their shape. A galaxy is a cluster of stars, gas, and dust that are kept together…
The following astrophotography tips apply whether you shoot deep-sky objects in space with a DSLR camera and telescope or with a simple camera lens on a tripod. If you are just getting your feet wet and looking to capture a photo of the night sky that includes colorful, sharp stars and maybe a galaxy or…
The North Star is Polaris, located in the constellation Ursa Minor. It does not sit directly on the Earth’s north celestial pole, but it is very close. In the northern hemisphere, Polaris is easy to identify using the Little Dipper as a reference. The stars and constellations in the night sky appear to rotate around…
In a recent video, I shared my results using a $200 DSLR for astrophotography. In a hobby known for being very expensive, I think it is very interesting that such results can be obtained using an old, inexpensive camera. In this post, I’ll prove to you that incredible astrophotography results are possible with an old,…