If you're getting started in astrophotography, I'm here to save you some time and frustration by
learning from the mistakes of myself and others. Whether you're looking into getting a full-blown
camera and telescope setup, or just starting out with a simple DSLR and tripod, I think this
video will come in handy. The following advice and tips were compiled by myself and the hundreds of
responses I got when I asked the astrophotography community "what's the one piece of advice you
have for beginners". So get ready because the advice I have may surprise you. Number one:
astrophotography is more than just deep-sky imaging, you need to choose an area of interest.
I know that you want to do it all: planets, galaxies, nightscapes, meteor shower time lapses,
but you should narrow down your interests to focus on the equipment and techniques that
are most important to achieve your goals. To me, astrophotography usually means deep-sky images of
galaxy and nebulae, to others it's a nightscape of the winter constellations rising above a
snow-covered mountain. Astrophotography is a close-up of the surface of Mars,
a wide angle shot of the Milky Way, and everything in between. This is why it's difficult to provide
broad astrophotography tips that apply to all aspects of the hobby. You need to decide which
area of the hobby interests you most because the equipment needed varies wildly depending on the
one you choose. I generally stick to tracked, long exposure images through a telescope in
the backyard. A pet peeve of mine is when people generalize astrophotography into just one aspect
and then make rules that confuse beginners. Taking a photo of the Moon using your smartphone through
the eyepiece of a manual dobsonian telescope is still astrophotography, just in its simplest
form. So pick an area of interest early on, don't try to do it all. For me, that's deep-sky
imaging through a telescope in the backyard because it's the most practical way for me to
continue enjoying the hobby. For you, maybe that's wide-angle nightscapes and Milky Way photography,
where a travel friendly, lightweight system makes more sense. Number two: become obsessed with your
own progress. If you're like me, all it takes for you to stay motivated is to make progress
towards your goal. It's a simple concept, but it's difficult to sustain at times. They can be
very small steps but always forward, not back. The reason I say this is because you need to
appreciate your own personal progress, not someone else's, to stay excited about astrophotography.
The game of astrophotography is best played on the court not the sidelines because only you will know
the true meaning and pride you have behind each photo. Will the average Joe see your photo and say
"that's unbelievable"?. Lots will but others will say "I've seen better" or "you could have just
found a better picture online". The difference is this image was captured by you, someone that
didn't even know how to use a telescope a few months ago. You spent the time perfecting your
craft to capture and share an object that you chose. You watched the image get better and and
better over time as you collected more and more light on the object. Comparing your latest version
of a deep-sky target with one you previously took is a real eye-opener. You should be very proud of
the progress you've made. Astrophotography is not for the dabblers, it takes grit to get to
the finish line, which brings me to my next point. Number three: if it were easy everyone
would do it. Astrophotography, in all aspects, is hard. Expect to fail several times, expect
to get frustrated and discouraged. This is not a hobby you walk into and get immediate results,
so if that's the game we're playing, adjust your expectations accordingly. Celebrate any amount
of progress because it truly is an amazing feat. You balanced your rig, you focused your camera,
maybe you set everything up and didn't get a single picture but you will next time because you
now know a pivotal step of the process, through experience, that you now know forever. The steep
learning curve of astrophotography is the barrier to entry and why I respect anyone that has chosen
to take the challenge on. We are different breed and it's why what we do makes us extraordinary.
Number four: take online advice with a grain of salt. There are some amazing resources out
there to learn astrophotography on your own. YouTube, Facebook groups, Reddit, forums - the
problem is there's a lot of conflicting advice out there and a lot of the guys that like to hang
out there can be a little opinionated. My wife Ashley recently got started in astrophotography
herself and I cringe at the idea of her posting a question about her Sky-Watcher mount in one of
the forums and someone saying "you got the belt mod done right?" "You re-grease the worm gear,
don't even bother using it until you've done that or your guiding will be terrible. Throw out all of
your subs that aren't .3 Arc seconds per pixel or less." That's the kind of information that scares
people away from our hobby for good. The scary part is many people read the hive mind expert
advice and start telling others about it as if it were true. I've even read outrageous stories about
about myself written online by a stranger, the internet is a weird place. So like I said take
everything with a grain of salt and realize that some of the opinions and beliefs out there aren't
always true. Instead reach out to an individual astrophotographer who's around your skill level,
or better yet a little ahead of you, and kick ideas off of the. Unlike the anonymous faceless
keyboard warriors, they don't have the incentive to manufacture drama for attention or boast
about their experience. There's a good chance you'll make some lifelong friends through these
authentic connections as well. Number five: your tracking mount is really important so get a good
one. Beginners like to focus on the camera and telescope used for a photo they see shared online.
"What telescope did you use?" is the most common question I get when someone sees one of my astro
photos for the first time on Twitter or Instagram. The telescope is essential, yes, but it's the
equatorial tracking mount that makes it all possible. Whether it it's a small star tracker or
a full-blown computerized go-to equatorial mount. You can make your life a lot easier by choosing
one that's known to be reliable. The basics, like polar alignment and balance, may seem obvious but
I still see beginners getting this wrong early on and blaming their equipment. Take the time to
understand exactly how your tracking mount works and its limitations, this will be your platform
for almost every type of astrophotography you do. Once you're comfortable with consistently setting
it up properly and polar aligning it, you are free to experiment with new camera settings, filters,
and techniques. Aim for a motorized equatorial telescope mount, not an alt-az, that has a listed
maximum payload capacity well over the weight of your current imaging gear. If it's only 11 pounds,
like this one, no problem. There are still plenty of configuration possibilities available. I
really like the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer star tracker, the beefier EQ6-R Pro, and most recently,
the super portable ZWO AM5. Look at what others are using and the imaging system they have riding
on top. If they consistently pump out great images using it, that's a pretty good sign. Number six:
don't start with a long focal length telescope. A long focal length, anything over a thousand
millimeters really, means a higher native magnification. So when you attach a camera to it,
this is the field of view that you will get. If you're used to camera lenses,
300 millimeters is considered to be a long telephoto lens but telescopes take this to the
extreme. A popular choice for astrophotographers starting out is the Celestron C8 SCT, a telescope
with a focal length of over 2 000 millimeters. Don't get me wrong this is a great scope,
but I believe it will make that first tracked long exposure image of a galaxy or nebula harder
to achieve. But High Max magnification is good right? We want to photograph planets up close
or small galaxies. Well we do but, the learning curve goes way up when you're pointed at a very
small area of the sky. It makes alignment, finding objects, and accurate tracking more
difficult simply because it literally magnifies any tiny errors you've made along the way. Instead
start wide and give yourself a break. A compact refractor telescope in the 400 millimeter range
is ideal and it will make everything easier. No matter which camera you use, you should now be
able to find and focus on the brightest stars in the sky and begin your first tracked long exposure
image. Once you have mastered the process using your wide field setup, increasing magnification
and focal length will be a lot more approachable. Number seven: get ready for image processing. If
you're a daytime photographer and already know your way around Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop,
great, but even then you'll still have to make a massive shift in the way you go about editing
your photos. The process of creating an astro photo is a lot more than just creative edits
to enhance color, contrast and clarity It's image stacking, its hours of integration,
calibration frames, and learning the art of pre-processing. I know that some beginners
have very little experience with image editing software going in, for these folks it's going
to require a lot of time and energy to get up to speed. Just like the image acquisition portion,
the processing side of things can be a lot more enjoyable if you have realistic expectations going
in. I personally love the image processing side of astrophotography and I think eventually beginners
will too. There's something about spending a few hours really digging into your data and revealing
that hidden beauty within it that is most satisfying and rewarding. There are many great
tutorials here on YouTube for whatever software you're using. I've created a beginner friendly
image processing guide that aims to say save a lot of time and frustration for you and I've linked it
in the description. Just remember that when you make a choice for the image editing software,
you'll want to stick with it. I recommend starting out with Adobe Photoshop and gradually applying
new techniques as you learn them in PixInsight to your workflow, that's what I did. Number eight:
the weather is cruel and you will obsess over it. I personally check three to four weather
apps multiple times per day - I've been doing this for 10 years now and it is not healthy. Hold on,
I haven't checked the long-term forecast in a few hours. Still, terrible. Clear Outside,
The Clear Sky Chart, Astrospheric -they're all pretty good but, unless you live in the desert
and/or shoot remotely, you're going to experience lots of cloudy nights. They're often timed out
for when a new piece of equipment arrives or when you're particularly excited to continue or start a
new project. It's probably the most devastatingly helpless part of astrophotography and it will
hurt. Even worse is when a clear night is coming up and you have real life plans that you can't get
out of. Work nights, birthday parties, sporting events - these will all be clear nights. Out of
all the abuse we take as astrophotographers, I think dealing with weather is the worst. However,
it gets easier to stomach when you commit to astrophotography as a lifelong journey. So you
missed Orion this winter, he will be back next year I promise you that and you'll be ready.
Number nine: astrophotography is expensive and there's no way around it. Photography in general
is already expensive but astrophotography takes it one step further. Even if you have a budget in
mind you will go over it, and over and over. As a full-time astrophotographer, it's a little easier
to justify my expenses now. But when I started I purchased my first telescope mount on the old
credit card and said to myself "if I don't get this thing to work, I'm out a grand". It's a nice
incentive to get it all running. Now I don't want to scare you away if you have a limited budget and
you want to get in the game. Used gear, smaller setups, older cameras - you can do so much with
this type of equipment and I bet it will be a lot more rewarding using this type of gear compared
to someone that just buys their way to the top. If you're looking for a specific number, I'm going to
say that it's going to be really tough to build a deep-sky imaging kit for under two thousand
dollars and this will be a smaller scale system for wide field targets. But, if you're thrifty
and hungry, I bet you could put together one for even less. Number 10: the social media sharing
joys and let downs. Now I don't know what your plans are for your images when they're done,
but chances are you want someone to see them. You can print them out to hang them on your wall, you
can post them on your personal website, or you can share them on social media and watch those likes
come rolling in, right? Well sometimes. But the social media landscape has changed a lot over the
last few years and astrophotographers are using feed the algorithm tactics to get more eyeballs
on their work. This is all cool with me, but just remember that hitting an arbitrary number of likes
on your image has nothing to do with how good it is. Yes of course it feels good when others
appreciate your work but if that's what you need to enjoy the hobby, I don't think it's going to
work. Follow astrophotographers with a particular style that you enjoy for inspiration and don't get
too hung up on likes and views. It sounds obvious but it can really get in your head and it is not
why you started this hobby. I've recently got into printing large high-resolution photos of
my work to display in my home and eventually for sale. The process has been refreshingly different
from my usual way of dressing up an image to share it on a phone screen. Number 11: get out
there and shoot. I can't believe I have to say this one but Alan Dyer is right - stop watching
YouTube videos...(wait a minute) and just get outside and practice. Don't try to over prepare
yourself with too much information and nail your first attempt, it just won't happen. When you're
out there in the field, you'd be surprised at how different everything feels and what sticks
and what didn't. If your expectations are set to just have a night of experimentation and learning,
you will enjoy every minute of it. This is exactly the way I got hooked on astrophotography,
trial and error with my camera and telescope in the backyard. Just gotta get out there and start
taking pictures, they will get better. I've found that a lot of the experts in the Facebook groups
and forums take very little, if any, actual photos themselves. You can have all the answers but
until you're executing on the advice you give ,you haven't even really started. Number 12:
Dark Skies make a big difference. If you've only ever shot from a light polluted city, you may be
surprised at how much of a difference dark skies make. It's not just that the quality and detail of
your images will be better. it's that the entire process seems to become easier and more enjoyable.
You are no longer fighting against the light pollution of a washed out sky and trying to find
ways around it. You can see more stars in the sky and even deep-sky objects. The images you capture
there will be easier to process and you will need less overall integration time to create an amazing
image. Any chance you get to set up your camera and telescope under a dark sky, take it. I like
to go on Astro adventures with my wife Ashley on new moon weekends. We'll look at the light
pollution map and book an Airbnb last minute when we're certain that the forecast will be clear.
Make those dark sky trips count and go after the fainter targets while you're there. Number 13:
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. This one sounds like a a joke but it's seriously something to consider
if you're new to the hobby. If you're not used to spending a night outside, alone in the dark,
it can be a little freaky out there. If you've set up at a dark sky spot away from home that is truly
dark, which is exactly what you want by the way, you will hear every stick break, every rustle in
the bushes, and question why every car that drives by is out so late. You need to be in the right
mindset to stick it out or you'll completely freak out and pack up and go home. A word to the wise
hear a small stereo or your phone playing classic rock music can really help ease the tension,
that's my routine anyway. Number 14: join your local astronomy club. I know, I know, you're a
lone wolf that likes to figure things out on your own, you're resourceful, you can learn anything
you want online. That's that's me too, but you will save a years worth of struggle by hanging
around the astrophotographers in your local astronomy club, and trust me there will be a die
hard pack of them. I'm talking in-person hangouts with people that geek out just as much much as you
do about photographing space. One-on-one advice based on the gear you currently own from someone
that's been there. This is precisely how I managed to complete that incredible, rare accomplishment
of taking a tracked, guided exposure of a deep-sky object through my telescope.Sometimes you just
need a responsive guide or mentor to walk you through the steps in person. This is something
that I, through the screen on YouTube, cannot do for you. Some final thoughts -astrophotography is
a hobby you can enjoy for a lifetime. Don't rush the early stages because you're impatient for a
result. Some of my favorite memories in this hobby are from that first summer when I got
started and the early victories I achieved. Photographing the night sky, in any form,
is a challenge and it's something that most people will never get to experience. Enjoy
the process - the crushing lows, the short-lived highs, the pictures that leave you speechless,
and the ones that make you want to sell your telescope. It's the journey to the image that
makes it fun. Life is too short to spend it on the sidelines watching and critiquing others - get
out there capture, create, inspire. This is where the true joy of astrophotography lies -trust me!
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