The only mandatory equipment needed to practice astrophography is a camera. Everything else can help you improve your final results or make your life easier, but is not mandatory. That's why the starting point of my equipment starts chronologically with my first real camera. Later, I bought my first newtonian telescope with equatorial motorized mount. However, I must make emphasis and repeat that the lack of a telescope will never prevent you from getting nice pictures, especially (but not necessarily) in a dark sky. There are several post-processing techniques and software that will help you get there even without any telescope or tracking device.
Canon EOS T5 1200D
I bought this camera in 2015. It came along with the EF-S 18-55mm lenses and the EF-S 75-300mm lenses. In 2019, I additionally bought the EF-S 10-18mm wide angle lenses.
This camera can be used for landscape astrophotography with the help of a tripod and any of its lenses, or even wide field astrophotography by using a telescope with a motorized mount in piggyback mode. However, I mostly use it attached to a telescope using a T-Ring, allowing me to use it for planetary and deep sky astrophotography. |
SkyWatcher Black Diamond 150/750
In the year 2017 I bought this telescope with the idea of start capturing deep sky objects with more detail. This is a newtonian telescope, which allows a nice augmentation without needing a long tube. These are its specifications:
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SkyWatcher EQ3-2 Equatorial Motorized Mount
Before I moved to Spain, I used to have a small refractor telescope with an altazimuth motorized mount. However, this type of mount is not good for astrophotography, because in long exposure frames (with more than 5 seconds), stars will look highly eccentric, or maybe even present trails depending of the part of the sky being followed. This is because even if the telescope is following the object in the sky, it is not rotating with it.
When I bought the Black Diamond 150/750 telescope in 2017, it included a EQ3-2 mount. This mount is one of the most basic equatorial mounts. It can use a DC motor to keep track of the sky through the AR axis. Optionally, another DC motor can be added to the DEC axis to help you control you telescope easier, which I did. This mount also allows to install a polar scope for a better alignment to the true north axis. This is very important to avoid star trails in long exposure shots. |
Stacking and Post-Processing Softwares
A huge part of astrophotography is spent in front of your laptop (probably even more than with your camera). This is because the objects we are trying to capture most of the time are extremely faint, being the only exceptions the planets and the Moon (also the Sun can be a target, but I have no experience there and it can be really dangerous). Since they are so faint, we need to capture as much light as possible, which is translated into really long exposures. However, even the best mount with the best tracking system will eventually fail i we try a single 120 minutes exposure, for example. That's why it is better to take 120 different frames of one minute each frame. Theoretically, that should contain the same amount of data, and avoid the start trail problem. However, if we do this, then we need to put everything together. That process is call 'Stacking', and there is a lot of different tools that can help you with it. Then, after stacking, we still want to do some post-processing to allow us to enhance the image by reducing noise, maximizing contrast and saturation, bringing up details, among other things.
I will now mention some of the software I have used:
I will now mention some of the software I have used:
Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom
One of the most world wide spreaded image edition softwares, with an approximate price of 40€. Even if not specifically designed for astrophotography processing, it is powerful enough to do a very good job. It is possible to stack all images taken in a single session and make an average. Then, post-processing of the image can continue until you get a good enough result. |
Deep Sky Stacker
This 100% free software is a typical first step to any beginner. It is very intuitive and allows you stack one or more sessions together. It also allows you to include bias, darks, dark flats and flat frames to your stacking process, which will enhance your final result. After stacking, DSS is extremely limited on its post-processing capabilities, so it is recommend to only use it for stacking and then moving to another software. |
Pixinsight
In my own opinion, this is the best astrophotography software there is. It covers everything from stacking until post-processing. It has a high learning curve, but there is a lot of help online, on its own forum, Youtube or several blogs. However, it is quite expensive: 200€ for a life time license. You can first apply for a 45 days free trial, but if you think you will be shooting the stars for a long time, then it is money well spent. |
Other support softwares
In order to take advantage of every session at its best, it is a good idea to plan your night ahead. In order to do that, I recommend using the following softwares:
- Stellarium: This free software allows you to see exactly how the sky will look at any moment, depending on your location and light pollution. You can also input the values of your equipment (telescope, camera, lenses) and see how an image would look like.
- Stellar Map: This free mobile app is similar to Stellarium but a little bit more limited. However, the fact of being a mobile app makes it extremely useful when working on the field.
- PS Align: This is also a free mobile app, and it shows the exact position of Polaris in order to correctly align your equatorial scope. However, the polar scope is necessary.
- PIPP: This free software allows you to convert almost any video format into AVI (which is useful in other software), and let's you select the best frames. It is an excellent start point for the stacking process of planetary videos in planetary astrphotography.
- Registax: This free software is commonly used the most for planetary astrophotography, and allows you to stack an AVI video and make some basic post-processing.