Astrophotography

This is one of my first attempts at astrophotography. Terry sent
me a link to a webpage about this type of photography because
he thought it might be something I would be interested in, and
he was right. I was surprised at how easy this is to do. The
following are the camera settings I used to capture these stars
in the night sky on December 2nd.

Camera settings

• Program Mode - Set to Manual.

• Autofocus - Turn off, or set to Manual.

• White Balance - Set to Daylight or use a
• custom white balance (especially if your
  
• camera is modified).

• Drive - Set to One Shot.

• ISO - This is discussed in detail in a following section,
  
• but generally should be set to 1600 or 800 for long
  
• exposure deep-sky astrophotos.

• Metering - Generally doesn't matter, but you can try
  
• setting it to Spot if you are shooting the Moon or Sun
  
• (with proper filtration)

• Exposure Compensation - Set to Zero, no exposure
  
• compensation. Doesn't really matter because you are
  
• not using autoexposure.

• Shutter Speed - Set to the exposure you want, up to
  
• 30 seconds can usually be dialed in directly. For longer
  
• than 30 seconds, set to Bulb. On some cameras, Bulb
  
• may be a separate exposure mode setting, or it may be
  
• accessed on the shutter speed dial past the 30 second
  
• setting.

• Self Timer - If you don't have a remote release, you
  
• can use the camera's self-timer to trip the shutter so
  
• you don't have to touch the camera, which will help
  
• reduce vibrations and possible star trailing.