night sky photography

Shooting Stars eBook

How to Photograph the Moon and Stars with your DSLR


Ever wished you could capture stunning images of the night sky? Thought you needed complicated and expensive equipment?

Shooting Stars, written by David Malin Astrophotography Award winner Phil Hart, will show you how to shoot your own stunning images of the moon and the stars with just your digital SLR and a tripod. It will teach you about five key styles of night sky photography and the camera settings required for each:

  • Twilight landscapes
  • Night sky scenes (short exposures)
  • Star trails (long exposures)
  • The Moon
  • Night sky timelapse videos

The updated 2021 edition includes an entire new section on 'Tracking the Stars', an introduction to long-exposure astrophotography, and image processing, with portable equatorial tracking mounts.

If you've ever wanted to photograph the night sky, I'm very confident this eBook will help you a lot!

Wednesday 26th May 2021 would be the first lunar eclipse in three years, although it was only barely total, with the Moon completely inside Earth's shadow for just 14 minutes or so. But as usual, I would bite off more than I could likely chew.

Composite image with Moon correctly positioned relative to Earth's shadow

28
Feb

Shooting Stars Camera List

The Field Guide in the Shooting Stars eBook includes a short description of how to find ten most commonly used settings for night sky photography of the moon and stars (astrophotography) on all of the following cameras.

28
Feb

Updating your Shooting Stars eBook

If you have purchased Shooting Stars eBook previously, you can update to Version 4 with the entire new section on 'Tracking the Stars' - an introduction to long-exposure astrophotography, and image processing, with the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer or other portable equatorial tracking mounts.

Referring to your existing copy of the eBook, use the title of Page 24 as a 'Promo Code' in the shopping cart (not case sensitive), for a 75% discount and get your updated copy of Shooting Stars for just $4.95. 

10
Jan

Geminid Meteor 'Shower' - December 2020

Geminid Meteor Shower - Composite Image - Monday 14th and Tuesday 15th December 2020

Despite living in the southern hemisphere, with no moon and a clear night or two forecast, I decided to have a crack at capturing Geminid meteors in December 2020. But I was a bit rusty.

01
Feb

Mount Greenoch Lunar Eclipse

The tonne of astrophotography equipment that I hauled to Idaho and back for the total solar eclipse in August had remained in the shed until the week before this lunar eclipse, and most of it till eclipse day itself. With summer at Camp Cooinda and a job that doesn't shut down over the holiday period either it was time to dust things off, put them back together and hastily remember how to use them. A sensible approach would be to focus on just one or two cameras, but as usual I couldn't resist putting all my cameras into service and aiming for one of everything.. widefield, timelapse, composite, tele-photo and telescopic images of the eclipse.

The evening 'highlight' of six days back country skiing in NSW with Tim and Eric was the planetary alignment of Venus, Mercury and Jupiter in the evening sky. I had only a compact Canon Powershot G1X Mark II with me and it took a few nights to get the weather and scenery to cooperate but after an hour of trapsing around and lying down in the snow and wind I managed to capture this shot on our last night out.

Planets align over Snowy Mountains

Planets align over snowy mountains under moonlight (from bottom Venus, Mercury, Jupiter)
Canon Powershot G1X Mark II, Panorama 2 x 10 secs, f3.5, ISO400

26
Sep

What the Aurora Really Looks Like

Inspired by Harald Moltke - Painter of the Aurora

There are two key messages about what you see in this video:

  • All of the digital imagery is animated and displayed in real-time.
  • Colours have been de-saturated to match the visual appearance.

It's no surprise that seeing the aurora is on many people's 'bucket list'. But with the proliferation of digital images and timelapse videos of the aurora, those same people may travel with unrealistic expectations of what they will see with their own eyes.

About Phil

 
Phil Hart
Engineer by day, astronomer by night.
 
Phil Hart has been enjoying and photographing the night sky for nearly thirty years. His award winning photos have been published in books, magazines and popular websites around the world.
10
Mar

Shooting Stars Camera Models

My Shooting Stars eBook will help you with great information about using any digital SLR for night sky photography. In particular, the field guide includes information on where to find the ten most common night sky photography settings on the dials and menus of all of these DSLR camera models:

Canon:

  • 700D/Rebel T5i, 650D/Rebel T4i, 600D/Rebel T3i, 550D, 500D, 450D
  • 1200D/Rebel T5, 1100D/Rebel T3, 1000D/Rebel XS
  • 70D, 60D, 50D, 40D, 30D, 20D
  • 6D, 5D Mark III, 5D Mark II, 5D, 7D Mark II, 7D
  • 1DX, 1DC, 1Ds Mark III

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