{"id":30,"date":"2017-11-08T20:39:46","date_gmt":"2017-11-08T20:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pterodattilo.com\/wp\/?p=30"},"modified":"2017-11-08T21:47:46","modified_gmt":"2017-11-08T21:47:46","slug":"3-photographing-the-night-sky-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pterodattilo.com\/?p=30","title":{"rendered":"3. Photographing the night sky: Shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Setup your gear<\/b><\/p>\n

Mount the camera on the tripod, attach the remote shutter if you have one<\/p>\n

Camera setup<\/b><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Manual mode<\/li>\n
  2. Raw output<\/li>\n
  3. Turn off all noise reduction settings<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    Focus<\/b><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. point to a bright star, the brightest in the sky possibly, avoid planets if you can identify them<\/li>\n
    2. Set ISO to max allowed value<\/li>\n
    3. Setup shutter speed to bulb or to the lowest speed available<\/li>\n
    4. Turn on Live View<\/li>\n
    5. If you are far from focus, it is likely you won\u2019t see any star: LCD is black. In this case make a test shoot with shutter speed 2-3 seconds to help you finding it on the LCD screen<\/li>\n
    6. Focus using Live view: try to get the smallest size possible for the star.<\/li>\n
    7. Hint: perfect focus means not loosing any light from faint stars, so the closer you are to it the more stars you should see<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Prepare the camera for shooting<\/b><\/p>\n

        \n
      1. point it \u00a0to the sky portion you want to shoot (as for focus, make test shoots)<\/li>\n
      2. Set ISO 1-2 steps below camera maximum<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Setting the Shutter Speed<\/b><\/p>\n

          \n
        1. make test shoots to setup the lowest speed (max amount of time) for the stars not to trail; Rule of thumb is 600\/(full frame focal length).<\/li>\n
        2. Watch out! this is easy to overestimate and then you\u2019ll find micro trails when looking at the pictures from a computer screen<\/li>\n
        3. Is the correct exposure? look at the histogram: if it peaks over 30-50% of the range reduce the ISO, do not change shutter speed to fix exposure<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          Go! Shoot the \u201cLight Frames\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

          Take as many pictures as you can (for example: 50 or 100, examples of the first post have 30 and 350 frames respectively), beware that after 10-20 minutes you might have to reframe because stars move and your camera is steady. These will be your \u201cLight Frames\u201d<\/p>\n

          Shoot\u00a0the \u201cDark Frames\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

          Put the lens cap on (yes, your pictures will be \u201calmost\u201d dark) and shoot another set of pictures, how many? \u00bc-1\/3 of Light frames are far enough (it is useless to take more than 30 frames)<\/p>\n

          Shoot the \u201cBias\/offset frames\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

          With lens cap on, setup shutter speed to fastest (shortest time, usually 1\/4000s); how many? as for darks<\/p>\n

          Finally: preparing for post processing<\/b><\/p>\n

          You\u2019re ready for post processing: save your pictures on a computer organizing them into different folders, conventional names are LIGHT, DARK and BIAS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          Setup your gear Mount the camera on the tripod, attach the remote shutter if you have one Camera setup Manual mode Raw output Turn off all noise reduction settings Focus point to a bright...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,4,5],"tags":[6,7,8],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pterodattilo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pterodattilo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pterodattilo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pterodattilo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pterodattilo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pterodattilo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37,"href":"https:\/\/www.pterodattilo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions\/37"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pterodattilo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pterodattilo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pterodattilo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pterodattilo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}