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Canadian Telescopes - A Beginner's Guide to DSLR Astrophotography (By Jerry Lodriguss) CD BOOK |
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Canadian Telescopes - A Beginner's Guide to DSLR Astrophotography (By Jerry Lodriguss) CD BOOK
Explains how you can get started taking beautiful astrophotos with your DSLR camera with simple and easy techniques
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Latest Version - Third Printing - Updated March 21, 2011This book on CD-ROM by Jerry Lodriguss explains how you can get started taking beautiful astrophotos with your DSLR camera with simple and easy techniques that anyone can learn even if you don't know anything about astronomy or astrophotography. It will show you how it is easy to take great pictures with very modest equipment and basic methods that are within everyone's reach. It will show you how to get the best out of the equipment that you already have.The book explains concepts and techniques in short, easy-to-understand sections that are each devoted to just one aspect of the subject.
You will start out with the very easiest astrophotos that you can take with a simple camera and lens on a fixed tripod. Then you'll learn how to shoot time exposures on a simple inexpensive homemade barn-door tracker that follows the stars as they move across the sky. Finally, you will advance to shooting longer time exposures through your telescope on an equatorial mount. You will learn how to use your camera in manual mode and all of the correct settings to use for astrophotography, as well as easy ways to focus and how to determine the correct exposure to get great pictures. After you have mastered the basics, you'll find out how easy it is to get started with more advanced techniques such as stacking and dark-frame subtraction. With this book you will discover how easy it is to: - Take beautiful astrophotos with just a simple camera on tripod.
- Shoot the Sun, Moon, stars, nebulas, and galaxies.
- Learn how to take time exposures on a simple, homemade, barn-door tracker.
- Use your DSLR camera to shoot through your telescope.
- Determine the correct exposure to use.
- Focus your camera for razor-sharp images.
- Crop and rotate your images.
- Resize and resample.
- Perform brightness, contrast and color correction.
- Diagnose and correct problems and mistakes.
I made just about every mistake you could make when I was first starting out in DSLR astrophotography and did not know what I was doing. There is even a section on common mistakes and problems illustrated with real images so you can see what they look like, and solutions are presented for correcting these issues and errors. You don't have to make these same mistakes because I can show you the easy way to do things correctly. The magic of long exposure astrophotography is that it reveals the beauty and wonder of the universe in things that are too faint to be seen with the eye, even with a telescope. You too can learn the secrets of astrophotography with a DSLR camera! 
Beautiful images such as this one of the Orion, the Hyades and Pleiades can easily be taken with DSLR cameras. This is a simple 30 second exposure at f/3.5 at ISO 1600 taken with an 18-55mm zoom lens and a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XS (1000D) DSLR camera mounted on a fixed tripod.
A Beginner's Guide to DSLR Astrophotography is not a traditional paper book. It is a digital book on CD-ROM that you will be able to view on your computer in any internet web browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Opera.
It offers unique features such as "mouse-overs", such as in the image above, that allow before and after comparisons of images by simply holding the mouse cursor over the image.
A powerful built-in search engine provides automatic links to the pages containing the search terms.
Low-noise DSLR cameras have opened up an exciting new world of digital astrophotography. With this book you can learn how to take remarkably beautiful images of celestial objects with a DSLR camera!
What are you waiting for?
Table Of ContentsChapter 1 - Astronomy Basics - Astronomy and Astrophotography
- Light
- The Sun and Stars
- Distances in Space
- Our Place in the Universe
- How the Night Sky Moves
- Altazimuth vs Equatorial
- Celestial Coordinates
- Constellations
- Finding Your Way Around the Night Sky
Chapter 2 - Telescopes and Mounts - Kinds of Telescopes
- Aperture, Focal Length, Focal Ratio
- Visual Telescopes for Beginner's
- Telescopes for Astrophotography
- Altazimuth Mounts for Astrophotography
- Equatorial Mounts for Astrophotography
- Constructing a Barn-Door Tracker
- Dealing with Dew
- Power and Batteries
- Tracking
Chapter 3 - DSLR Cameras for Astrophotography - Picking a Camera
- How Digital Cameras Work
- Sensors and Pixels
- Camera Features
- Zones and Modes
- File Formats
- ISO Speed and Sensitivity
- Thermal Signal
- In-Camera Noise Reduction
- Remote Releases
Chapter 4 - Camera Lenses for Astrophotography - Camera Lenses
- Aperture
- Focal Length
- Focal Ratio
- Lenses vs Telescopes
- Recommended Canon Lenses
- Recommended Nikon Lenses
- Focusing Camera Lenses
- Filters for Camera Lenses
- Suggested Beginner Lens Set
Chapter 5 - Taking Pictures - A Basic Setup for Astrophotography
- Planning
- Scope Setup
- Polar Alignment
- Focusing
- Finding Your Target
- DSLR Camera Settings for Astrophotography
- Determining the Correct Exposure
- White Balance, Color and Contrast
- 10 Tips for Great Pictures
Chapter 6 - Shooting Setups - Fixed Tripod Astrophotography
- Star Trails
- Barn-Door
- Piggyback
- Prime Focus
- Solar and Lunar Photography
- Afocal
- Eyepiece Projection
- Optical Accessories
- Filtered Shots
Chapter 7 - Image Processing - Monitor Calibration, Color Management
- Software for Image Processing
- Image Evaluation
- Crop and Rotate
- Color Correction
- Contrast Enhancement
- Reducing Noise
- Resizing, Resampling
- Sharpening
- File Formats, Archiving
Chapter 8 - Advanced Techniques - Signals and Noise
- Stacking Light Frames
- Image Calibration
- Image Correction and Enhancement
- Live View "webcam" mode
- Guiding and Autoguiding
- Automation and Computer Control
- Time Lapse Movies from Stills
- Modified Cameras
- Narrowband Filters
Chapter 9 - Things That Go Wrong - Focus
- Trailing
- Inadequate Exposure
- Noise
- Light Pollution
- Vignetting and Gradients
- Optical Aberrations
- Improper Calibration
- Incorrect Processing
- Unexplained Mysteries
Chapter 10 - Wonders in the Sky - Moon, Mars, Venus
- Constellations
- Star Trails
- Coming Night
- Satellites
- Scopes and Stars
- Full Moon
- Crescent Moon
- Venus
- Big and Little Dippers
- The Summer Triangle
- Milky Way
- The Trapezium in M42
- The Pleiades
- Comet Lulin
- Open Cluster M46
- The Ring Nebula
- The Whirlpool Galaxy
- The Double Cluster
- The Dumbbell Nebula
- Nebulas in Cygnus
- Galaxy M33
- The Swan Nebula
- The Sombrero Galaxy
- Reflection Nebula
- Globular Cluster M13
- The Pinwheel Galaxy
- The Orion Nebula
- The Andromeda Galaxy
- Le Gentil 3
- Galaxies M81 and M82
- The Veil Nebula
- Markarian's Chain
- North America Nebula
- Lagoon and Trifid
References and Resources Glossary Searchable Index About the Author
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