Photograph the star sky

I've loved looking up at the stars since I was a child, canvas prints and I still miss those long, carefree summer nights. Shooting stars is to enjoy the process, escape the city under the high rhythm of life, come to the wilderness, stretch the body, lie on the back and stare at, the top of the head that deep sky, their mood can be quiet.

First of all, we need to let you know that today's talk about astrophotography, in fact, is just a branch of the category of astrophotography, the need for shooting equipment and environment is not as high as expected. However, looking at the romantic and beautiful stars is not easy to take, which requires the photographer to have some basic astronomical knowledge, and enough patience, canvas prints online of course, but also a love of the sky, persistent heart.

First, sky explanation

You may ask if you don't have a basic knowledge of astronomy, how can you take a good picture of the stars. Yes, the knowledge of astronomy really needs to be cultivated slowly; it needs to have a general understanding and even a gradual familiarity with the stars throughout the day. It will take some time, but it will not be difficult. Kidd is here with his software called Tellurium, floating frames australia a very powerful real-time sky simulation that makes it very easy to find different constellations and bright stars in the sky when shooting outdoors. You can also use this software, combined with the actual outdoor stargazing, slowly familiar with the sky overhead.

This is the constellation in the actual hoshino shooting. I have connected the constellations with lines to make them easier to identify.

In fact, some famous constellations are composed of a few to a few very bright stars, so you just need to remember these iconic stars, you can slowly identify more constellations. In Greek mythology, there are also many story associations between the constellations, which are also a good way to use to help get familiar with the stars.

Second, Classification of astrophotography

Astrophotography is generally divided into two categories:

One kind is deep sky objects photography, main subject for galaxies, nebulae, clusters, fainter deep sky objects such as planets, so very high to the requirement of filming equipment, a suitable to shoot the target object of astronomical telescope and tracking precision of equatorial is essential. Also ask the photographer to astronomical knowledge and high expensive equipment guarantee, to the requirement of the shooting environment and the weather is also very demanding.

And another kind is today to talk about the star wild photography; shooting content is mainly the Milky Way, star scenery, with a variety of characteristics of the landscape together to achieve a wide and beautiful visual effect.

The only equipment used in hoshino photography is an entry-level DSLR digital camera, a shutter speed control shutter release, a sufficiently stable tripod, a lightweight hoshino equator (example), and various focal sections of the DSLR lens, and the necessary wide Angle lens.

Third, the tool - equator instrument

The main purpose of the design of the equatorial instrument is to overcome the effect of the rotation of the earth on stargazing and shooting. The application of the celestial field photography is to eliminate the star-point dragline phenomenon caused by the long exposure. In deep space photography, precise star tracking is used to ensure that the focus of a long exposure is accurate and not offset.

Meteors appear more clearly and brightly in a background that is not in the orbit of the star

The equator instrument can be used selectively according to the different shooting environment and landscape. In the following, I will see most of the hoshino photos, which are actually not taken with the equator instrument.

Fourth, Matters needing attention

Next, we need to choose a good time for shooting. Generally speaking, the beginning and end of the lunar month are the time when we can avoid the interference of the full moon, because the full moon will cover many dark stars invisible to our naked eyes, resulting in a lack of stars and feelings. In addition, we should pay attention to the environment without moonlight. The landscape may need a longer exposure time to appear. In the environment where the naked eye cannot see the landscape or can't see the five fingers, the landscape cannot be exposed normally, no matter how long you expose it. Bright lights, such as torches, must not appear unless a weak light can illuminate the foreground. To sum up, it is not difficult to see that the influence and effect of moonlight on starfield photography is a decisive factor.

In addition, when the atmosphere is transparent, the contrast is enough, the naked eye to see more stars, high visibility, avoid the light pollution of the city, is also a necessary shooting conditions, generally far from the city 20-80 kilometers of open mountainous areas, you can look up to see the naked eye clearly visible Milky Way and stars. Even where I live in the great basin and where it is foggy all the year round, you can see the Milky Way as long as you leave the city in good weather, so you don't have to worry about losing sight of the stars.

What needs to be reminded is that hoshir photography is mostly carried out in the wild, so we must pay attention to the safety and warmth at night, it is best to go with three people to ensure safety, in case of bandits and poisonous insects and wild animals, into the night, the temperature is very low, must take enough warm clothes.

As for the choice of lighting source for shooting, if you don't want your pupils to suddenly be illuminated by white woven light after getting used to the darkness and then suddenly shrink to make things invisible, then you must choose red light source for viewing, assembling, moving and other actions. Cover the surface of a flashlight or camp lamp with a red film.

Shoot the stars

The following focus is the specific shooting and exposure methods of hoshino photography:

1, you can try to check before dark, find the right position of composition, set up a tripod and camera, wait for night, this is more conducive to saving time than the night after the head around, but also relatively safer.

2. Adjust the composition in the viewfinder. If it is too dark to see, please estimate the composition and shoot the sample, and then adjust it gradually.

3. The lens is set to M manual focusing mode. Turn the focusing ring to infinity and back about 2-5mm.

Why to rotary, emphasize the focus problem here, go out to a dark as seen in the viewfinder, surely not af mode, manual focus also can't focus accurately, by this time can only be used to estimate focus, usually star wild landscape photography is far larger, so set the focus at infinity, but the infinity of the camera is really than star is far, so must the fallback position, specifically how much back, according to the lens may be some differences, the best way is to have the moon near the horizon, focus on the moon, no moon, only gradually exposed sample for comparison before and after fine-tuning, The smallest stars are preferred.

4. Set the camera to M or B for manual exposure

A, if you don't have the shutter release, it can only use M file, your biggest exposure time can be set for 30 seconds, then use the largest aperture, or narrow one, in order to minimize the fuselage shutter jitter, can also open the reflector rose pattern, ISO first set to 400, after enough brightness is gradually increasing sensitivity, because the other two groups of parameters has reached its limits. Thirty seconds is usually enough to expose normal stars and earth.

B, if you have a shutter release, please set B, aperture can use maximum aperture, aim to minimize the exposure time, iso 200 or higher, and then manually locate and remove shutter release button control exposure time, generally the most widely used of the focal length less than 42 seconds (because more than 42 seconds, star of the towing line becomes obvious, unless you use a longer exposure star trails photography)

Case diagram:

I believe you can see the pattern, the longer the lens focal length, and the shorter the safe exposure time.

According to the focal length of the lens, it can also be concluded that the wide-angle lens is suitable for shooting the wide galaxy, while the medium and telephoto lenses can be used selectively according to the size of the constellations occupying the sky and the shooting environment.

Fifth, about the composition and framing, because the star field photography and traditional photography is mutually, so composition can also be used scratchable latex, golden, diagonal, extension, symmetric method such as composition, only the composition of objects into the landscape and the Milky Way, it is important to note that the composition of a picture, can according to the to consider the composition of the galaxy, as far as possible to complete the Milky Way.

Teach you to shoot stars from scratch

This picture is the result of luck and computing, picture is not a meteor across, but the Hubble space telescope's solar panels at the moment of reflected sunlight, the most bright Jupiter in across the night sky, green fine lines, is the only other astronomers refer to star, picture at the bottom right hand binoculars, is the perfect balance of the whole picture, have the effect of some fine.

Sixth, about color temperature

There is no fixed value, it can be set according to the environment, or your own preference, the sky is infinite, so is the creativity and feeling.

Seventh, Creative shooting

Shooting stars is an enjoyable process, large canvas so you can completely improvise your creativity and take some creative shots in combination with the environmental conditions at that time. Even if you don't succeed in the end, it's still a good experience.