Practical Astrophotography

By Jeffrey R. Charles

Book Overview

Almost all amateur astronomers want to take photographs of the night sky. For all but the simplest star-trail pictures, this involves machinery - a telescope drive - to track the stars, essential to compensate for the rotation of the earth. The task becomes even more complicated when photographing very small or very faint objects that require high magnification or very long exposure times.
Amateurs have many options according to their requirements, technical ability, and budget. Astrophotography for Amateurs looks at all the possibilities, including normal ("wet") photography, CCD imaging, and modern techniques of computer enhancement. There are sections about photographing different classes of astronomical object from the Moon to faint nebulae, as well as a thorough look at the equipment needed.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1852330236
• ISBN13: 9781852330231
• Release Date: May 2000
• Publisher: Springer
• Length: 301 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A good compliment to other Astrophotography texts

This book I feel takes up topics that Michael Covington's "Astrophotography for the Amatuer" and Robert Reeve's "Wide-Field Astrophotography" leave off. The two afore-mentioned texts deal with the techniques, exposure times and equipment for astrophotography more deeply. "Practical Astrophotography" as the title suggests deals better with practical considerations: what to pack on you field trips, what you need for those foreign excursions, etc. This is what sets this book aside from the others. Sure, Jeffery Charles covers the basic techniques very competently, also, but doesn't go as deeply as the other two books. And he concentrates on film photography only.

Good starting book

Good book to start with, especially with its tables of exposures and detailed background technical info on optics & photography. Good descriptions of simplified focal length, exposure, magnification and other calculations.Absolutely no information on CCD photography.The layout of the book is not very good for applying step-by-step approach for beginners, the process is mixed in with descriptions of technical background.

Joy of star-gazing

It has been 2 years since I was into astronomy. This is a book which talks much about astronomical photography. I enjoy the content in here because it is so useful when you take out a telescope, enjoying the delight of stars twinkling... I am 16 in Taiwan, a boy who likes astronomy best. I hope I can read far more books as I want. Hope you enjoy the pleasure to stare at the very true universe of our own!