Astrophotography by Fay Saunders

[Alan Graham]

Thank you Fay, I was looking forward to seeing how you set up and what after processing was needed. A lot to take in but excellent. Definitely above my pay grade but I do like taking night skies and actually try to capture moving lights (satellites or planes) with the stars.

I think we should use this thread to post some of our own feeble attempts of night photography (skywards). Peter, I remember your Namibia shot, maybe you could show it again.

[PeterH]

Here's that image. 'Milky Way and Large Magellanic Cloud, Namibia'.
A composite but all parts of the photo were taken in Namibia. The Magellenic Cloud can be seen on the right of the image. It's a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.
Not up to Fay's standards but I was pleased with the result.

[PhilipiBrown]

Thank you Fay for your excellent talk on astrophotography.  I have dabbled in this topic but I realise that I have a lot to learn.  In 2017, I went to the US to photograph the solar eclipse.  I can see how you can become hooked on this type of photography.  I was thrilled when I got a photograph of the "diamond ring".  But as you mentioned the risk is you are too busy taking photographs and miss the real event!

Here is my image of the "diamond ring"

 

[PeterH]

Fay’s not the only one who takes hundreds of shots for one image.  Given the lifespan shutter count of many cameras is about 100,000 actuations, it’s one way of wearing out a camera!

[Fay]

Oh thankyou very much. you can see how I felt daunted by doing it. I could not have done the talk on using a DSLR on a tripod, as it would only have taken 2 minutes. Its a big subject and difficult to talk in detail about everystage. nice to see a couple of you have had a go, thats what its all about.

Fay