People have looked up at the stars since the beginning of humanity and the complexity of what lay beyond the Earth continues to intrigue and amaze. In an attempt to bring myself as close to the skies as possible, I decided a few months back to begin practicing astrophotography. I bought a shiny new lens and began waiting for the perfect night sky. My ultimate goal is get a shot of the center of our own galaxy, the Milky Way…which I can do with the equipment I have now, but I need more practice and a lot of preparation before I take it on. I also want to photograph nebulae…but I will need a better lens for some of the deeper areas.

Now that summer has come, the clouds so fond of the Willamette Valley have begun to back off some and the nights have been clear and crisp. My hubby and I drove along the Hwy 20 and parked in as dark an area as possible. Now, ideally we would want to be higher or further out in the middle of nowhere. The stars weren’t as bright where we were but since we headed out on a whim at 2AM we weren’t prepared for pitchblack hiking or hours or driving. This spot was perfect for practice!

Shooting the stars is not so much hard as it is just time-consuming…it requires a lot of patience and trial and error.  It requires advanced knowledge of your camera and you really need to take advantage of all the great things it can really do. Below are some of my favorites from the night!

I know, not super amazing…yet! But there are some really interesting things about these images that I am thrilled about! For instance…I know that even when I look up at the sky and see it dotted with white, I know that they are really reds, blues, yellows… but I did not think I would be able to capture their spectral classes! I did this by slowly unfocusing as the shutter was open…creating a blob of the stars’ color illuminated behind it. If I were to keep it sharp with a faster shutter speed, the stars will remain the white dots like we see in the sky everynight.

What I learned I need to do differently: Play with longer exposures! I was only doing 20 second, 30 second exposures, requiring me to increase my ISO to 1600…this creates a lot of grain. I also was not able to get authentic star trails…if I create an exposure for 30 minutes, I will have captured the rotation of the Earth in my photograph =] The thought of that blows my mind =] Another thing: wait for the moon to become a sliver in the sky…this time is was mostly full, and the less illumination the better. It will allow me to set my exposure longer and make the stars brighter, reaching stars you can’t even see with your eyes. Create/study star maps. I have a few months to get the angle I want from the Milky Way…I will need to figure out the best location, time, and make sure it’s a clear night. Get a remote, or set the timer…even when I mount my camera on a tripod, there is still slight vibration from my hand when I press the trigger. Eliminating any movement is best. Get familiar with the mirror lock setting.

Anyway…I was blown away, and now I am more eager than ever to proceed with astrophotography.

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