Intro to Astrophotography

Date and Time for this Past Event

Thu, Nov 7, 2024 - Sat, Nov 9, 2024 6pm - 9pm

Location

Details

Astrophotography includes photographs made of anything related to space; the sun, moon, and planets, galaxies, nebulae, comets and meteors, etc. Join Mike Shipman for a local introduction to astrophotography that can be accomplished with minimal equipment. If you have a camera, lens, tripod, and a remote shutter release you can set timed exposures with, you can do astrophotography. You can also use a smartphone, but I won’t be covering that option during this workshop. Over the 3-night workshop, our first session will be a classroom overview of the process of astrophotography, a primer on identifying points in the sky, and a look at some astrophotography equipment – simple to complex. The second session will be in the field making photographs. We’ll meet before sunset to get situated and ready for dark, discuss preparation and safety, then begin making exposures. The final evening we’ll process the exposures from the night before using free software especially for astrophotography. This is a nighttime astrophotography session. My multi-day workshop includes sessions on daytime solar photography.
 
You’ll need a digital camera (DSLR or mirrorless), camera lens (wide angle or telephoto). Wide angle lenses (10mm – 55mm) allow for some foreground landscape features to be included if desired, or to take in larger portions of the sky. Telephoto lenses (>100mm+) let you zoom into details, such as craters on the moon, nebulae, or galaxies. Lenses with the capability of and aperture of f4 or larger are better, but not required.

 I will bring my telescopes and mounts to demo and look through. It might be possible for participants to make a set of exposures of their own using my equipment. I have a demo unit of a Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i mount from Skywatcher USA. My personal equipment includes a Skywatcher Star Adventurer Gti mount and EQ6R-Pro equatorial mount, a Redcat51 250mm telescope and Explore Scientific ED102 FD100 714mm telescope. The cameras I use are Canon EOS R5, Canon EOS 1DMkIV, and a dedicated astrophotography camera (RisingCam IMC571C).

Basic Itinerary:
1st session, 3 hrs: astrophotography overview, equipment, process, identification, planning

2nd session, 4hrs +/-: astrophotography field session, approx 45 min drive, restroom facility available

3rd session, 3 hrs: image processing using free software
 
The classroom portion will be held at the Art Source Gallery, 1516 Grove St, Boise. The field session location is Dedication Point on Swan falls Rd, above Swan Falls Dam.
 
There is a maximum of 10 for this workshop.