One Stop Shop for Astrophotography

I am very new to the whole astrophotography (SLR) world. I was looking for information, links and publications, that give details on the following:

- What speed film to use in which situations (planets, moon, widefield)
- What shutter speeds to use in which situations (planets, moon, widefield)
- What f-stops to use in which situations (planets, moon, widefield)
- How long to expose (guided, unguided, fixed tripod)

I shot a roll this weekend, but haven't had it developed. I'm almost afraid to see what the shot look like.

Moon was shot with my OM-1 mounted (prime focus) to my ST80 (f/l 400mm) at 1/60 sec. exposure on 400ASA film. I also took some 1/30 sec. shots.

I tried some star trail shots with Polaris centered with my 28mm lens for 15 - 20min. exposures.

Now I have to find a shop that can develope astro film.

Thanks,

Tim Hornbeck

Hi Tim,

My suggestions:

For the moon, look up exposure times in Covington's
book Astrophotography for Amateurs (or something like
that). Exposure for the moon depends strongly on
its phase and Covington's formulae work well in
my (limited) experience. Folks get better shots
of the moon and planets using a consumer digital
camera held up to (or clamped onto) the eyepiece.

For deep space, I use Elite-Chrome 200 - as do
many of us. See Jerry Lodriguss' web site for
specific exposure suggestions. At f/4 I use 45-60
minutes, at f/2.8 15-30min from dark sites. From
my light-polluted house, about 10min at f/2.8 is
max -- so I don't bother. I suggest stopping
your lens down 1-2 f stops from wide open to avoid
star images bloated by coma at the corners and edges.

Your star trails should look encouraging, but you
might try 1 hour or so at f/8 (again from
a dark site).

Slide film is nice since they can't ruin the
development (unless they run it through C-41
chemistry -- this HAS happened to me, lost a
whole 36 exposure roll of material).

Good luck, and show us the results!

Todd

Lessons learned with my first roll of film.

- 1/60 at 400mm f/4 is too slow for the moon.

- 30 sec to 60 sec is too long for wide-field shots on a fixed tripod, 5 sec. is the max

- don't waste any more film from my front yard, it's not dark enough

Thanks for the site information. It was very valuable.

The 28mm shot turned out pretty good. The star trails on Polaris was also decent. I had the front of our house and trees as a background. They were very yellow.

Thanks,

Tim