Getting started with astro photography

1 Assembly

You’ll need a wideangle lens, ideally a 16-35mm (or 11-22mm for APS-C). The camera often hangs off the tripod at a lot of awkward angles, so ensure that a good-quality tripod is used, with good weight. A ballhead will allow your camera to point in any direction without a lot of X-Y-Z style dif culty.

2 Go manual

Use Manual mode to control the aperture, shutter speed and ISO independently. Make sure the camera is in manual focus with all image-stabilisation features switched off on both the lens and in-body stabilisation, if a modern mirrorless camera is being used.

3 Keep it neutral

Make sure your colour temperature is set to a neutral setting. Access this through the camera’s menu system or use the K setting. Set the camera to 3000K, which will give the night sky a black sky with a slight tint of blue. Fine-tune this in raw software later.

4 Laser sharp

Always choose mirror lockup (if your camera has a mirror) to keep the image tack-sharp. Attach a cable release or, better still, utilise the camera’s timer mode for better control of shutter speed, especially if you go over 30secs. Choose a 2sec timer to keep hands off the camera.

5 Base settings

Based off a 24mm focal length, set the aperture to the widest value available, ideally f/2.8. Star trails will become prominent after 25secs, but this varies depending on which direction the camera is positioned and how wide the lens is, but this is a good place to start. I also set ISO to 3200 and Colour Temp to 3000K.

6 Focus, shoot and review

Use stars or a distant light to precisionfocus your lens. Position this light source in the centre of the frame. Click and review the image. The histogram will be very left heavy, but don’t worry about this – there is literally no light. Adjust your settings accordingly.