Astrophotography takes a lot of technical savvy, patience, and careful post-processing, but the results can be absolutely stunning and well worth the time and effort. This excellent video tutorial will show you how to improve the colors in your deep sky images in Photoshop to make them really pop off the screen.
Coming to you from Astro Backyard, this fantastic video tutorial will show you how to make the colors in your astrophotography images really pop by using Photoshop. In it, you will see how selective vibrance and saturation adjustments can bring out the magic in your images in addition to how to deal with a noisy background sky, a common issue in the genre.
Astrophotography is a great thing to try right now if you are currently stuck at home and live in a place with relatively low light pollution. A good German equatorial mount will enable you to explore the genre; they work by counteracting the rotation of the Earth, allowing you to take vastly longer exposures, which is crucial given how little light reaches Earth from such objects. It is a fun and meditative genre; give it a try! Check out the video above for the full rundown.
The mount is the key to making astrophotography less aggravating. And mounts are one of those items that you truly get what you pay for. You're better off opting for a less expensive scope and camera and spending extra on a good mount.
The weight of your imaging gear is a major consideration when buying a mount. The mount I had would comfortably hold 85lbs of goodies. You don't need that big a mount, but do take the weight into consideration.
If you're really serious, go to Cloudy Nights, the largest astro forum on the 'net. There's a ton of people there that will help with any questions you have. I'm an ex admin there. :-)
Depending on how and where you shoot will dictate the mount. A mount that holds 85 lbs won't backpack too well. ;-)
It wouldn't backpack at all! It was on a pier in a hole in the ground about 40" deep full of concrete.