Recent Astrophotography Articles

Unmissable Night Sky Events in 2020

A large part of photographing specific events is planning. Obviously, being in the right place at the right time is the key to successfully photographing an event that occurs only at particular places and times, but you can only plan when you know something is going to happen.

A Look at the Astrophotography-Oriented Canon EOS Ra

The Canon EOS Ra is a specialized camera, but one that is quite intriguing for anyone interested in astrophotography. This great video takes a first look at it to see if it is right for you.

Plan Your Meteor Shower Photography From Your Smartphone

Experienced night sky shooters know that some of the most challenging targets are meteors. While meteor showers, which happen several times a year, will make capturing the elusive meteors easier because there are more of them, you can still point a camera to the sky with a 30 minute exposure and get nothing. Then, suddenly, a meteor can appear where you weren't pointing.

Quick Tips With Luminar 4: Night Sky Replacements

We photographers don’t always get the perfect sunset or clear starry night sky every time we head out to photograph desolate areas or national parks. This is when we can take a little post production know-how and can still create other worldly and dreamy images that capture the viewer’s eye. Skylum Software's Luminar 4 has just made that scenario easier and faster to do with its all-in-one software and very powerful artificial intelligence.

Tokina Announces Updated New ATX-i 11-16mm f/2.8 CF Lens for APS-C DSLRs

Tokina's original 11-16mm lens has been one of its most popular selling lenses for years offering up something a lot of companies couldn't: a fast and sharp ultra-wide angle lens at an affordable price. Is this new version going to continue the trend and be a successful upgrade for Tokina?

New to Astrophotography? Here Is What You Need to Know

Astrophotography is a very unique and tricky genre, but if you take the time to dive into it and learn how it is done, you can be rewarded with stunning images of the heavens. If you are interested in astrophotography, this great beginner's guide will answer a lot of questions to help you get you on your way to pointing your camera toward the night sky.

Is Canon About to Release a Full Frame Camera Specifically for Astrophotography?

Canon's mirrorless lenses have gotten off to quite an impressive start, though the bodies still have some catching up to do when it comes to innovation. Canon might be pushing that envelope a bit next year, though, as new rumors have uncovered the potential release of the ROS Ra, a full frame mirrorless camera designed specifically for astrophotography.

The Laowa 15mm f/2: Wide, Fast, and Built for Full Frame Mirrorless

Laowa is one of the first to create a wide lens for Nikon’s Z and Canon's RF mount, with their 15mm f/2 Zero-D. The lens is also available in Sony's FE, representing a unique option for full frame mirrorless users. With an impressive aperture and focal length combination, is it a lens you should consider?

Will the Google Pixel 4 Be the First Phone That Shoots Astrophotography?

Hype for Google’s new flagship phone has intensified in recent weeks with photographers excited about what new technology the tech giant will be squeezing into its latest model. To add to the fervor, a leaked promo video suggests that a dedicated astrophotography mode will be incorporated.

Watch the Earth Rotate Relative to the Milky Way in This Fascinating Time-lapse

You have likely already seen nighttime time-lapses in which the rotation of Earth causes the night sky to move. This incredibly neat time-lapse flips that on its head by holding the Milky Way stationary, showing the ground tilting as Earth continues to rotate and making for quite the mindblowing effect.

Think You're Getting All The Resolution out of Your Sensor?

It seems each recent camera announcement has brought a higher megapixel count — including Sony's latest 60mp+ release. But whether you're shooting on 24mp APS-C, 50mp full frame, or 100mp medium format, you might not be getting all the resolution you paid for. Check out this list for 3 clarity-robbing problems and their fixes.

Photographing the Moon With Jaworskyj

In case you've never taken the time to just sit outside at night and look (or howl) at the moon, it's actually freaking awesome. The logical next step is to setup your gear and trying to photograph our lunar friend.

The Essential Gear for Shooting a Meteor Shower

With the Perseids meteor shower set to peak in the next few days, it's a great time to review the techniques and gear involved in capturing a meteor. Want to know how to catch a picture of a shooting star?

50th Anniversary of Moon Landing Inspires Incredible Image

It wasn't easy to put a man on the moon. Just ask photographer Christopher Sherman, who recently set out to pay homage to one of humanity's greatest feats, the Apollo 11 mission, when Neil Armstrong first set foot onto the moon 50 years ago.

How to Take a Photo of the Moon

As we approach the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, everyone has moon fever. There has never been a better time to grab your camera and head outside to take a shot of our moon, and this excellent video will show you everything you need to know to do just that.

Good Photography Decisions Start With Pre-Visualization

One percent of great photographs are simple luck, being at the right place and time with a camera... the other 99% are the result of good decisions. One could even argue that a large number of the one percenters made the right decision to be in that place at that time and carry their camera. Good decisions start with pre-visualization.

Time-Lapse Photographer Captures Stunning Meteor Explosion While Fast Asleep

One cold night a few weeks ago, photographer Matthew Vandeputte set a time-lapse running and went to bed for the night. In the morning, he discovered that his sequence had captured an incredible meteor crashing into the Earth’s atmosphere, creating a stunning trail and leaving a spectacular puff of smoke. If only we could all shoot images like this while unconscious.

Iconic Images from the 2019 Solar Eclipse

To witness a solar eclipse is a once in a lifetime experience and to photograph two within 2 years is an amazing opportunity to leverage your experience to create incredible imagery. Ted Hesser was able to garner a second opportunity with the 2019 eclipse and put his ideas into motion with only weeks to spare before this year's eclipse to gather ideas and compose images that engage our humanity within the cosmos.

The Best Astrophotography Subjects You Can Shoot Right Now

Want to know what objects you should be shooting in the night’s sky? Astrophotography can be a complex discipline, since knowing what important astronomical events are occuring can be a challenge in itself. Check out this guide and see what you should shoot.

Looking to Get Into Astrophotography? Check Out This Cheap Equatorial Mount

Astrophotography can be an incredibly rewarding and awe-inspiring photography genre to get into, but it can also requires loads of specialized equipment that is decidedly not cheap. This awesome video review takes a look at a budget option to see if it can still get great results that make it worth the cost.

Will Elon Musk Starlink Satellites Ruin Astrophotography?

The recent large scale deployment of the first piece of the SpaceX satellite constellation triggered a controversy among astronomers and astro-photographers. With the planned launch of 12,000 satellites by the mid-2020s, some people fear the worst. What is really going on?

The First Cameras in Space

Did you know that before Hasselblad became the official camera of the moon, space exploration was photographed with modified versions of simple drugstore cameras?

Photographing and Editing the Northern Lights Made Just a Bit Easier

If you're fortunate enough to be somewhere in the world where you have the chance to photograph the northern lights, you'll want to be prepared to take some beautiful images. Hopefully, the tips and tricks in this video help to set you up for success.

Fstoppers Reviews the edelkrone SliderPlus and HeadPlus System

As someone who produces a lot of timelapses and video content for YouTube, nothing excites me more than testing out a new piece of gear. So, when edelkrone asked me to review their latest motorized slider and panning head unit, I jumped at the opportunity to see what this kit could do.

Unwanted Effects When Editing Star Trails and the Solution

With the digital age stacking techniques make it possible to shoot a star trail in the middle of a city. But when I got my hands on a great medium format camera, I also ran into a problem: the star trail had strange patterns in the stacked image. Fortunately I found out why this is, and how to avoid it.

A Stunning Time-Lapse Video of La Palma Island Filmed in 8K60

La Palma is a small volcanic island located on the most north-westerly side of the canary archipelagos. Its location, topography, and clear sky facilitates astronomical observations and offers great creative opportunities.

How to Stack Tracked Star Shots With a Foreground

One of the fundamental issues in astrophotography is the general lack of light. To combat this, many serious astrophotographers turn toward equatorial mounts to allow them to get more light, but this can create difficulties if you have a foreground subject as well. This helpful tutorial will show you how to composite a foreground shot with a tracked night sky shot.

Can You Do Milky Way Photography With a Crop Sensor Camera and Kit Lens?

When you think of astrophotography, you probably think of expensive equatorial mounts, pricey wide aperture lenses, and top-of-the-line full frame cameras with excellent high ISO performance. But if you don't own all of that and are interested in trying it out, you might find this great video tutorial quite helpful, as it'll show you what's possible with just a crop sensor camera and kit lens.

Photographer Revisits Capture of Epic Total Eclipse Imagery

What lengths would you go to in order to capture an amazing, unique perspective of one of the most photographed events in human history? Photographer Jon Carmichael shares with us the extraordinary story about how he captured an amazing aerial shot of 2017’s total solar eclipse.

Are You Ready for the Summer Milky Way?

It has been gone since fall, but the galactic core of the Milky Way is back and rising up in the early morning. Spring is a great time to learn how to photograph the Milky Way in the Northern hemisphere, so you can have your process perfected and be ready when the galactic core reaches peak altitude in July and August.

How Do You Take a Picture of a Black Hole?

We've all seen the incredible first image of a supermassive black hole, but how on earth do you capture something so far away and that, by its very definition, consumes light?!