The competition rules are at the end of this piece.
Jersey Astronomy Club is launching this competition to raise people’s awareness of astronomy and particularly how easy it is to take photographs of the night’s sky with modern digital cameras. These days amateur astronomers with affordable equipment are taking pictures of the planets and deep space better than the Hubble space telescope was producing when first launched.
Taking great close up shots of lunar craters or the rings of Saturn still needs some specialist equipment like a good telescope with a motor drive but anyone can use a normal digital camera to take great night shots.
TIPS FOR PEOPLE WHO WANT TO TRY ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY
The first thing you need is a digital camera which you can operate manually so as to set exposure time, focus etc. The only other thing is a tripod so the camera can be kept still for a long exposure.
Set your camera to manual or “M”. Then set your exposure time to its longest available time, usually 30 seconds. Open your lens aperture to its widest setting (the lowest “f” number) so that your lens collects as much light as possible. Set your camera to manual focus and fix the focus at infinity so that the stars are sharp. Finally set your sensor’s sensitivity to a high setting, 1600 or 3200 ISO, so that the camera collects light as fast as it can. Then fix you camera to a tripod and just try pointing it at different parts of the sky to see what you get when you push the button. You should see plenty of stars and the interesting thing is to include buildings or landscapes as well. Your camera will probably automatically shoot JPEG type files which are fine but if you want to develop the images on your computer to improve them then see if your camera shoots RAW files which allow you to pull out every scrap of detail from the picture.
Another thing you can do is to deliberately allow the stars to trail in the pictures (due to the Earth’s rotation) by using really long exposures of ten or twenty minutes using the camera’s bulb or “B” mode if it’s got one. (You’ll probably need a remote controller for this) Set up the camera just as before but turn the ISO sensitivity down to 400 or so. Point the camera somewhere towards North and after your long wait you’ll see the stars make a swirling circle around the Pole star.
Taking good pictures of the moon needs a really long lens. A big zoom camera lens might do it on a tripod again but really good shots need a camera body attached to a telescope. You need a pretty good telescope for this with a stable mount and a motor drive to counteract the Earth’s rotation. There’s no way to do this yourself for less than a few hundred pounds but you can try fitting your camera body to our club scope one evening if you like.
Amazingly, the best moon crater shots and planet images are actually taken from video footage. Because of the way the air moves in our atmosphere it blurs any high magnification shot of more than a fraction of a second. We get around this by taking video of a planet, again through a telescope. We then use special software to separate the good video frames from the blurry ones and then stack the good ones to give a sharp final image. The special video cameras we use are actually quite cheap but once again one needs a good telescope.
JERSEY ASTRONOMY CLUB
PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPETITITON
CATEGORIES
1 Solar system, including the Moon, Sun and planets
Close up images of the solar system will probably need a long telephoto lens or a camera attached to a telescope
2 Deep sky, using telescopes
These would be pictures of individual night sky objects from outside our solar system so galaxies, nebulae, star clusters. They will need to be long exposure images taken with a tracking mount that counters the Earth’s rotation
3 Nightscapes, wide angle images using just ordinary cameras
These can be anything from wide angle, long exposure to time-lapse images and don’t need complicated equipment just a camera with manual controls and a tripod
PRIZES
One winner for each category, £25 Prize for each
One overall winner with an extra £25 prize
RULES
Entries to be received by 31st December 2018. Winners announced at the Astronomy Christmas Quiz in December 2018.
Consent of a parent or guardian is required for junior entrants.
Only 3 entries per person so that they could enter one per category if wished.
All entries to be taken in the period 1st November 2017 to closing date.
The photos must be original work and the sole work of the entrant and not infringe copyright or any rights of a third party or have been entered in a photographic competition before.
Details needed from entrants should include, name, address including e-mail, where taken, date taken, category of entry and title of entry, equipment used, exposure time.
Images to be submitted as JPEG digital files. Digital enhancement is allowed, for example changing colour, saturation etc., but not cutting and pasting. No borders, watermarks or signatures to be visible.
Competition open to residents of Jersey only. Copyright on all images will remain with the photographer, but we would reserve the right to publish them with copyright acknowledged on our Website and Facebook group and in the JEP.
Entries should be emailed to [email protected]
Entry is free.
Jersey Astronomy Club is launching this competition to raise people’s awareness of astronomy and particularly how easy it is to take photographs of the night’s sky with modern digital cameras. These days amateur astronomers with affordable equipment are taking pictures of the planets and deep space better than the Hubble space telescope was producing when first launched.
Taking great close up shots of lunar craters or the rings of Saturn still needs some specialist equipment like a good telescope with a motor drive but anyone can use a normal digital camera to take great night shots.
TIPS FOR PEOPLE WHO WANT TO TRY ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY
The first thing you need is a digital camera which you can operate manually so as to set exposure time, focus etc. The only other thing is a tripod so the camera can be kept still for a long exposure.
Set your camera to manual or “M”. Then set your exposure time to its longest available time, usually 30 seconds. Open your lens aperture to its widest setting (the lowest “f” number) so that your lens collects as much light as possible. Set your camera to manual focus and fix the focus at infinity so that the stars are sharp. Finally set your sensor’s sensitivity to a high setting, 1600 or 3200 ISO, so that the camera collects light as fast as it can. Then fix you camera to a tripod and just try pointing it at different parts of the sky to see what you get when you push the button. You should see plenty of stars and the interesting thing is to include buildings or landscapes as well. Your camera will probably automatically shoot JPEG type files which are fine but if you want to develop the images on your computer to improve them then see if your camera shoots RAW files which allow you to pull out every scrap of detail from the picture.
Another thing you can do is to deliberately allow the stars to trail in the pictures (due to the Earth’s rotation) by using really long exposures of ten or twenty minutes using the camera’s bulb or “B” mode if it’s got one. (You’ll probably need a remote controller for this) Set up the camera just as before but turn the ISO sensitivity down to 400 or so. Point the camera somewhere towards North and after your long wait you’ll see the stars make a swirling circle around the Pole star.
Taking good pictures of the moon needs a really long lens. A big zoom camera lens might do it on a tripod again but really good shots need a camera body attached to a telescope. You need a pretty good telescope for this with a stable mount and a motor drive to counteract the Earth’s rotation. There’s no way to do this yourself for less than a few hundred pounds but you can try fitting your camera body to our club scope one evening if you like.
Amazingly, the best moon crater shots and planet images are actually taken from video footage. Because of the way the air moves in our atmosphere it blurs any high magnification shot of more than a fraction of a second. We get around this by taking video of a planet, again through a telescope. We then use special software to separate the good video frames from the blurry ones and then stack the good ones to give a sharp final image. The special video cameras we use are actually quite cheap but once again one needs a good telescope.
JERSEY ASTRONOMY CLUB
PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPETITITON
CATEGORIES
1 Solar system, including the Moon, Sun and planets
Close up images of the solar system will probably need a long telephoto lens or a camera attached to a telescope
2 Deep sky, using telescopes
These would be pictures of individual night sky objects from outside our solar system so galaxies, nebulae, star clusters. They will need to be long exposure images taken with a tracking mount that counters the Earth’s rotation
3 Nightscapes, wide angle images using just ordinary cameras
These can be anything from wide angle, long exposure to time-lapse images and don’t need complicated equipment just a camera with manual controls and a tripod
PRIZES
One winner for each category, £25 Prize for each
One overall winner with an extra £25 prize
RULES
Entries to be received by 31st December 2018. Winners announced at the Astronomy Christmas Quiz in December 2018.
Consent of a parent or guardian is required for junior entrants.
Only 3 entries per person so that they could enter one per category if wished.
All entries to be taken in the period 1st November 2017 to closing date.
The photos must be original work and the sole work of the entrant and not infringe copyright or any rights of a third party or have been entered in a photographic competition before.
Details needed from entrants should include, name, address including e-mail, where taken, date taken, category of entry and title of entry, equipment used, exposure time.
Images to be submitted as JPEG digital files. Digital enhancement is allowed, for example changing colour, saturation etc., but not cutting and pasting. No borders, watermarks or signatures to be visible.
Competition open to residents of Jersey only. Copyright on all images will remain with the photographer, but we would reserve the right to publish them with copyright acknowledged on our Website and Facebook group and in the JEP.
Entries should be emailed to [email protected]
Entry is free.