Digital SLR Astrophotography

Mark Shelley

Ashford Astronomical Society Fri 27 Feb

 Overview

• Types of Astrophotography
• Types of Equipment
• Hints and Tips for imaging
• Image Processing
My first astro-image
My first telescope
 Types of Astrophotography
• Telescope not always required!

• Through the telescope eyepiece

• Camera with lens on tripod
• Camera with lens on motorised mount
• Camera attached to Telescope
• “Webcam” imaging (planetary imager)
• Guided imaging on motorised mount
 Through the telescope eyepiece

• Mobile phone or compact camera

• Hand held or attached with bracket
– Eyepiece brackets can easily be bought
• Technique:
– Switch off flash!
– Carefully line up lens with eyepiece
– Adjust exposure if necessary (prevent overexposure)
– Remote control prevents shake
My second astro-image

Camera taped to the eyepiece!

 On a Tripod
• Mobile phone, compact camera, DSLR
• No laptop required
• Intervalometer for multiple exposures

• Technique:
– Switch off flash!
– Carefully focus
– Adjust exposure if necessary (prevent overexposure)
– Remote control prevents shake (pressing button)
Remote Control Lead
 Lens & Tripod Imaging

• No telescope required – use standard lens

• Short exposures prevent star trailing
• Multiple images can be stacked
Saturn, Moon & Venus

75mm lens 3 sec exposure

Moon and Venus

145mm lens 5 sec exposure

 Milky Way

18mm lens 40 x 30sec

Problems and Solutions
 Problem 1: Focusing
• Difficult to focus in darkness!

• For bright objects use autofocus

– Liveview can also work
• Otherwise use manual focus
– Make a series of test shots
Lens with focusing scale
DIY Focusing Scale
 Problem 2: Lens Aberrations
• Stars in image centre may look fine
• Stars nearer the corners may be “squiffy”
• Depends on lens quality
• Experiment with different focal ratios
– F/2 is fast
• lens wide open
• squiffy stars in corners
– F/8 is slow
• lens stopped down
• stars less squiffy
• Focal ratio is set in camera or manually set on lens
• Look at centre and corner when focusing
 Problem 3: Dew
• Dew on lens optics ruins photos
• “Headlamps in the fog” effect
• Solutions
– Hairdryer! Dee bought me one for Christmas 
– Heated dew strip (needs 12 volt power)
Dew Heating Strip
 Problem 4: Star Trails
• Longer exposures = longer star trails
• Keep exposures short

• Later we’ll look at motorised mounts

Orion at Kelling Heath

20mm lens 30 sec exposure

 Zoomed in

20mm lens 30 sec exposure

 Rule of 600
• “Rule of 600” is often quoted for a DSLR

• Multiply:
– Focal length in mm
– Exposure in seconds
• Keep this less than 600

• Other cameras would have similar rule

• I prefer Rule of 300 !!

 Summary of Problems
• Focusing
– Manual with test images
• Lens Aberrations
– Experiment with focal ratio
• Dew
– Dew heating strip
• Star Trailing
– Rule of 300/600
Deliberate Star Trails
With Intervalometer
2 minute exposure
Startrails Software
Final Result

30 x 2 minute exposures
 Star Movement
• Stars rotate around the North Celestial Pole
• Pole star is near the NCP
• Rotation is 15deg/hour (approx)
– 360 degrees (approx!) in 24 hours
North Celestial Pole
 Motorised Mount
• Camera attached to motor driven axis
• Axis points towards the NCP
• Axis rotates at 15deg/hour
– 360 degrees (approx!) in 24 hours
 Motorised Mount?
• If you already have a motorised telescope …

… one solution is piggybacking

Mercury & Moon

300mm lens 13sec exposure

 Motorised Mount
• DIY “barn door” device
• Commercial devices
– iOptron SkyTracker
– Sky-Watcher Star-Adventurer (more versatile)
• Axis points towards the NCP
DIY Barn-Door Tracker

Not motorised!
iOptron SkyTracker
SkyTracker with camera
Sky-Watcher Star-Adventurer
Orion 5min exposure
Orion zoomed in
 Camera Types
• Film?
• Mobile Phone or Compact Cameras
– Small sensors
– Lack night time sensitivity
• DSLR and other mirrorless cameras
– Large sensors with good sensitivity
– Interchangable lenses
– Adapters for telescope attachment
• Astro-CCD
– Mono or colour. Good response to H-alpha
– Colour or narrowband filters needed for mono camera
– Cooled sensor
 Why DSLR or Mirrorless?
• Large sensor creates great images
• One shot colour
• Cheap vs equivalent astro-CCD cameras
– Manufacturing economy of scale
– Second hand on eBay!
• Excellent start to astro-imaging

• Which DSLR?
– Canon cameras have best astro-community support
– This is slowly changing
– Nikon and Sony have better sensors at budget end
 DSLR Disadvantages
• Sensor has no cooling
– Can affect quality of Summer imaging
– Astro-CCD has cooling
– But cooling increases price!

• H-alpha wavelength insensitivity

– Manufacturer internal filter
– This filter can be removed (see later)
– Mono astro-CCD is much more sensitive
 Tips & Tricks

• Always take RAW images

– JPEG compression causes artefacts
• Carry spare camera batteries
– Or power adapter (e.g. from 12 volt)
• Remote control lead or intervalometer
• Focusing tricks
– On lenses and telescopes
 Astrophotographer Pet Hates
• Clouds!
– The UK is in the wrong place …
• Cold Nights
– Wrap up warm!
• Temperamental hardware and software
– Wastes time on precious nights
• Dew
– Heated dew bands and dew shields
• Light Pollution
– Muddy brown or bright orange background
Light Pollution (Sidcup)

F3.5 30sec ISO100

Astronomik CLS filter profile
Before and After
 Telescope Imaging
• T-Ring bayonet adapter attaches DSLRs

• Focal ratio is fixed (unlike lenses)

• Rule of 600 gives what exposure length?

– Motorised mount essential
 Telescope Types
• Refractor
– What the general public recognises as a telescope!
– Lens at front (objective)
– Eyepiece at back
• Newtonian
– Big mirror at far end of tube
– Eyepiece of side
• Schmidt Cassegrain
– Glass corrector at front
– Big mirror at far end of tube
– Eyepiece at back
– Long focal length with folded lightpath
Refractor on motorised mount
Motorised mount aligned with NCP
Camera attached
With Annotation
Pleiades (Seven Sisters)

24 x 5minutes
Andromeda Galaxy

60 x 5minutes
 Guided Imaging
• Motorised Mount
– Exposure length limited by motorised mount quality
• Guided Imaging
– Overcomes tracking inaccuracies
• Guide scope is mounted parallel to imaging scope
– Guide camera linked to laptop
– Locks onto a guide star
– Mount corrections sent every 1-2 seconds
• “Stand-alone” guiders also exist
– No laptop required
Guided Imaging
 Guided Imaging
• Free guiding software available
– e.g. PHD Guiding “Push Here Dummy”

• Old telephoto lens can work very well

Lens, Milk Container, Webcam
Ready to Assemble
Ready for Guiding
 Mount Types
• Equatorial
– Main Axis point at North Celestial Pole
– So it follows motion of the stars
• Alt-Azimuth
– Twisting base (azimuth)
– Up and down (altitude)
– Main problem is field rotation
Alt-Azimuth Mounts
 Field Rotation
• What is field rotation?
– Think of Orion …
– Cue volunteer from audience …

• Limits the length of exposures

• Makes stacking more difficult

• Can buy a “wedge”

Telescopes – What they don’t tell you!
• Refractor, Newtonian, Schmidt Cassegrain
• All suffer from field curvature
– i.e. the focal plane is curved
– Observatories used curved film
– But camera sensors are flat

• All suffer from other optical aberrations

– e.g coma
• Often have matched corrector lenses
• Astrographs have correcting lenses built-in
– Expensive!
With Annotation
 Refractor
• Chromatic Aberration
– The objective splits the light
– Colour fringing on stars
– Hence buy Apochromatic (not achromatic)

• Often have matched corrector/flatteners

• Lens hood give some dew protection

– May need heated dew strip as well
 Newtonian
• Rarely has enough focal travel for DSLR
– Unless designed for astrophotography
• Sometimes matched corrector/flatteners
– Otherwise buy generic coma corrector
• May need dew shield and heated dew strip
• Good Collimation required for imaging
– Offputting for beginners
Takahashi Epsilon 180ED
Bananascope with dewshield
 Schmidt Cassegrain
• Long focal length
– Excellent for planetary imaging
– Very difficult to guide accurately,
unless you have expensive mount
• Generic corrector/flatteners available
– Not needed for planets

• Needs dew shield and heated dew strip

– Corrector plate is dew magnet!

• Needs frequent collimation for imaging

– Offputting for beginners
Focal Length 2800mm
DIY Focusing Dial
Focusing Trail
 SCT Unguided Imaging

• Telescope is used on a tracking mount

• Limit exposure to 30sec

– Discard bad images before stacking
 SCT without guiding
• Moon
Moon 1800mm F6 1/800s ISO 800
 SCT without guiding
• Moon
• Globular Clusters
 SCT without guiding
• Moon
• Globular Clusters
• Brighter Nebulae
M27 Dumbbell Nebula 1800mm F6 40x30sec ISO 800
 SCT without guiding
• Moon
• Globular Clusters
• Brighter Nebulae
• ISS
ISS 2800mm F10 1/2000sec ISO 800
 Image Processing
• Stacking
– Adding multiple exposures reduces noise
– This enhances faint details and nebulosity

• Software aligns the stars in each exposure

– Adds all the exposures together

• Deep Sky Stacker is the most popular software

– Free!
 Why Stack?
• Adding multiple exposures reduces noise

• Sources of noise:
– Sensor read noise
– Sensor dark current (thermal noise)
– Shot noise – random arrival of photons
– JPEG compression

• Shoot RAW images!!

Cave Nebula (Mar 2011 Sky at Night)

Canon EOS 350D 500mm 64 x 5min ISO 800

Stack 1 frame
Stack 2 frames
Stack 4 frames
Stack 8 frames
Stack 16 frames
Stack 32 frames
Stack 64 frames
 “Webcam” Imaging with SCT
• Why called “webcam”
– Philips Toucam was the popular tool
• Planetary Imaging Cameras
– Available < £100
• Insert instead of eyepiece
• 5-30 frames/sec
– Connected to laptop
Jupiter 21 Feb 2015
 Jupiter Processing Sequence

• 1000 Frames stacked in AutoStakkert

• Deconvolution performed by Registax “Wavelets”

Jupiter 21 Feb 2015
 Jupiter and Ganymede
(Astronomy Now)

1000 webcam frames @5 frames/sec

 Why deconvolution?
• High magnification images are affected by
atmospheric turbulence
• Turbulence blurs the image
• Blurring can be treated by deconvolution
• Deconvolution = Deblurring
• Very mathematical
– But software makes it easy!
Crater Copernicus 20 x 1sec ISO 100
Crater Copernicus after deconvolution
 Hydrogen Alpha

Horsehead Nebula 10 x 10min ISO 800

Astronomik CLS filter profile
 Modding a Canon

• Cameras are made to match human vision

• Internal IR Filter cuts 80% H-alpha
• Can be replaced with
– Glass
– Alternative IR/UV filter e.g. Baader “pre-cut to fit”
The inside revealed
Sensor Revealed (top of picture)
Sensor Removed
New glass & old IR filter
First light is a TV remote
M27 – Before & After
 Image Processing Techniques

• Calibration frames
• Stacking - combining sub-exposures
• Background subtraction
• Intensity scaling – “curves” or similar
• Deconvolution
 Processing Sequence
• Free Software
• Deep Sky Stacker
• I use IRIS – but same principles apply

• PixInsight is the “Rolls Royce”

– Costs money and difficult to drive
– But almost perfect
How to turn this:
Into this:
 Processing Sequence
• Create the following:
– Bias Frame (RAW)
– Flat Frame (RAW)
– Dark Frame (RAW)
Master Flat
Master Dark (5 min)
 Processing Sequence
• Create the following:
– Bias Frame (RAW)
– Flat Frame (RAW)
– Dark Frame (RAW)
• Apply the above to each raw image frame
Raw Frame (5 min)
Pre-processed Frame
Convert to RGB
24 Frames Stacked
Background Subtracted
Range Scaling
Final Cropping
 Summary
• Camera Types
– Mobile phones to DSLRs and astro-CCD
• Telescope types
– Refractors, Newtonians, Schmidt Cassegrain
• Mount Types
– Tripods, Motorised, Equatorial, Alt-Azimuth
• Imaging
– Through eyepiece, planetary “Webcam”, DSLR
• Processing
– Stacking, Deconvolution
Favourite Images
Pleiades

90 x 5minutes
Horsehead & Flame Nebulae

130 x 5min
VdB 126 Dark Nebula in Vulpecula

150 x 5min
Markarian’s Chain

50 hours over 8 nights

Auto-Annotated
Camping
 Final Remarks
• I hope you are now inspired to try!

• At least you have a better understanding

• Don’t be afraid to ask advice

– It’s why societies like AAS exist!

• Imaging Night: Saturday 14th March

 Further Information
• www.markshelley.co.uk

• Jerry Lodrigus
– A Beginner's Guide to DSLR Astrophotography

• Michael Covington
– Digital SLR Astrophotography

• Steve Richards
– Making Every Photon Count