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Just a few pictures of the night sky I've taken over the course of a couple of weeks. Considering I have an ordinary camera and am a complete amateur, I'm very happy with the results, and it's given me a thirst to continue...

This is a picture of Mars, which was taken a few nights ago, near its peak of brightness. This is my favourite of the bunch I've taken so far.


Venus, taken on the same night.


Jupiter (top), the Moon and Venus (bottom), taken earlier tonight, though it was slightly cloudy. They're the closest together that I've ever seen them...

All three photos were taken with an 8.1 million pixel Fujifilm A860.
I'd be very interested to see similiar or superior efforts by anyone on this here board

Back in January I got some shots of the moon with my Lumix FZ100. 14 megapixel and 24x zoom.

Those are some good images for an amatuer. A question, were these images taken just with the camera held in your hands or on a tripod of some kind?

If they are taken with the camera being held, then that image of Mars is remarkable.

I don't know about Chimaera, my but my camera has image stabilization. When you zoom in really far it can negate your movements enough to provide stability.

I hadn't considered that. Right from the start on my uni course if we did astrophotography we either used tripods or t-mounts to attach the cameras to the telescopes in place of eyepeices.

Eternal_Freedom wrote:I hadn't considered that. Right from the start on my uni course if we did astrophotography we either used tripods or t-mounts to attach the cameras to the telescopes in place of eyepeices.

Professional lenses and telescopes require a little more finesse than ameture photography.

Alyeska wrote:

Eternal_Freedom wrote:I hadn't considered that. Right from the start on my uni course if we did astrophotography we either used tripods or t-mounts to attach the cameras to the telescopes in place of eyepeices.

Professional lenses and telescopes require a little more finesse than ameture photography.

True. More cash too. Thank God I'm at a Uni with a large equipment budget

Eternal_Freedom wrote:Those are some good images for an amatuer.

Thank you

A question, were these images taken just with the camera held in your hands or on a tripod of some kind?

If they are taken with the camera being held, then that image of Mars is remarkable.

The second one was taken with a tripod, the other two with me resting my hands on a wall or washing line (yes, really) as I took it, using the timer to help me get steady. Unfortunately, I have two things working against me; I have the hand stability of an 87 year old nun, and the area I live in is thick with light pollution, so I will try going to the local fields at night soon, with a tripod, to maximise my image quality.

What part of Britain are you in? I know a few good sites: the Brecon Beacons are good, as is the North Norfolk coast. Peak district shoudl be reasonable as well. Of course that's totally useless if you're in Cornwall

I think those are great pics!

Eternal_Freedom wrote:What part of Britain are you in? I know a few good sites: the Brecon Beacons are good, as is the North Norfolk coast. Peak district shoudl be reasonable as well. Of course that's totally useless if you're in Cornwall

I live in Stevenage, there's a nice area called Great Ashby that has huge fields and farms open to the public, with very little light pollution, it's a 20 minute walk from where I live, so there's no stopping me, provided I am not savaged by wee beasties of the night.

Chimaera wrote:

Eternal_Freedom wrote:What part of Britain are you in? I know a few good sites: the Brecon Beacons are good, as is the North Norfolk coast. Peak district shoudl be reasonable as well. Of course that's totally useless if you're in Cornwall

I live in Stevenage, there's a nice area called Great Ashby that has huge fields and farms open to the public, with very little light pollution, it's a 20 minute walk from where I live, so there's no stopping me, provided I am not savaged by wee beasties of the night.

Sounds about right

This is what happens when things go slightly wrong, due to my 87-year-old-nun hands. Still, look pretty cool IMO

This is...a star, I think, though I have no idea why it took on this odd shape.


This was my first attempt at photographing Venus, which turned out looking like some kind of misshapen green galaxy.

From 9 February, 2012 (a crop, but the picture isn't enlarged):



I use a Canon XSi (mounted on a cheap tripod) and I took this using my 18-135MM telephoto zoomed all the way in.

FSTargetDrone wrote:From 9 February, 2012 (a crop, but the picture isn't enlarged):



I use a Canon XSi (mounted on a cheap tripod) and I took this using my 18-135MM telephoto zoomed all the way in.

Very impressive picture, I like the slightly reddish hue the moon has. Nice work.

Chimaera wrote:Very impressive picture, I like the slightly reddish hue the moon has. Nice work.

Thank you! I missed out on the recent grouping of the moon, Venus and Mars. It was overcast here at the time. I did get some pictures of the 2010 Lunar eclipse I'll try to dig up.

Haven't posted in quite some time, but this topic was enough to bring me out of hiding as I just happen to have a few photos in my collection that fit the bill. All of the following were taken over the last year and a half using a Nikon D5000 and a 55-300mm lens, and all (except the eclipse collage of course) are 1:1 crops out of the original camera images.


The Moon, shot handheld: 300mm @ f/5.6, 1/500 s, ISO 200.


The lunar eclipse of winter solstice, 2010: Also shot handheld, as I was too lazy to set up my tripod. Given that the moon was obviously much dimmer, this required a much higher ISO setting to obtain steady shots, even with image stabilization (or VR, as Nikon calls it).


Jupiter and the Galilean moons. This is the only photo here taken using a tripod.


The sun, taken around midday in summer through an ND1000x filter stacked upon the usual UV filter. You can faintly see a sunspot near the center of the sun's disc (I confirmed this by taking several shots). This shot was taken in full Manual, with the shutter speed set to maximum, the ISO to minimum, and the lens stopped down to f/22 and locked at infinity focus. The yellow hue was achieved by shooting in RAW and setting the white balance to a much higher color temperature than the camera's automatic setting (with which the sun would appear white) when converting to JPEG.

Disclaimer time: (most of you probably know better, but just in case) Do not even THINK of looking at the sun through a DSLR viewfinder using a telephoto without placing a similarly strong neutral density filter (or stack of filters) on the front of your lens, or you'll be permanently blinded pretty much instantly. Using liveview instead of the viewfinder will merely destroy your camera's image sensor rather than your eyes. As an aside, even with my filter blocking 99.9% of the sun's light, I still found it quite uncomfortable to look at even for just the second or two need to take the shot.

It's oddly annoying to just look at the picture. Huh.

Ma Deuce, you are a GOD at this. You have my deepest envy

Ma Deuce wrote:Haven't posted in quite some time, but this topic was enough to bring me out of hiding as I just happen to have a few photos in my collection that fit the bill. All of the following were taken over the last year and a half using a Nikon D5000 and a 55-300mm lens, and all (except the eclipse collage of course) are 1:1 crops out of the original camera images.

Fantastic shots. My 2010 eclipse shots look similar to yours (though yours are better and mine are of course smaller) so I won't bother putting them up. That night was incredibly cold and windy here in Pennsylvania. The downside of having an inexpensive tripod becomes readily apparent when the damn thing won't stop shaking in the wind. I was outside for quite some time before and after setting up and just checking out the moon in camera and with some binoculars. It was quite impressive to see.

Chimaera wrote:Ma Deuce, you are a GOD at this. You have my deepest envy

Hey, don't heap too much praise . In my case it was mostly just a matter of having the right gear: A DSLR with a super-telephoto lens is obviously far better suited to astronomical photography than your average point & shoot.

FSTargetdrone wrote:Fantastic shots. My 2010 eclipse shots look similar to yours (though yours are better and mine are of course smaller) so I won't bother putting them up. That night was incredibly cold and windy here in Pennsylvania. The downside of having an inexpensive tripod becomes readily apparent when the damn thing won't stop shaking in the wind. I was outside for quite some time before and after setting up and just checking out the moon in camera and with some binoculars. It was quite impressive to see.

Well there wasn't any wind up here that night, though it was still bitterly cold. I had only gotten home from work at midnight, so I was tired and didn't feel like setting up the tripod, or staying up late enough to see the end of the eclipse. Hell, I even went inside a few times to get away from the cold, while leaving my camera just outside the door so the lens wouldn't fog up. In the end, I got all the shots I wanted, so I can't complain.

Ma Deuce wrote:

Chimaera wrote:Ma Deuce, you are a GOD at this. You have my deepest envy

Hey, don't heap too much praise .

But I must, they look awesome XD

I took a few more pictures of Mars last night, I think the light fog affected the quality slightly. At the moment I'm experimenting with the various settings, seeing which ones look best, etc.
Fun stuff

Nice photo, to think it was taken by ordinary camera. I wanted to see the conjunction of the moon and the planets....I’ll be back here and post my photography of moon on its colossal figure.

Transit of Venus taken through #14 welding glass taped to the lens hood of my 100mm macro


Really crappy quality, due to not having enough focal length and thus severe cropping and shooting through the clouds and a sketchy shaky tripod. Green tint comes from the welding glass.

Still, a very nice shot! Edmonton's skies were completely cloud covered, all I saw was the NASA livestream