Last updated
Table of Contents
There are many types of astrophotography to explore, each offering unique techniques and opportunities to photograph astronomical targets. Whether you’re interested in wide-field shots of the Milky Way, detailed images of planets, or deep-sky objects like nebulae, this guide will walk you through the most popular types of astrophotography and help you choose the best approach for your skill level and equipment.
Astrophotography can be fun, but is one of the most challenging forms of photography that involves taking pictures of deep sky objects such as galaxies and nebulae, stars, planets, the moon or the Milky Way. Astrophotography lets us capture the beauty of the universe from where we live on Earth. In this blog post, we’ll look more closely at some of the most popular kinds.
What is Astrophotography?
Before we talk about the different kinds of astrophotography and compare them, let’s focus on what astrophotography is.
Astrophotography is the art of photographing the night sky. You can use your own amateur equipment and take photographs from your own backyard or try remote astrophotography – a full explanation here.
Before getting started, here is an important question you may be asking yourself: Is astrophotography easy or difficult? Check out my answer and find out how challenging it might be for you.
The Many Types of Astrophotography
Which one you chose depends on what interests you the most about our inspiring universe.
Deep Sky Astrophotography
This type of astrophotography is the one that interests me the most.
Deep sky astrophotography involves imaging objects beyond our solar system. For deep sky astronomy, you need special equipment like a telescope with a tracking mount and a camera that can take long exposures.
Here’s an example of a deep-sky object that I’ve photographed:
The Crab Nebula is a leftover part of a supernova that is about 6500 light years away from us. The above image is the result of almost six hours of six-minute exposures I stacked and processed in Photoshop. Quite beautiful, isn’t it? Here’s some more information about M1 from NASA.1
Read my full guide on deep sky astrophotography to learn more.
Planetary astronomy photography
Planetary astrophotography means taking pictures of planets like Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and Venus that are in our solar system. Unlike deep sky astrophotography which requires long exposures or specialized filters for capture, planetary astrophotographers employ “lucky imaging” to capture the best possible images of planets.2 Lucky imaging involves taking several short exposures of the same planet and then stacking them together to make one high-resolution image.
- Below $1000 (price may increase)
- Amazon’s Choice
- With Smartphone adapter
- Great for Planets!
I have tried planetary astrophotography by taking pictures of the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn. One way I took pictures of these planets was to record a short video of about two minutes, then use software like Registax and Pipp to turn the video into many hundreds of still images, which I then stacked and edited.
Below you can see an image created in this way of Saturn that I took a few years ago. Excuse the quality as this was one of the first types of astrophotography I tried when I got my telescope!
This was the first and only time I tried to take pictures of Saturn. If I had focused on planetary astrophotography, my pictures would be much better now. When I first saw and took a picture of Saturn, I remember being amazed and awed by it. That’s when I was hooked on this hobby.
Solar Astrophotography
Solar astrophotography involves taking photographs of the Sun and its features, such as sunspots, prominences, and solar flares. To do this effectively, astrophotographers need specialized solar filters that block out most of the Sun’s light so they can safely capture images on its surface. Because these things change so quickly over time, astrophotographers have to wait for the best conditions to take good pictures.
What kind of filter do you need for this kind of astrophotography? There are four different types of solar astrophotography filters:
- Square – these filters are square-shaped and need a filter holder to hold them in front of your lens.
- Slip on – these simply fit over your telescope lens aperture and the advantage of these is that you can quickly change the filter as you need to.
- Threaded – these are more usual for DSLR lenses. They have standard fittings and once on they stay on.
- Drop-in – these can fit into your camera or telescope viewfinder.
What specific types of solar filters are there and which is the best for astrophotography?
The best to use and cheapest are mylar solar filters. They can be used for photography and viewing. Nd filters are used to make your image darker and cannot be used for viewing. There are also hydrogen alpha filters that can be used but these are rather specialised.
This is one of the types of astrophotography I haven’t tried yet, but it looks interesting. I might try this one day and see what I can photograph.
Lunar Astrophotography
In my experience this is one of the easiest types of astrophotography a beginner can try. Simple and less costly equipment can be used to get great results.
I found it easy to take pictures of the Moon, and 10 to 20 pictures taken in a fraction of a second are all you need to get a great picture like the one I took below:
The picture above is sometimes called a Mineral Moon and sometimes a True Colour Moon.3 Look at how much detail I’ve been able to get. You too can do this with some practice!
Time-lapse Astrophotography
In time-lapse astrophotography, multiple images are taken over time and then put together to make a video or still photo. With this method, you can take pictures of things like meteor showers, eclipses, star trails, and planets moving across the night sky. To capture time-lapse astrophotography, you will need a stable tripod or tracking mount plus a camera capable of taking long exposures.
Another tip for time-lapse astrophotography is to make sure not to use the internal noise reduction setting of your DSLR camera. This wastes time and this is better used to take and stack more images. This will improve your images. Noise can always be reduced in your processing software.
Astrophotography is an exciting and rewarding hobby that allows us to explore the beauty of the universe. There are different types of astrophotography for everyone, whether you want to take pictures of deep sky objects, planets, the Sun or Moon, or time-lapse videos or pictures of celestial events. Astrophotography can be truly amazing if you have the right tools and know how to use them. So grab your camera and begin exploring our universe today!
Again, I’m interested in this kind of astrophotography, but I haven’t tried it yet. Someday I will. I love those photos with star trails, they are so cool!
Milky Way Astrophotography
Milky Way astrophotography involves taking images of our home galaxy, the Milky Way.
See my detailed guide to learn how to photograph the Milky Way here.
Landscape Astrophotgraphy
This is when you try to photograph astronomical objects with a background setting such as mountains or desert etc. To find out much more about this see my guide on landscape astrophotography here.
Conclusion
So, now you know how many different kinds of astrophotography there are.
Which of these types of astrophotography is best depends on you and what astronomical objects interest you. Do you want to photograph the craters of the moon, the rings of Saturn, or the red spot of Jupiter? Or would you prefer to take pictures of nebulae and star clusters? Maybe capturing the Milky Way against a glorious landscape is your thing? Whatever type of astrophotography interests you most, go for it!
Give it a shot today!
References
[1] No author. Messier 1 (The Crab Nebula) – NASA Science. Retrieved from https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/messier-1-the-crab-nebula
[2] No author. Lucky imaging – Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_imaging
[3] No author. Colors of the Moon | Astrophotographylk. Retrieved from https://astrophotographylk.wordpress.com/colors-of-the-moon/
