Astrophotography part 1: Taking photos

When I picked out my camera, I had not done much astrophotography, but it was on my list as something I wanted to learn. While a DSLR can produce better results, there’s no reason you can’t take great astro photos with a micro 4/3 camera, assuming you have the right gear and lens.

Gear

The two most important things you will need are a lens with a super wide aperture and a very stable tripod. My lens goes down to an F value of 1.8, and I wouldn’t want one that doesn’t get any smaller than that. I opted for the cheapest Olympus lens with that ability (M.Zuiko 17mm F1.8), as the main difference I found between that and the more expensive ones was that it wasn’t weather sealed. Since astrophotography doesn’t tend to work super well in the rain, I wasn’t too worried about having a drip proof lens.

For a tripod, I opted for a tall, carbon fiber one. The height means I don’t have to crane my neck when shooting the sky, and carbon fiber means that it is lightweight and absorbs a lot of vibrations. This is super important when taking long exposures. I have the Geekoto CT25Pro, but there’s lot of options out there.

If you have a remote shutter option, you can utilize that to eliminate the wobble that comes from pushing the shutter button on your camera. But it’s not a deal breaker! If you want a flashlight (and you probably will) get a red light flashlight, as that won’t mess with your night vision.

At some point, I’d love to get a star tracker that mounts on my tripod for even longer exposures, but what I have works for now.

Location

Once you have your gear, you’ll need to find a time and place to shoot. Head out on a clear, moonless night so you can actually see the stars, and go somewhere with minimal light pollution. You can use a star finder app to look for specific constellations and planets, or just aim for the sky and hope for the best. (This is my usual approach, tbh.) I like Sky Map specifically because it has a red light mode that helps you to not lose your night vision. There’s also a couple apps (Aurora Alerts among others) that you can check to see if the Northern Lights are visible in your area.

Of course, make sure that wherever you’re headed is safe and legal for nighttime explorations.

Settings

Now that you’ve gotten your camera all set up, you’re going to want to make sure you have the right settings. When you’re shooting, make sure you have some sort of foreground or horizon. The sky can be absolutely brilliant, but without some sort of framing to ground it, your viewer can find it hard to place themselves.

Firstly, turn off auto focus on your camera, and set the manual focus to as far as possible. If you have the infinity symbol on your lens, use it!

Next, you’re going to want to be in manual mode. Crank that F value as low as it will go. As you get comfortable, you may adjust this slightly - I usually shoot between 1.8 and 2.2 - but go ahead and start at that lowest setting. Then, turn your shutter speed down to somewhere between 15 seconds and one minute. This will take some trial and error depending on how bright the stars are where you’re shooting as well as how much ambient light you’re fighting.

I will usually take at least five photos with slightly different apertures and shutter speeds, to get the maximum number of stars possible. Some show up at different settings, and when you stack these images together in post, you’ll see all of the stars from all of the photos. More photos is almost always better - but I’ll be honest, I usually get bored around the five photo mark. I’ve found five to ten photos is the sweet spot for excellent stacking.

I’ll go into detail about how to stack and edit your star photos in my next blog post.

In the meantime, I’d recommend checking out Micro Four Nerds’ video on shooting astrophotography. I learned a ton from her, so definitely give it a watch!