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#RELIABLE SKYCHART PORTABLE#Many people use a portable battery pack to power their gear, and so do I when I don’t have access to electricity. We need to power the equipment, so I usually run an extension cord (or two) out to my imaging location in the backyard. Just Google your location + clear sky chart. This tool is an online webpage rather than an app, but it has an impressive amount of locations across the world listed. Often times, the forecast looks better on the clear sky chart than it does on Clear Outside. The Clear Sky Chart is another great tool to use, but I find the forecast to be a little optimistic for the most part. I like the low, med, high cloud format and have found it to be astronishly accurate. The app includes several useful metrics including visibility, wind direction, estimated sky quality and more. #RELIABLE SKYCHART ANDROID#I use the Android app version on my smartphone. ![]() ![]() ![]() I have found that the most accurate tool to forecast a clear night sky is Clear Outside by First Light Optics. I monitor a variety of weather forecasting apps to see if the sky will be clear during the night from my location. I usually don’t set up my equipment unless I am confident the sky will be clear until dawn. The last thing you want to do is spend time carefully setting up all of your gear on a night when the weather forecast is not promising. For now, I’ll focus on what you need to start capturing quality data from home. You can learn more about the basics of deep-sky astrophotography in the “get started” section of this website. With enough overall exposure time, your image will benefit from a strong signal-to-noise ratio. With good data, the image processing stage is a lot of fun. It needs to be sharp, well-exposed, and well framed. In general, the most important aspect of deep-sky astrophotography is to collect as much data as possible – good data. The focal length and aperture offer you the power needed to get a close-up look of some incredible deep-sky objects in space. When it comes to deep-sky astrophotography, you can consider the telescope to act as the camera lens. This detail is collected onto the camera sensor, and can then be processed to pull out even more color and detail. Because the night sky slowly rotates throughout the night, we need to “freeze” the sky in place in order to capture a long exposure image.Ī long exposure photo of 1-minute or more will collect much more light on an object in space than you could ever see with your naked eye alone. I use a tracking equatorial telescope mount to compensate for the rotation of the Earth. For a more detailed description of the process, keep reading!įirst things first, if you’re brand new to deep sky astrophotography, here’s how it works. ![]() The following video takes you through my current deep-sky astrophotography routine step-by-step. I’ll warn you right now my methods are by no means “the right” way to do this, it’s just the way that works for me. I’ll be setting up from scratch, and talk about each piece of gear used, so you can replicate my process. This post aims to give beginners a better idea of what you need, and what you can expect to accomplish yourself. I’ll cover each piece of gear I use, and explain how it can be used to capture beautiful deep-sky images of space from your backyard.ĭeep-sky astrophotography is a rewarding and fulfilling hobby, especially once you’re able to achieve impressive results from your own home. #RELIABLE SKYCHART FREE#Ĭhevalley has also created a lunar atlas program, Virtual Moon Atlas, which is also free and open source software.In this post, I’ll break down everything you need for deep sky astrophotography with a telescope. Īccording to the programmer, Patrick Chevalley, it was released as freeware because "I’d rather see amateurs spend their money for a new eyepiece than for astronomy software". #RELIABLE SKYCHART SOFTWARE#The "red bulb" feature is useful when using software outside on a laptop on a dark night. With the change to version 3, Linux has been added as a target platform, licensing has changed from freeware to GPLv2 and the project moved to a new website.ĬDC includes the ability to control computerized GoTo telescope mounts, is ASCOM and INDI compliant, and supports the USNO's UCAC catalogs and ESA Gaia data, along with numerous other catalogs and utilities. Cross-platform ( Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux)Ĭartes du Ciel ("CDC" and "Sk圜hart") is a free and open source planetarium program for Linux, macOS, and Windows. ![]()
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