(essential are in bold)
- Manual Control Camera (aperture, shutter, iso)
- Lens (wider the better)
- Tripod (heavier the better)
- remote shutter
Pick an area with as little light pollution as possible, including light you can see over the horizon from neighboring civilization.
Clear skies are the best for this, and if you want to photograph anything other than the moon, preferably when it is not high in the sky or close to a full moon.
Before leaving you can go ahead and set your camera to the Manual setting. That link is to a whole bunch of biz on the basics of cameras below but what is important to know is this, its really dark out at night and cameras cannot see as well as our eyes. Therefore, for star photography this is what you want to set your camera for:
- Aperature - as wide as it can go
- ISO - as sensitive as you can without getting a 'noisy photograph' (probably 800 or 1600)
- focus - infinity (the camera cannot autofocus on a dark sky so put the focus manually all the way in the infinity direction)
- focus can be switched between auto and manual mode usually on the side of the lens
- shutter speed - this is the only setting you will actively adjust so it is moved into the shooting section below
Depending on what you are trying to do you may expose a photo for a few seconds or for a few minutes. For photographing northern lights and stars, shoot at around 15 to 30 seconds. Anything longer will result in star trails or dragging of the aurora borealis. Star trails are a whole other form of astrophotography and can be photographed for upwards of 5 minutes.
A general rule of thumb about shutter speed is that if the speed is less than 1/60 (usually just written 60) then the photo will appear shaky if taken in your hands.
Because the shutter is open for such a long amount of time, you will need to attach the camera to a tripod. In addition you cannot take shots by simply pressing the shutter release. Instead, you should use a remote shutter, or if you do not have one, use the built in timer for your camera. Almost all cameras have a self timer setting and a simple google search should find out how to set it for your camera. In addition, try to keep phones and flashlights pointed away from the lens, and better still, off entirely
This entire process is very much situation dependent so all of these settings are of course just recommendations. The best advice I can give is use trial and error. Take a shot and if the image looks dark, expose a little longer, if it looks noisy, lower the iso. Another more advanced method is to look less at the images themselves, and more at the histograms that are produced from the images, these will give you more honest opinion of how evenly distributed the light is in your photograph
Whenever you decide to take a picture with a camera, the outcome of the shot relies on three things:
- definition - how wide the lens hole should be (how much light)
- example measurements - 1.0f, 1.4f, 2.8f, .... 22f (the smaller the number the wider the hole)
- definition - how long the sensor should be exposed to an image (how long)
- example measurements - 1", 1/2, 1/5, 1/10, 1/60, 1/2000 (if it has a " then it is in seconds, if not, fractions of a second)
- definition - how sensitive the sensor is to light when it is exposed
- example measurements - 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200
So thats a lotta numbers but you really only need to worry about 1 or the other In most cases you will set ISO ahead of time depending on the environment and only change it occasionally. After that, there are three manual settings for all mirrorless and dlsr cameras
- Aperature - control the aperature, shutter is automatically adjusted
- Shutter - control shutter, aperature is automatically adjusted
- Manual - control both and decide on your own what the best amount of light is