Chairman’s Chat
Astrophotography Angst

As I flick through the collection of prints of my latest astrophotography attempt, I can’t help but fondly recollect my first ever attempt at photographing the night sky with my new telescope.  I recall the flippant casual nature with which I approached the task.

Roughly align the tripod and telescope north-south, because I had heard somewhere that that was quite important. Set the wedge to my approximate latitude, which just happened to be on a farm near Dendron and a few clicks north of the tropic of Capricorn. I remembered seeing a green road sign that proclaimed “Steenbokkeerkring”. I decided to keep it simple for my first attempt: The Trifid Nebula! No problem. How long should I expose for? Loaded camera body with 100 ASA film, let’s see, 20 minutes should do it. All set up, ready, steady – go! 

Darn it! Cable release not set to open clamp. Wind film on and try again. Shutter open. Oops, did I just bump the telescope tripod with my knee? Only a nudge, I’m sure it won’t make a difference; this tripod and mount is solid enough to take a Tokyo earth shudder. Tracking looking good – Trifid still firmly in the finder scope! Boy, this astrophotography thing is a cinch – what’s all the fuss about? 15 minutes exposure time remaining. Plenty of time to go and boil the kettle and wolf down a well–earned cuppa. I’ll be back in time to release the cable and wind on this award winning photo. Sky and Telescope, look out - here I come!

Next target would be easy. The bright breezy 47 Tucana. Bit of a neck breaker trying to line up the camera body as it was just about touching the telescope control panel. Again, no problem. I’ll just use the old faithful finder scope to get my alignment.

Snap away, you astrophotographer genius.

In hind sight, I must feel sorry for the camera store assistant who handed me the pack of drivel. In my most stern voice I stabbed: “What is wrong with your processing equipment? Your machines have damaged my precious astrophotographs! This is professional stuff, you know! And what, oh what are all these squiggles?”

It’s been more than four years since those first photographs and at last I can maybe share them (for learning purposes, you know) with just a few of you. Those putrid results never deterred me; I tried and tried again. Some of the results have been rather pleasing on the eye, especially the wide-field panorama’s of the Milky Way bulge and the Crux/Coalsack region.

In my opinion, the end result of a pleasing photograph is temporary joy, but the journey in getting to that photograph is far more gratifying. The memory of painstaking off-axis guiding on the Great Orion Nebula for 35 minutes, enduring freezing temperatures and numbed gluteus maximus, to eventually close the shutter on the suspicion that this could be the one - priceless. 

So with that, your committee officially declares the astrophotography competition open. If you have never attempted this extremely pleasurable branch of astronomy before, now is the time. As a famous logo proclaims: “Just do it!” There are three categories to the competition: Deep Sky, Planets and Wide Field. Why not try your hand at all three of these categories. Only one photograph per category will be considered. The prize: your photographs will be framed, captioned and displayed permanently in the Herbert Baker Hall. You must record your methods and equipment used (including film type and exposure times) as well as methods of stacking or processing that you utilised to derive your end product. Winners will be announced at ScopeX 2004.

If our editor is brave enough to publish my first attempts at the end of this article, take pleasure in the knowledge that what ever you try will be infinitely better!

Good luck and I wish you … steady tripods.

47 Tucana - no Kidding

Trifid Nebula - Trust me