My journey into AstroPhotography

Thomas Stiles
Apr 13, 2025
2 min read

Where do we begin we firstly lets state the elephant in the room i'm still new to all this photography learning the shutter the speeds the iso all the way to aperture setting, capture regular shot like landscape or street photos are some what easier but in terms of space with stars and planets lets say i need so more work to do on that side of things.

Space fascinates me the vast openness different galaxies all the many planets i have a list of many things i want to photograph all the planets in our solar system the moon mars jupiter even the crab nebula but for me with out a star tracker and my very limited skills the nebula is a little down on my list.

Through out this year i have some goals one being the nebula ill get on to that later on but the main target is to capture as clear as i can a shot of every planet in our system including the iss (international space station) i've captured the moon many time and i think each time i'm getting better the moon is easier its close but its sure is beautiful when you get it right!

now in between writing this post i've been out a few time grabbing some shots of the moon some start and mostly mars and jupiter however they are just slight blurred stars with mars being bright red and jupiter being blue nevertheless for me it is a good starting point for my project of planet.

what i found hard it focusing on them and keeping then in sight without a star tracker i was able to get some shots then having to adjust the lense back on it.

There are many astrophotography shots i would like as mentioned the iss some nebulas all while using not so expensive equipment apart from planets im currently shooting for a star trail, i recently took a collection of 10 photos shutter speed at 20 iso 800 but i soon realised i need more than 10 much more around 100+ and a shutter speed at 30 but this again is a learning curve for me.