Shooting Stars eBook

How to Photograph the Moon and Stars with your DSLR

Ever wished you could capture stunning images of the night sky? Thought you needed complicated and expensive equipment?

Shooting Stars, written by David Malin Astrophotography Award winner Phil Hart, will show you how to shoot your own stunning images of the moon and the stars with just your digital SLR and a tripod. It will teach you about five key styles of night sky photography and the camera settings required for each:

• Twilight landscapes
• Night sky scenes (short exposures)
• Star trails (long exposures)
• The Moon
• Night sky timelapse videos

If you've ever wanted to photograph the night sky, I'm very confident this eBook will help you a lot!

Updated in 2021 with 'Tracking the Stars' - An Introduction to Astrophotography - SEE DETAILS BELOW

You Can Photograph the Night Sky

Shooting Stars has simple instructions for getting you started using your camera under the stars. The only other piece of equipment you need to get started tonight is a tripod. In addition to simple advice about the camera settings to use for each style of night sky photography, Shooting Stars provides detailed discussion of the finer points of imaging in low light conditions. It’s a reference you’ll keep coming back to and will help even professional photographers learn more about their camera and how to use it at night.

Contents

Click to view the complete Table of Contents to see just how comprehensive this eBook is.

Part 1, The Sky at Night, introduces some basic astronomy concepts, to help you understand what you can expect to see at night from different places on Earth and at different times of the year. This part includes a description of how and why the phase of the Moon varies each month and at which times of the year you can expect to see and photograph the Milky Way.

Part 2, Night Sky Photography, is the heart of the book. It begins by discussing your camera and lenses and how to use them to turn the faint light of the night sky into stunning images. Most importantly, it describes three techniques for how to get accurate focus at night when your autofocus fails you. At least one of these techniques is guaranteed to work with whatever camera and lens you are using. This section also describes additional equipment and accessories that will enable you to do more with your camera at night and help make the experience more enjoyable.

Twilight Landscapes

The Moon

Night Sky Scenes

Star Trails (Long Exposures)

Timelapse Video

Part 3 of Shooting Stars covers Image Processing, concentrating on the particular techniques and steps you will need to get the most out of your night sky images. Examples and screen captures are provided for Photoshop, Lightroom, ACDSee and PtGui (for panoramas) but the instructions can easily be applied using other image processing applications.

Part 4, Wonders of the Night Sky, will inspire you to get outside with your camera more often. This final part covers interesting events, features and phenomena that you can see at night and how to apply night sky photography techniques to capture them. Topics include Comets, Meteors, Conjunctions, Eclipses of the Moon, the Milky Way, Satellite Flares, the Aurora Borealis and even Bioluminescence. Each topic features more of Phil’s stunning images, a few tips and the stories behind them.

Aurora

Bioluminescence

Part 5, the Field Guide, provides a quick summary of the exposure settings you need for each style of night sky photography. It also describes where to find camera settings particular to this type of photography on popular DSLRs and all the latest models from Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax and Sony.

Tracking the Stars - An Introduction to Long-Exposure Astrophotography

Tracking the Stars, Part 6 of Shooting Stars, is entirely new in 2021 (4th edition).

This will show you how to polar align and use portable tracking mounts such as the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer with DSLRs and telephoto lenses. Image processing techniques to calibrate and stack your deep sky images are provided for three popular software packages: Photoshop, Deep Sky Stacker and Astro Pixel Processor.

This new section marks a step up from "Night Sky Photography" using camera and tripod only to long-exposure "Astrophotography" with standard and telephoto lenses on tracking mounts.

Two of the hardest steps when making this transition are learning how to polar align these equatorial mounts and how to 'calibrate and stack' multiple sub-exposures in dedicated astro-imaging software. Tracking the Stars has 30 pages of new content covering these two foundational skills in detail, to get your journey in astrophotography started on the right track.

'Tracking the Stars' with the Star Adventurer and other portable tracking mounts

Milky Way and 'Deep Sky' Astrophotography (long exposures)

Astrophotography Image Processing

Reviews of Shooting Stars

Your book is awesome!! I just bought it this week and read through it. It is responsible for me capturing a photo of the International Space Station tonight. This was the best money I've ever spent with almost immediate results.

Amy, San Franscisco

Am truly impressed by the content - illustrations,settings and photographs.You should be really proud of one of the most informative books that I have ever read on night sky photography.which seems to contain everything one needs to know.

Mike Webb, U.K.

Amazingly informative and beautifully illustrated!

Attila K, ExposureGuide.com

My husband and I are thrilled with this book because you have suggested solutions to problems we have faced in our photography. This book is worth five times the price!

Daphne Gonzalvez

Lots of great content, and you really got me fired up to try some night sky photography. The book looks like it must have been a ton of work and I really appreciate it. Well worth the money.

Bill Young, Oregon

About the Author

Phil Hart has been enjoying and photographing the night sky for nearly thirty years. His award winning photos have been published in books, magazines and popular websites around the world.

He has been a serial winner of the prestigious 'David Malin Astrophotography Award' and was awarded the Judges Prize for his open program 'Eclipsed!' exhibition at the Ballarat International Foto Biennale in 2019.

Phil has also had extensive experience running Night Sky Photography workshops and all of the information in this book has been thoroughly road-tested by participants on these workshops.

You can follow Phil and the beautiful images he captures on the Night Sky Photography Facebook page.

4th Edition (2021 Update)

Shooting Stars has been updated in 2021 with:

• An entire new section on 'Tracking the Stars', covering long-exposure deep-sky astrophotography and image processing, as described above.
• New recommended wide angle lenses for night sky photography.
• Updated cloud forecast services and lists of lunar eclipses.
• Image processing now includes creating panoramas with PtGui.

The Field Guide, included with Shooting Stars, has been updated with where to find the ten most common night sky photography settings on the dials and menus of just about every DSLR and the latest models up to and including:

• Canon 850D (Rebel T8i), 90D, 6D Mark II, 5D Mark IV, 1DX Mark III
• Canon Mirrorless EOS R, EOS Ra, R5, R6 
• Nikon D3500, D5600, D7500, D6, D850
• Pentax K-1 Mark II, K-3 Mark II, K-r, K-m
• Olympus OM-D EM-1 Mark III, E-M5 Mark III, E-620
• Sony a7 III, a7R IV, a7s III, a6600, a5100, a560, a580

I guarantee your DSLR is included or your money back, but you can also view the full list of included models here.

If you have purchased a copy of Shooting Stars previously, you can read how to update your copy here.

Money-back Guarantee

Download your PDF copy of Shooting Stars Now!

Shooting Stars is great value at just US$19.95 for 186 pages of valuable instructions that will make a difference to your photography.

Click the download button to pay for your copy with Credit Card/PayPal now. With immediate download, you can be reading Shooting Stars in just a few minutes and taking your astrophotography to the next level tonight.

Also Available on your iPad or Kindle

For information about reading and saving PDF files on an iPad with the Apple iBook app, click here. You might also like to check out the free Amazon 'Send to Kindle' App which can be used to send your copy of Shooting Stars to your Kindle, iPad or Android device.

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