Category Archives: Astrophotography

Using one of the 10 best camera gifts for astrophotography and videography can help those new to astro imaging, especially if you’ve recently got a new camera or lens for the holidays.

Buying equipment for your astrophotography adventures is daunting. Not only is there a plethora of equipment to choose from many believe that Astro-gadgets come with an astronomical price tag. Rest assured this guide disproves that convention especially when utilizing New Year sales. 

Earth’s night skies are receiving a surprise visitor this month.

Comet C/2022 E3 ZTF will be making its closest approaches to both Earth and the sun in the coming weeks. The comet was first discovered in March 2022 by astronomers at the Zwicky Transient Facility, part of the California Institute of Technology’s Palomar Observatory, when it was 399 million miles (643 million kilometers) from the sun, just inside the orbit of Jupiter. Since then, comet C/2022 E3 ZTF has moved much closer to the sun and Earth. 

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Using one of the 10 best camera gifts for astrophotography and videography can help those new to astro imaging, especially if you’ve recently got a new camera or lens for the holidays.

Buying equipment for your astrophotography adventures is daunting. Not only is there a plethora of equipment to choose from many believe that Astro-gadgets come with an astronomical price tag. Rest assured this guide disproves that convention especially when utilizing New Year sales. 

This guide features equipment for experienced and beginner astrophotographers with the added benefit of being multi-purposeful (astro and nature photography). We have gifts like backpacks and headlamps usable in many cases. We promise to bring a smile to your faces whilst alleviating your wallet this New Year. 

We have gladly ranked and given a small summary of the gifts below to make your after-holiday spending easier. Dive into the great selection of gift ideas we have compiled ready for you to grab a bargain this New Year.

10 best camera gifts for astrophotography and videography 2023

An intervalometer is a key to taking unblurred time lapses or star trail photos. The pixel remote control is available for most camera brands including Fujifilm, Sony, Nikon and Canon. 

The remote allows you to control the shutter remotely. You can program your camera to take bursts of photos (up to 99 photos) in intervals which you can set too! The remote also allows you to lock your shutter for long exposure shots. 

The intervalometer can be set up wireless up to 80m or wired. Although the number of features can be overwhelming when mastered, this is an essential piece of equipment in any astronomer’s arsenal and a great gift choice.

The Hoya light pollution filter is a must for your city-based astronomy enthusiast friends and family. It filters out light pollution whilst preserving neutral and white tones. This limits the amount of editing needed to correct your photos. The result is an image of the night sky untarnished by the unnatural glow of the city. The Starscape light pollution filter is available in a range of filter thread diameters (49-82 mm) which makes it viable for a wide range of lenses. Although ideal for astrophotography it is also doubly useful for increasing color contrast and tonal saturation.

Often astrophotography means cold nights. When your lens is left in this state dew and condensation are likely to ruin a beautiful shot of the starry night sky lens. An easy fix to this is a lens heater. A lens heater wraps around the end of your lens and gently heats the lens, maintaining your camera at a reasonable temperature.

The COOWOO lens warmer is simple yet effective and equipped with a USB connector making it easy to plug into most power banks. The simple neoprene band fits lenses up to a maximum of 41cm in circumference. Surprisingly, it also comes in handy if you need to warm up a water bottle or can act as a knee/wrist strap which helps keep warm.

This no-frills power bank and is our choice for outdoor charging. Although, it comes with no additional features like a hand warmer or a flashlight and is not the smallest option. It is able to charge three devices at once and boasts an impressive charging capacity. Respectively, it can charge phones and laptops up to nine and three times. It comes with 10 LED lights on the top to indicate current levels of charge.

Compatible devices (most iOS and Android) charge 85% faster with the Qualcomm advanced quick charge 3.0 technology. This benefits long nights. 

With the PowerCore+ 26800 you get a micro USB-C cord, travel pouch, welcome guide, an 18-month warranty and customer service from one of the most reputable brands in a power bank.

The Celestron lens cleaning kit is crafted by one of the most reputable astrophotography brands so expect a quality gift. The kit’s contents wipe away dust, dirt and fingerprints. This kit is perfect for not just your telescope but binoculars, camera lens, computer screens and phone screens.

The kit features a synthetic retractable fiber brush; pre-moistened lens wipes; a branded black microfiber cloth; lens cleaning solutions as well as a black woven branded pouch with compartments to organize the above cleaning paraphernalia. This item will go very nicely next to any astrophotographer’s arsenal of equipment in the field. 

One thing to note is that it should be used to clean the corrector lens of Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes only and not the primary and secondary mirrors.

This backpack snugly fits cameras and lenses and keeps your equipment safe with durable and waterproof material. Along with the camera/telescope inventory space, it has more capacity for your growing equipment list.

Vanguard is a reputable brand and this award-winning backpack won’t disappoint. It fits a pro-DSLR camera, 6-8 lenses and a 13-inch laptop. There are multiple pockets to store smaller items that may be a part of your setup. The best part of this bag is that it has rear space to store your tripod.

This bag comes in grey or black with reflective stitching to illuminate you during evening photo sessions. Finally, this bag has an ergonomic design to be incredibly comfortable with an inbuilt airflow system to help you stay cool.

Preserving night vision is key to star gazing. Any white light hitting the retinas will mean waiting another 30 minutes or so for your eyes to adjust to the dark. This compact and handy headlamp comes with CORE Lithium-ion rechargeable batteries giving you up to 130 hours of use depending on which settings you choose. We recommend this headlamp so highly we gave it five out of five stars in our Petzl ACTIK CORE 450 headlamp review. Alternatively, you can use regular AAA batteries but this sacrifices the burn-to-brightness ratio. 

Not only is it suitable for night sky imaging, the Petzl ACTIK CORE 450 is also usable for other outdoor activities such as camping and wildlife observation. Although it is slightly waterproof (IPX4) it won’t fair well submerged or under heavy rain pours.

If you or that special someone in your life has a telescope or binoculars, you can purchase a smartphone adapter. This allows you to take pictures with most smartphones (Apple and Android) and share those photos instantly.

You can be assured that Celestron will produce a durable product thanks to its extensive reputation in the telescope market. Using this smartphone adapter is easy. Simply, secure the adapter in front of the eyepiece and watch as the cosmos open up in front of your camera screen. 

To make sure your telescope or binoculars are compatible with the adapter simply measure your eyepiece and if it falls in the 29-45mm range you are ready to go. This is a perfect gift for you and your socialite astronomer friends.

Lenses are central to any astrophotography setup and enhance your view of the cosmos. The Meike MK 50mm f/1.7 lens has a wide aperture of f/1.7 which drinks in the dim light from distant galaxies and stars. It’s a great budget option for anyone who wants to dip their toe into astrophotography and videography and also requires a lens to double for more generalist photography such as portraiture, landscapes and more.

The lens has a multi-layered coating to minimize flare and ghosting and maximizes contrast and color accuracy. A focal length of f/2.8 and below is necessary while photographing dim objects. Lenses in the 50mm range are very good at capturing conjunctions, constellations and vast areas of the night sky. Although, a star tracker will most likely need to be used for long-exposure shots to eliminate trailing from the earth’s rotation.

The Sandisk Extreme Pro is our choice for a memory card. It ranges from 32 GB all the way up to 1TB. If you aren’t sure which size you need we’d recommend heading for around 128GB to encompass photos and videos taken at night. It boasts fast read/write speeds, too which makes it better at taking stills and video images but also helps data transfer to a desktop computer or laptop for editing.

For those who want to shoot timelapse video the impressive 90Mb/s write speed will keep up with most cameras’ buffers. It also impressively supports 4K video capture as denoted by the V30 mark on the card. 

Although it is not the cheapest SD card on the market we think it’s worth the money thanks to SanDisk’s reputation for reliable memory cards.

A comet discovered just last year will make its closest approach to the sun next week, offering an excellent opportunity to view it.

Comet C/2022 E3 ZTF was discovered in March 2022 by astronomers at the California Institute of Technology’s Zwicky Transient Facility when it was 397 million miles (640 million kilometers) from the sun. Astronomers initially believed C/2022 E3 ZTF to be an asteroid, but its coma, the cloud of ice and dust surrounding its nucleus, was observed soon after. By December 2022, the comet had developed a long tail as it was warmed by the sun.

© Gianluca Masi
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A comet discovered just last year will make its closest approach to the sun next week, offering an excellent opportunity to view it.

Comet C/2022 E3 ZTF was discovered in March 2022 by astronomers at the California Institute of Technology’s Zwicky Transient Facility when it was 397 million miles (640 million kilometers) from the sun. Astronomers initially believed C/2022 E3 ZTF to be an asteroid, but its coma, the cloud of ice and dust surrounding its nucleus, was observed soon after. By December 2022, the comet had developed a long tail as it was warmed by the sun.

C/2022 E3 ZTF will reach perihelion, or its closest distance to the sun, on Jan. 12. If it continues to brighten as much as it has during observations so far, the comet may be visible with the naked eye. To share a gorgeous view of the comet at perihelion with anyone interested, the Virtual Telescope Project is hosting a free livestream of comet C/2022 E3 ZTF starting at 11:00 p.m. EST on Jan. 12 (0400 GMT on Jan. 13). You can watch the live webcast courtesy of the project’s website or on its YouTube channel.

Related: Possible naked-eye comet will visit Earth for 1st time since Neanderthals in 2023

Newly discovered comet could be visible to the naked eye in Jan. 2023

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NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory says that skywatchers in the Northern Hemisphere should be able to spot the comet in dark skies when there is little moonlight, such as when the new moon rises on Jan. 21. 

The comet currently has a greenish coma and a long but faint tail. C/2022 E3 ZTF was quite dim when it was first discovered, with a magnitude of 17.3, but it’s expected to reach magnitude 6, making it just bright enough to view with the naked eye under the right conditions. (On the magnitude scale astronomers use, smaller numbers denote brighter objects.) 

On Jan. 12, the comet will zoom through the solar system at a distance of 100 million miles (160 million km) from the sun; later, on Feb. 2, the comet will make its closest approach to Earth, or perigee, coming within 26 million miles (42 million km) of our planet. 

Comet C/2022 E3 ZTF hasn’t approached the sun this closely for around 50,00 years, meaning the last time it was so visible in our night skies was the Upper Paleolithic period. It’s possible that some early humans were able to see the comet during this time, or even some of the last Neanderthals. 

If you want to take a look at C/2022 E3 ZTF and don’t have the right gear, be sure to peruse our guides for the best binoculars and the best telescopes to view the comet or anything else in the sky. For capturing the best comet images you can, we have recommendations for the best cameras for astrophotography and best lenses for astrophotography.  

Editor’s Note: If you photograph comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), and would like to share it with Space.com’s readers, send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to [email protected].

Follow Brett on Twitter at @bretttingley. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or on Facebook.  

Talented “backyard astrophotographer” Andrew McCarthy has captured an incredible photo of the International Space Station passing in front of one of the Moon’s brightest craters.

McCarthy says the photo is one of the “most meticulously planned” shots of his career, which has seen no shortage of carefully-planned images that have captured the world’s imagination.

“This shot was my redemption,” McCarthy tells PetaPixel. “A few weeks ago there was a similar transit forecasted, but after setting up on location, getting all my equipment configured and focused, my laptop quit on me about 30 seconds before the pass and I missed it. I’m so thrilled this one worked out, as these are a lot of work, and missing two back-to-back would have been heartbreaking.”

The photo shows the silhouette of the ISS in the foreground in front of the Tycho crater in the background.

Tycho is a large, well-preserved impact crater on the Moon located in the southern lunar highlands. It is both one of the youngest and one of the most noticeable impact craters on the lunar surface. Named after the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, who studied the Moon and other celestial objects in the late 16th century, the crater is about 53.4 miles (85km) in diameter and has a depth of about 2.98 miles (4.8km).

“That crater is 53 miles wide, so while the station almost looks like it’s orbiting the moon it’s actually 1000x closer to us,” McCarthy writes.

McCarthy had to capture the moment the ISS whizzed by at its orbit speed of 5 miles per second.

Here’s what the moment of the transit looked like in real time on McCarthy’s laptop, which was hooked up to his camera on a telescope.

“I knew it was coming but still audibly gasped when I saw it,” McCarthy writes.

The photo was captured from a remote section of Highway 79 in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert. McCarthy calculated the transit-viewing location using transit-finder.com, headed out to the spot late at night, and then set up his 14-inch telescope with a focal length of 4000mm to achieve an incredible amount of detail when the transit occurred at 11pm.

“These shots require meticulous planning because you have to be positioned exactly right or the station won’t pass exactly where you think it will,” McCarthy writes. “If I had set up my telescope on the other side of the clearing I was in, I would have missed it completely.”

It can be difficult to find a perfect transit with the ISS passing right across the Moon, as most of the results will be near (or far) misses:

McCarthy then shows up way before the scheduled transit — at least one hour, but sometimes several — for the event that is over in the blink of an eye. The ISS is only in front of the Moon for 1/10 of a second.

Thankful for McCarthy, his meticulous planning paid off, and he managed to capture one of his most impressive astro photos yet.

McCarthy has published a detailed blog post sharing the technical details that went into this photo. You can purchase limited edition prints of A Visit to Tycho on the same page.

Royal Observatory Greenwich, supported by Liberty Specialty Markets and in association with BBC Sky at Night Magazine, announces the dates for the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 15 competition – a global search for the most striking images of our cosmos.

Now in its fifteenth year, the annual competition invites entrants of all ages to submit up to ten pictures in categories ranging from Stars and Nebulae to People and Space with the chance to win the grand prize of £10,000. The competition opens on Monday 9 January 2023 and entrants will have until Friday 3 March 2023 (12:00 GMT) to submit their images via https://apy.rmg.co.uk/ (entry fees apply, for more information check the competition rules).

100 breathtaking images, including all the winners, runners-up and highly commended entries, from the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 15 competition will be displayed at the National Maritime Museum from September 2023. Astronomy Photographer of the Year 15 has nine main categories:

Skyscapes: Landscape and cityscape images of twilight and the night sky featuring the Milky Way, star trails, meteor showers, comets, conjunctions, constellation rises, halos and noctilucent clouds alongside elements of earthly scenery

Aurorae: Photographs featuring the Northern and Southern Lights

People and Space: Photographs of the night sky including people or a human interest element

Our Sun: Solar images including solar eclipses and transits

Our Moon: Lunar images including lunar eclipses and occultation of planets

Planets, Comets and Asteroids: Everything else in our Solar System, including planets and their satellites, comets, asteroids and other forms of zodiacal debris

Stars and Nebulae: Deep-space objects within the Milky Way galaxy, including stars, star clusters, supernova remnants, nebulae and other intergalactic phenomena

Galaxies: Deep-space objects beyond the Milky Way galaxy, including galaxies, galaxy clusters and stellar associations

Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year: Pictures taken by budding astronomers under the age of 16

As well as the nine main categories, Astronomy Photographer of the Year includes two special prizes, the Sir Patrick Moore Prize for Best Newcomer and the Annie Maunder Prize for Image Innovation.

The Sir Patrick Moore Prize for Best Newcomer is open to amateur photographers who have taken up astrophotography in the past year and have not entered an image in the competition previously. The Annie Maunder Prize for Image Innovation recognises the best photo processed using pre-existing open source data, bringing together the worlds of the arts, astronomy and astrophotography. Visit rmg.co.uk/imageinnovation to learn more about the Annie Maunder Prize and see step-by-step guides for finding images and image processing.

Entries to the competition must be submitted by 3 March 2023, and the winning images will be showcased in the annual exhibition at the National Maritime Museum, opening on 16 September 2023.

Astronomy Photographer of the Year 15
2023 Competition dates: 9 January 2023 – 3 March 2022
https://apy.rmg.co.uk/
www.rmg.co.uk