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This photograph of Comet West (C/1975 V1) shows both its gas and dust tails well, an improvement over previous images. It appeared in “Catch a Comet on Film,” a story by Rick Dilsizian in the January 1996 issue. The imager took a 2½-minute exposure on Fuji F100 film in a 5½-inch Schmidt camera. Credit: James L. Matteson

In the premier issue of Astronomy, dated August 1973, a page labeled “Wanted: Contributors to Astronomy” put this call out to imagers: “Photographs, preferably in color whenever possible, but black and white are acceptable. For color, transparencies are preferred over prints, made with as large a film print as possible. We would like to receive 4×5 transparencies, but accept 5mm. Black and white prints should be on glossy paper, 5×7 inches or larger. Photos are used with accompanying articles, singly in special ‘Star Gallery’ photo spreads and to illustrate articles by other authors.”

Let’s be honest. Nobody in the ’70s was taking great shots of celestial objects. Even the professional observatories were producing images that today would be considered substandard.

I used to purchase slides of deep-sky objects from Palomar Observatory in California to augment the simple talks I was giving at the time. They were created from glass plates attached to the 200-inch Hale Reflector. Many of them required multihour exposures over several nights. And all resulted in black-and-white images.

Capture it on film

The state of amateur astroimaging in early 1975 was still bad enough that, in a story titled “Piggyback Astrophotography” by Leo C. Henzl Jr., only two images accompanied the text — and both were of equipment! Indeed, backyard photographers were trying lots of new techniques to get the most out of their equipment and photographic emulsions.

As late as the November 1993 issue, Lumicon was still selling gas hypersensitization kits to improve film astrophotography. Such a technique stabilized photographic emulsions against a problem called “reciprocity failure,” where the sensitivity of the film would fall off dramatically as the exposure time increased.

The next issue saw the first true ad for a CCD camera, produced by Sirius Instruments of Villa Park, Illinois. The first story about CCD imaging appeared in March 1994. Titled “Virtual Sky,” by then-Editor Robert Burnham, the author wondered in the story’s subtitle, “If it comes at you out of a computer screen instead of an eyepiece, is it still astronomy?”

The next story about the benefits of CCD cameras was “Catching Comets with a CCD,” by Glenn Gombert and John Chumack. It appeared in the February 1995 issue. And — oh, my! — the images that accompanied the story were so miserable compared with what’s being produced today that they’re laughable. (See the images in the middle of page 56, and tell me you don’t agree.)

For the October 1996 issue, astrophotographer Tony Hallas wrote “Kodak’s Hot New Astrophoto Film.” In it he described his testing of Kodak Pro Gold 400 (also known as PPF) film. Accompanying his story were some impressive deep-sky shots — well, impressive for the time.

Then, for March 1997, Chris Schur wrote “Choosing the Right Film for Hale-Bopp,” which debuted a few images of the previous bright comet, C/1996 B2 (Hyakutake). It seemed the top imagers weren’t quite ready to make the jump to digital imaging.

The digital age

Astronomy announced two Santa Barbara Instrument Group (SBIG) CCD cameras in the April 1998 issue. Each sported a new advancement: an additional chip that made the cameras self-guiding. This was a huge moment for imagers. No longer would they have to sit with their eye glued to the eyepiece of a guide telescope, correcting for inconsistencies in the drive with tiny movements of the scope’s motors. In the September 1999 issue, a simple adaptive optics accessory, SBIG’s AO-7, promised relief from the curse of atmospheric seeing.

The first roundup and recommendations of CCD cameras appeared in the February 2000 issue. The story, “Capture the Sky on a CCD” by Gregory Terrance, was the first of a three-part series on CCD imaging. And, like most amateur efforts during that time, the pictures that appeared with the stories would be tossed out by today’s imagers.

When I became photo editor in 2003, the magazine was still receiving slides and photographs in a rough 3-to-1 ratio. To use them in the publication, I had to send each out to a photographic service company for scanning. Amateurs didn’t start sending digital images until 005, and those were all on CD-ROM disks. Things are so much simpler now.

A picturesque future

Today’s astroimagers benefit from a half-century of improvements in optics, drives and mounts, cameras, and software. We owe our thanks to lots of inventors and manufacturers who were willing to take a chance. Also, let’s not forget the hundreds of thousands of examples of trial and error by dedicated amateur astronomers that brought us to where we are now.

Hopefully, history will repeat itself so that when I write “100 years of astroimaging” in the August 2073 issue, we’ll all look back and chuckle at the “poor” state of early 21st-century imaging. Until then, keep shooting!

The author took this image of star trails above observatory domes from near San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, looking toward the South Celestial Pole. Credit: Molly Wakeling

I got started in astrophotography in July 2015, when I received my first telescope as a gift: an 8-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain on an altitude-azimuth mount. After nearly falling over, seeing Saturn for the first time, I decided I must attach a camera to the telescope somehow so I could share that beauty with the world.

Astrophotography is often associated with expensive telescopes, robotic mounts, and highly technical challenges. But getting started can be easier than you think: All you need is a basic DSLR and a tripod.

Star trails

Images of star trails are stunning and easy to make. Start with your DSLR and a short-focal-length lens (a stock 18–55mm zoom lens at 18mm is perfect) on a tripod, and pick an area of sky. Capturing the motion of stars as they wheel around the celestial poles is particularly mesmerizing, so facing north (or south, in the Southern Hemisphere) is a good place to start. A nice foreground, such as a barn or a tent or even a distant tree line or mountain, will make for a captivating image.

In Manual mode, set the exposure time to 30 seconds and choose a relatively high ISO, such as 1600 or 3200. Use the widest f/stop, or stop down one or two if you are using a very fast lens, such as f/1.8. If your camera has a built-in multiple-exposure mode, use that to trigger it. If not, an intervalometer is an indispensable tool for all kinds of astronomy purposes. Intervalometers can be programmed to activate the shutter for you (rather than you manually depressing the shutter button), including in Bulb mode, where you can set an arbitrary exposure time. You can get an intervalometer for around $20.

Take long exposures — 15 to 60 seconds to avoid saturation — for at least one hour, although you can go all night. I recommend taking images in JPEG format for ease of processing, or you can convert raw shots to JPEGs later.

Processing star trail images is simple through free software called Startrails (www.startrails.de). Simply load all the photos, press the Startrails button, choose the mode, and watch the magic. You can import the final image into Photoshop or another image processor to tweak colors, contrast, and other details.

Time-lapse videos

This same technique can be used to take time-lapse videos of objects rising or setting, such as the Milky Way, the constellation Orion, or a crescent Moon. In this case, choose a short enough exposure that the stars don’t trail as much. (Fifteen seconds is good for an 18mm lens.) Otherwise, use the same the settings and technique as for star trails.

There are many free and paid programs to turn individual frames into a video. A favorite of mine is TimeLapse DeFlicker ($35 at www.timelapsedeflicker.com), which smooths variation in light between exposures. Add some space-themed music for a fun video of the night!

Nightscapes

Nightscape (or skyscape) images are wide-field shots of the night sky with a fascinating foreground, such as mountains, buildings, or anything else you might think of. Nightscape photos are best taken in raw format and from dark locations, far from cities.

A fast camera lens, such as a 14mm f/2, can capture the Milky Way rising using a single 20-second exposure. For an even more stunning image, photographers might take a single long exposure of the foreground — say 30 or 60 seconds, while lighting the landscape in some way — and then take several 15-second exposures of the sky to keep the stars from trailing. Stacking software can align and combine the sky exposures into one bright, high-contrast image; the photographer then replaces the sky in the foreground frame with the stacked sky frame.

Eight years after my first astroimaging experience, I now run four automated imaging rigs in my yard, with even bigger plans for the future. And I am thrilled to start sharing my knowledge and love of astronomy here!