Manually rotate the mount's declination axis until the angles of the constellations match the ones in the sky. One shows Cassiopeia, another the Big Dipper. In the polar finder, you should see some drawings. Note that you might have to turn your mount on to illuminate the finder.
If you are confident you are pointed in the right direction, it most likely is the brightest star in the finder. If your mount has a built-in polar scope, look through it and try to locate Polaris.
You usually set the altitude on your mount by turning two knobs that raise or lower the angle of the mount's head. This is actually not that crucial down the line, but it is a good habit to take and it's always better to be level.Īlso, make sure that your Altitude is correctly set. You can use an app on your phone to know where North is approximately.Įnsure that your mount is perfectly leveled. If you are setting up during the daytime, do your best to face North. When setting up your mount, ensure that you are pointing the polar finder (built into most mounts) towards Polaris. Now, go take your first picture and come back here to show us in the comments, we'd love to see it! To ensure you do not shake your camera when it is taking a picture, you can either use an intervalometer or simply add a 2-second timer in the camera settings.
If the stars on your corners appear triangular, increase that number a little bit to fix that. If possible, try to go low like 1.8 or 2.8 if your lens allows it. The lens we used for this shot is the stock Canon 18-55mm f/4.5 lens, so we had no choice but to use an f-ratio of f/4.5. Use the fastest possible f/ratio your lens will allow. If the air is warm, try to keep it low or the noise in your image will be insane. For the Milky Way, we like to crank up the ISO to 1600 or sometimes, even more, when it is very cold outside. This depends on the quality of your camera.
Preferably, make sure your foreground isn't crooked, just so it looks more natural :) We talked about it before, but ensure your exposure time isn't too long for your lens or your stars will be elongated. That's it, you're in focus!Īpply the 500 or 600 rule. Make sure you know how to focus your lens properly! This is actually very easy, just aim your camera at a bright star, zoom in digitally as much as you can (usually x10 for most DSLRs) and rotate the focuser ring on your lens until the star appears as small as possible.
0 kommentar(er)
