[masraum]

Originally Posted by Scott Douglas

Eric, I'm used to 'photographic' speak in terms of focal length of lenses.
What is your scope equivalent too, in 35mm camera terms?
We have too much light pollution to even consider doing something like this, but I just remembered I did take some shots of the moon last night just for grins since it was out as I was watering the front yard.
Thanks for reminding me! I need to download the pics.........

edit: Well that was a miserable fail on my part.

The moon is the easiest celestial subject since it's essentially like shooting in daylight. You can shoot the moon with a good camera, long lens, and tripod. You just have to keep the shutter speed down.

You can perform AP in high light pollution areas, but obviously, that is more difficult and doesn't get the same sort of results as AP in dark skies. You can even do really basic stuff with a tripod. The longer the lens the worse the results. The best results would be for wide angle. Longer lenses on a static tripod (no tracking) produce very primitive results.

I shot these MANY years ago (2006, I think) on a tripod on an old 8megapixel Canon EOS with a longish (200mm or maybe 300mm) lens in a fairly light polluted suburb of Houston (also 50' from a streetlight). It was just an exercise in curiosity. I haven't tried again since I'm out in the sticks in a "bortle 4" area now. I suspect the results would be very different, but without tracking, they are never going to be good. On top of the limits of the photography and environment, a huge portion of AP is the post processing, at least, it was back when I shot these.

Moon & Pleiades


Orion nebula. I have, somewhere, a much better shot of Orion, but it's still garbage by comparison.


Andromeda galaxy