Astrophotography

ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY

The practice of Astrophography has changed dramatically over the past few decades.  The tedious world of pushing film to its limit to gather those faint photons has been transformed by digital methods of detecting that subtle energy.

Whether you are interested in landscape photography with the Milky Way as your background, or elusive galaxy collisions, those images are within the reach of the amateurs with affordable equipment today.

The techniques to capture astro-images are the focus of one of TAAA’s special interest groups, our Astro Imaging Special Interest Group (AISig).

AISIG

TAAA Astro Imaging SIG (AISIG) Meetings usually occur on the 3rd or 4th Tuesday of the month, but the date and time may vary (please check the TAAA Events Calendar or contact us directly – below). We meet at Total Wine and More, 4370 N. Oracle Rd. If you are just getting into imaging the night sky or a veteran astroimager, AISIG is the group to ask questions, share your expertise and present your latest efforts. Best of all, the group decides what topics to address at upcoming meetings.

Our programs may consist of a presentation by a guest speaker or AISIG members, members sharing their images, their equipment setups, or perhaps a new acquisition to be shared with the group. Come and share your problems whether they are image acquisition, processing issues, or hardware/software related. Take advantage of the group knowledge for suggestions to solve these problems. Time permitting we offer a processing tutorial presented by one of the better known astro photographers and in some cases by one of the group members.  Software that can be discussed is PixInsight, StarTools, Photoshop, MaximDL, Nebulosity, CCDSoft, CCDStack, FocusMax, PoleAlignMax, Registar, Registax, TheSky, CCDCommander, CCDAutopilot, and others. We have deep sky imagers photographing from 500 mm to 2000 mm focal length, planetary imagers using webcams, and cameras from DSLR’s to astro CCD cameras from SBIG, Starlight Xpress, Orion, QSI, and others.

Contacts:

Tom Rolfsmeyer mrolf@earthlink.net or

Gregg Ruppel ruppel0709@gmail.com