“Can you take pictures with that?” It’s always one of the first questions I’m asked when I have my telescope set up for the public. The answer is yes and no.
Astrophotography is not just a subset of amateur astronomy. It’s its own thing. I’ve met astrophotographers who never look through their telescopes. Instead they use complicated and expensive imaging equipment to capture stunning images of celestial objects with their telescopes.
And this equipment is necessary because capturing images of small faint objects from imperfect skies is very difficult. (That’s why professional astronomers place their telescopes on top of desert mountains, or in space.)
I don’t have any astrophotography hardware. Instead my focus is visual observation and outreach: sharing the sky with the public.
But it’s sometimes possible to capture great photos at the eyepiece without any special equipment. It just takes time and patience. When I have long lines of people waiting to look, it’s not feasible to take photos. And that’s when my answer is “no.”
But with a small group, I can let people try. And sometimes they get great results, just by aiming their smartphone at the eyepiece and coaxing the camera to focus on the tiny dim image. One of my neighbors did just that and captured this photo of the moon during an outreach event last night.
There are middle-ground approaches to astrophotography, something between expensive, complicated, photo-only rigs and my visual-only rig. And I plan to start incorporating some of this equipment; walking away with a photo of an experience is an expectation in today’s smartphone world.
In the meantime, great perseverance sometimes yields great reward. Nice shot, Craig!
