Ron, you've noticed the same thing I have: That astrophotography is an art form less often seen. I think the main reasons for this are that it's fairly challenging to do well and requires significant committment and possibly expense.
Haze and light pollution are challenges, but can be overcome. The secret is in doing things that increase the quality and accuracy of your captured data, and to process it digitally for the best possible effect, including removal of a base level of light pollution. The person who's been my greatest inspiration is Robert Gendler (look him up) and he has done much of his astrophotography from his driveway in a suburban location.
There's not just one kind of telescope; there are several types and the price range for a setup that will serve well as an astrophotography platform can run from $2000 to $5000 and well beyond (I just saw a used setup for sale by Jim Misti for a paltry $250,000). For starters I would suggest a low focal length setup as many objects in the night sky are actually very large, just very faint. It's surprising how many are much larger than the full moon. The Andromeda Galaxy (M31), for example, is something like 4 times the size of the full moon. A ***VERY*** good telescope for astrophotography is the Takahashi Sky-90, as a sample. You can also use your camera lens.
You will also need to have a mount that tracks objects as they move through the sky as well. The need for accuracy and quality of this part cannot be overstressed. A good mount is quite typically a majority of the cost of a telescope setup, and to make matters even more complicated it's a good idea to anchor the mount into the ground for ultimate stability - the first step to building your own observatory. Of course, once you've bolted expensive, high-tech hardware to a permanent pier, then comes the need to cover it with an enclosure that can be opened to the sky.
That's not to say it's NECESSARY to make a permanent observatory. So far I have avoided doing so. However, there are things I have not and cannot photograph simply because I don't have the stability and perfection of alignment an observatory would provide. The other alternative (and the one I'm currently practicing) is to pack up the telescope and mount into cases, and deploy them when you want to use them. In practice this can be a back breaker and very time consuming.
And serious astrophotographers use purpose-built astro cameras, which generally don't even resemble what we consider cameras. These typically cost a lot more than our beloved dSLRs too, believe it or not. Some of the top-end models run well in excess of $10,000, and even an entry-level astrocamera can run $1,000+.
Not to scare you further, but prepare yourself to meet digital image capture at a new level - that of photosites, pixels, bits and bytes. Where we daytime photographers have raw converters that offer us an integrated approach to making images, you'll find astro work involves capturing raw data, applying hot pixel maps and dark frames to even out the exposures, combining (stacking) it, converting it to gamma-corrected space by application of functions like Arcsinh(Arcsinh(X)), and polishing it up for literally hours to make it presentable.
I'm really not trying to scare you off here... This is the reality.
Your best bet for learning how to get started in astrophotography is to join online forums whose focus is on the sky. Several good ones in which I participate regularly are:
Our Dark Skies forum (very newbie friendly) UK AstroImaging forum
The best season for image taking depends on your area. When is it dry and calm outside, without so many insects that you can't stand to be out there? When are the skies clear?
Your chief challenge will be light pollution. It is actually possible to shoot astroimages through brightly lit atmosphere, but it is much easier to do so and get good results when the skies are dark. Therefore, the price of fuel notwithstanding, you might find it to your advantage to go out to the woods a few hours out of town to what astronomers call a "dark site".
I have a suggestion that will allow you to get your feet wet without too much expense:
1. Start by using your dSLR(s) to capture astroimages.
2. Get a small portable mount onto which you can mount a camera and your telephoto lens. These can be had relatively inexpensively, though they lack the automation that differentiate the expensive mounts.
3. Try some wide field astrophotography.
I've done a fair bit of astrophotography with my dSLR and 100-400 zoom piggybacked on my ($5000) Meade telescope with GOTO mount, and the camera/lens combination really does make a nice wide field imaging setup. I have recently purchased a small Orion MIN-EQ setup - a little over $100 total - which tracks the stars and can offer me a very portable and inexpensive way to use the camera and lens to do astro work. I haven't actually tried it yet, so I'm not really clear yet on how difficult it will be to achieve good polar alignment.
In all, I STRONGLY encourage any and all to try photographing the sky. It's challenging, but very rewarding. Just be prepared to be a newbie to photography all over again.
By the way, I've just finished my first book of astrophotos. It's a collaborative work with a friend of mine who has a permanent observatory. "Star Vistas" will be available, according to the publisher, in book stores around the end of the year. Here's one of our cover designs currently under consideration:
It took me 1 full year to get to the level knowledge I needed to produce show/publication quality astroimages. That started in 2004 and I'm still learning more every day.
By the way, just the two images you see above took me well in excess of 40 hours total image processing time to complete.
-Noel
Linear Mode
