I have used the very basic equipment that I recommend in the book to take almost all of the images in it. This will show you exactly what can be done with real-world examples.

How I Got Started

I first bought a camera to take pictures through my home-made telescope when I was just out of high school. Back then, there were no digital cameras, there was only film. I took astrophotos with film cameras for nearly 30 years.

Cameras were pretty simple in those days. You could set the ISO so the meter would read correctly, and you could adjust the aperture and shutter speed to control the exposure. There wasn't much more to it.

Although cameras were simple to use, film astrophotography was difficult. Film had to be baked for hours, and sometimes days, in a heated chamber containing nitrogen and hydrogen to reduce reciprocity failure and "hypersensitize" it. Reciprocity failure was a characteristic of film that made it become very slow at recording photons in long exposures. Even with gas-hypersensitized film, exposures could run as long as several hours. These long exposures had to be hand guided and you could not take your eye away from the guiding eyepiece during the entire exposure. If an airplane flew through the frame, or if you accidentally bumped the scope during the exposure, a lot of time and effort were wasted. After you shot the images, it might be days or weeks before the film was developed and you could see the results.

Today's digital cameras make it much easier to shoot astrophotos. Digital sensors do not suffer from reciprocity failure. Many shorter exposures can be combined in a computer to equal a much longer one. If a plane flies through, you only lose a couple of minutes of exposure instead of an hour's worth. In many cases guiding is not even necessary, and when it is, autoguiders do it automatically, allowing the photographer to observe, or even take a nap!

Digital cameras, on the other hand, are complicated. There is an almost bewildering array of buttons and menus that control dozens of settings and functions. A DSLR camera literally has a computer built in to it that is a digital darkroom that completely processes the images before they are written to a memory card. But don't worry, I will explain everything about how to use a DSLR for astrophotography, and which camera settings to use to produce the best results.

I've been shooting with DSLR cameras professionally since the mid 1990s, but none worked very well for long-exposure astrophotography until Canon introduced the EOS 300D in 2003. The low-noise characteristics of this camera started the DSLR astrophotography revolution which continues today.

In 2005 I switched over completely to digital astrophotography with a Canon 20Da DSLR camera. In early 2009 I bought a Canon 1000D (Digital Rebel XS) to take the images in this book because I recommend it to astrophotographers who are just starting out. As Canon's least expensive DSLR, it is a bargain for those on a budget and it is a great beginner's camera for astrophotography.

When you first get started you will make a lot of mistakes. I know, because I have made all of them. Luckily, DSLR cameras are great for learning how to correct those errors. You will get immediate feedback because you can look at your images on the LCD display on the back of the camera just after you take them. You can even magnify your photos and study them in detail.

The knowledge that I have learned over the years has come from hard experience and the help of other astrophotographers, many of them on the world-wide web. Indeed, the web is an incredible resource. When I first started in the early 1970s, all we had were back issues of Sky and Telescope magazine at my library. There were no books on astrophotography that I knew of.

Today, we can correspond with friends scattered across the world in real time chat, through email, or on message boards in discussion groups specifically devoted to astrophotography. We can share images, get immediate feedback, and tap into a giant treasure trove of knowledge to answer just about any question or problem we might have.

The Book's Format

This book on CD-ROM was written in HTML (HyperText Markup Language) in the form of pages that can be displayed in any web browser, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, or Safari.

It is cross-platform compatible so it will work on both Windows and Mac operating systems.

The pages have been formatted so that they can be printed from your web browser.

You can also copy the entire book to your hard drive so the pages and images will load quicker.

A book on CD-ROM in HTML format has several advantages over a traditional printed book. Its unique "mouse-over" comparisons throughout the book let you directly compare images. The display on a computer monitor will also present much better brightness and color in images than traditional color printing on a press. Indeed, this is one of the major advantages of a book on CD-ROM. Some publishers don't even print books about color astrophotography in color because they are so expensive.

Links

Another feature that you will find in this book, but not in a traditional printed book, is live links to items of interest on the internet. If I talk about a particular camera or accessory, I usually try to link to a reputable dealer where you can find out more information about it, or even purchase it directly.

Because the internet changes quickly, sometimes links go bad. But you can usually find what you are looking for if you know it exists with a simple search in Google.

Note that you must be connected to the internet when you click on an external link in the book for it to work. Internal links to other pages in the book will work even if you are not connected to the internet.

Things change very fast in the world of digital photography. New cameras come out about every six months. The latest models that I mention in this book will be rapidly replaced by the next generation of the latest and greatest models.

To deal with the constant change in the digital world, I keep my web site up-to-date with the latest information on new camera models and news about the world of astrophotography with DSLR cameras. You can find info at www.astropix.com.

While specific models and pieces of equipment are recommended in this book, the techniques described will work with any DSLR camera and any telescope equipment. The principles behind the methods are valid and timeless, even though the hardware may change.

A Note about Internet Explorer and Active Content

When trying to view the pages of this book in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, a warning message may be displayed that looks like this:

You can click on this information bar and select "Allow blocked content" if you want to see the mouse-over illustrations, or, you can use a browser like Firefox that does not have these kinds of security problems.

The "active content" that Internet Explorer is blocking are tiny snippets of javascript that allow the images to change on mouse-overs.

This CD-ROM has been thoroughly scanned for viruses and malware and nothing on it presents any threat to your computer. If you trust the author and publisher, please allow this blocked content in Internet Explorer, or switch to another browser. If not, please return the CD for a full refund.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank everyone who has helped me in the preparation of this book, and especially Lane Davis, Scott Ewart, Steve Mattan, Joe Stieber, Alan Daroff, and my two sons, Brandon and Michael.

My wife Kathy, as always, has also been a constant source of encouragement and support. I could not have written this book without her help and love.