Everything You Need to Get Started in Astrophotography

Yes, astrophotography can be difficult. Although Milky Way photography is fairly achievable for beginners, going beyond that is one of the most precise and complex endeavors anyone can pursue with a camera.

- By Eric Adams

IT'S EASY TO UNDERSTAND THE ALLURE OF ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY. After all, you can aim your camera at the night sky and in a matter of seconds capture light that's been traveling for thousands of years across the cosmos to generate spectacular images of galaxies, nebulae, star clusters, and more. The results are visual trophies, triumphant claims to the title Master of the Universe.

It's also easy to see why astrophotography has made more than a few enthusiasts-veterans and beginners alike-want to spin their tripod-mounted cameras around like Thor's hammer and cast them into that same universe in fits of rage.

Yes, astrophotography can be difficult. Although Milky Way photography is fairly achievable for beginners, going beyond that is one of the most precise and complex endeavors anyone can pursue with a camera. You have to hunker down in the cold with fickle equipment, find tiny impossibly dim objects in the night sky, magnify them, track them as they move with the rotation of the earth, capture them without a lick of camera shake and with settings carefully dialed in, and then take those images home where you'll tease out as much detail as possible during editing.

YES! YOU CAN Use Your Smartphone to Take Astrophotos