Astronomy
Astrophotography
Capturing the night sky is easier than ever, and you can start with the phone in your pocket.
Getting started
You don't need specialist equipment to take your first astronomical pictures. Try:
- The Moon through a telescope or binoculars, by carefully holding your phone camera up to the eyepiece.
- Wide-field shots of constellations and the Milky Way with a camera on a tripod, using a wide lens and exposures of a few seconds.
- Star trails, by taking many exposures of the same scene and combining them.
Equipment
As you progress, the key pieces of kit are:
- A tracking mount, which follows the stars as the Earth rotates so you can take longer exposures without trails.
- A camera. A DSLR or mirrorless camera is a flexible start; dedicated astronomy cameras are designed for the job.
- A telescope or lens suited to your targets: short focal lengths for wide nebulae, long ones for planets and small galaxies.
Imaging techniques
Deep-sky astrophotography usually means taking many exposures of the same object and stacking them to reduce noise. Calibration frames (darks, flats and bias frames) help remove camera noise and dust shadows.
Planetary imaging works differently: you record a short video and software keeps the sharpest frames, a technique called lucky imaging.
Image processing
Processing brings out faint detail from your stacked data. There are free programs for stacking and processing, such as Siril and DeepSkyStacker for deep-sky images and AutoStakkert! and RegiStax for planets, as well as commercial options. Don't be put off: everybody's first attempts are modest, and our members are happy to share their workflows.
Learn with RAS
We regularly hold astrophotography talks and workshops, such as Learning Astrophotography with AstroLee and our Discover the Night Sky evening, and we run photo competitions such as the 2026 Eclipse Photograph Competition.
RAS member examples
Images taken by RAS members will be shown in our gallery.