The Complete Guide to Landscape Astrophotography by Mike Shaw
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Review of The Complete Guide to Landscape Astrophotography by Mike Shaw (subtitled Understanding, Planning, Creating, and Processing Nightscape Images) To prepare this review, I read the book carefully, from cover to cover. Author Mike Shaw is a former professor of Physics and Astronomy with undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Materials Science and Engineering, Ceramic Engineering, and Materials Engineering; from UCLA – Berkley, Ohio State University, and UCLA – Santa Barbara. He is now a full-time photographer, specialising in nightscape photography. There are two end-member types of astrophotographer: those who were firstly photographers, and decided to photograph the night sky; many of these see only the Milky Way as a worthwhile astrophotography target. Others were firstly visual astronomers, and decided to photograph the kinds of things they have seen. The latter often have a better grasp of the Astronomy background, and a wider repertoire of astrophotography targets. They are usually more-savvy about tracking mounts, and are better able to photograph faint targets. Shaw has had a foot in both camps for a long time. Publisher This book is one of the Focal Press Books, well-known and well-regarded by the photographic community. Layout The book’s main text is divided into nine Sections and seven Appendices. The traditional Foreword, Preface and Acknowledgements are followed by Section I; (Introduction and Goals of Book), 11 pages long. Shaw defines Landscape Astrophotography as combining earth-bound landscapes with a background consisting of (usually) night-time astronomical features. Section II is a fairly detailed (119 pages) primer on aspects of Astronomy that are relevant to Landscape Astrophography. Section III (71 pages long) is a primer on photography; and covers light and human vision, equipment, and techniques used to make night-time landscape images (and sequences of images, including time-lapse sequences and video captures), and concentrates on DSLR and mirrorless camera systems. The nuts and bolts of the book are in Sections IV – VI. Section IV is 78 pages about planning images. It starts with 25 targets (themes rather than specific objects), and how to photograph them (in brief summary). Some of the targets (or themes) are: Moonlit Landscape with Starry Skies, Full Moon, Cityscapes, Star Trails, Magellanic Clouds, and Aurora Borealis/Australis. (It is refreshing to see that Southern Hemisphere themes are included.) This is followed by details on choosing and scouting locations, getting weather forecasts, composing the elements of the landscape, and forecasting the locations of the astronomical features (e g Where in the sky will the Moon be in relation to the features of the landscape, and what will be its phase? At what angle will the Milky Way slant across the sky? When is sunset, end of twilight, and moonrise?). Shaw directs the reader to various programs, including mobile phone apps, that can help answer some of the questions, and he gives good examples of how to use them in well-integrated case-study scenarios. Next comes further information on (“Essential”) software and apps useful for planning your images, with helpful tips and examples of how to use them. Naturally, the software list is biased towards his favourites. (He seems to be an iPhone user, rather than an Android fan.) The final chapter of Section IV is concerned with accessories, including lens filters, intervalometers for taking multiple images, and speciality tripod accessories such as panorama heads and tracking mounts. Section V (Creating Landscape Astrophotography Images, 25 pages) is concerned with field logistics (daytime reconnaissance, time and cost of travel, the advisability of carrying spare items like batteries and SD cards, setting up and focussing at night etc), and troubleshooting (dressing to suit the temperature, negotiating with other photographers who want lighting arrangements that are incompatible with your requirements, light pollution from nearby towns, avoiding/removing aircraft and satellite trails in your images etc). There is little information here on things like: What aperture setting or f-stop to use? How many seconds exposure? Will mounting a filter on the lens improve this image? Section VI deals with Processing Landscape Astrophotography Images (50 pages). The first part deals with using Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop on single images. Techniques such as changing colour balance, removing blemishes like aircraft and satellite trails, increasing contrast, sharpening images, correcting lens aberrations, and adding “points” to round star images are covered in some detail here. Following the information on processing single images is a more-detailed account of how to handle multiple images such as: Incorporating multiple dark frames, stacking multiple sub-exposures to improve signal-to- noise ratio, stitching panoramas, blending tracked skies with untracked landscapes, blending bright sunset skies with darker terrestrial foregrounds, and HDR – High Dynamic Range – processing, where images of different exposures are blended to preserve brightness levels in both the brightest and darkest areas of the image. Section VII (32 pages) presents four detailed case studies: Orion Over Mt Whitney and Through Möbius Arch, Supermoon Over Mt Whitney, Star Trails Over Split-Rock Lighthouse, and Milky Way Over Chumash ‘Ap. Details of planning are presented, including forecasting the azimuth and time of moonset, forecasting of the Moon’s phase, forecasting sky brightness (twilight vs dark sky), and selecting camera location and framing of landscape features using The Photographer’s Ephemeris app. Brief accounts of the processing workflow is included in the discussion. Each case study concludes with a concise half-page summary, from planning to post-processing. Section VIII is a gallery of 19 beautiful images contributed by guest astrophotographers. These are meant for inspiration. Each image is accompanied by the photographer’s name, the source of the image, and a brief Title (such as “Sydney Harbour” and “Looking South”); camera and lens used, exposure etc settings, and processing details are omitted. The final Section is IX – a single page addressing the question: Where do we go from here? Shaw expects the future will bring cheaper and more-powerful imaging and in-camera processing features. Better prediction of atmospheric phenomena in the future will make this style of photography easier. The growing threat of increasing light pollution in the future is a major concern. Shaw suggest to his readers that they become active landscape astrophotographers tonight, and in the near future seek out and join the community of active landscape astrophotographers, to develop their skills. Seven Appendices follow the main text. Appendix I is a thorough and very useful checklist of what equipment to take into the field. Appendix II summarises details of many of the images used in the book. There is a World map with a virtual push-pin for the location of each image, and a list that includes minimal details: image Title for some, the source credit, and the general features depicted (e g sunset, Moon, aurora, star trails, Milky Way). There are no details on planning, capturing, or processing the images on this list. Appendix III (Annual Night Sky Planner) is a too-brief list of only twelve suggested targets, one for each month; such as Orion in January, star trails in April, and the Leonid meteor shower in November. There is no explanation for these choices; some are obvious, such as the timing of the three meteor showers on the list (Perseids during August, Leonids during November, and Geminids during December); but why image twilight in February only, and star trails only in April? And why not more suggested targets? Appendix IV is a template and instructions for a homemade planisphere. I don’t know why this is included. Figure 2.11 on p 30 shows a very nice-looking commercially-made planisphere, and how to use it. Shaw mentions that it is inexpensive, but doesn’t say where to buy it, and doesn’t include it in the “Bibliography” for Chapter 2 (maybe it went out-of-print). The template of the DIY planisphere of Appendix IV uses black stars, constellation lines and an equatorial grid on a white sky background. Details like constellation names and the date scale are rather small, and difficult to see under dim light. A sufficiently bright light would seriously degrade your dark adaptation. The equatorial grid is over-kill for a planisphere; it becomes unnecessary clutter. Also, the instructions don’t say where to pierce the back-card to make the pivot for rotating the sky map, or mention that the star map pivot hole should be put at the North Celestial Pole. In fact the instructions don’t say how to position the two pieces (star-map and horizon-mask) together. Planispheres are useful for a latitude selection of ~ 10°-15°; this one is designed for the Northern Hemisphere, and is useless to us Queenslanders, and of doubtful value even to those in the relevant Northern latitude band. Appendix V (Polaris Altitude) is a diagram and text deriving the geometry of the angular elevation of the North Celestial Pole (and Polaris). This would be better as a side-box in the Section III, the Astronomy primer. Appendix VI (The Horizon) is a similar in style to Appendix V, and is a diagram and text deriving the geometry of the distance to the horizon, given the eye-height of the photographer. This is a fairly useless exercise, especially here as an Appendix. Of much more value would be a derivation of the angular elevation of a distant landscape feature, given its distance and topographic height, while taking into account the curvature of the Earth. This would allow planning of images in rugged areas, where you need to know angular elevations of astronomical features above the skyline, not above an imaginary sea-level. You need the answer to questions like: When will the Moon be X° above the skyline (which is at Y° elevation)? The answer is: When the Moon is at X° + Y° above the sea-level horizon.