Original subtitles

you're watching this video because you

want to take photos of space like this

using only a tripod and a camera which

is gear you probably already have

good because we're going to dip our toes

into the waters of astro photography

and i'm going to tell you literally

everything you need to know to take this

photo

from shooting the photo itself all the

way to the end of processing it

i've included timestamps of each section

in the description so you can skip

around after if you need to

let's jump in first let's talk about

gear

what camera and tripod do i recommend

you use

you can really use any type of tripod

you want i recommend extending the legs

as opposed to the center column

that way it's more stable so don't do

this do this

next is the camera and you can use a

dslr or a mirrorless

you want to make sure it has a delay

shutter release because you don't want

to touch the camera

while the photo's exposing and lastly

you want to make sure it has a high iso

anything around 6400 is more than fine

in my case i used the rebel t6 which did

surprisingly well for this project

and lastly a telephoto lens the key here

is a low

f-stop because we want our aperture to

be as wide as possible

we also want to make sure it has a long

focal length to capture detail in the

nebula

the bottom line is kit lenses will work

and you should use what you have

in my case i use the canon ef 75 to 300

millimeter telephoto lens

this is a lens that often comes as a

promotional gift when you buy canon

cameras

now this isn't a particularly fast lens

and it's not a particularly expensive

camera

in fact i got the lens the camera as

well as another lens off of craigslist

for around 200 bottom line if you have a

digital camera and a telephoto lens you

probably have everything you need for

this photo and you're good to go

let's talk next about location and

there's a few things you want to

consider

firstly you want to make sure you have a

clear view of the sky

unobstructed by buildings or trees

specifically

if you're in the northern hemisphere

look south and if you're in the southern

hemisphere

look north because this is where the

orion nebula will be

secondly you also want to try to avoid

light pollution as much as possible

that being said this is not necessary in

fact the orion nebula is so bright

you could even take a photo of it from

places like this if you want to see what

light pollution looks like in your area

go to light pollution map dot info i'll

put a link in the description

it's basically a heat map of sky

brightness across the entire world

the areas of red and pink are areas

where it's brightest or border class 8

and 9

in the areas where it's gray skies that

are darkest or

border class 1. you can go to the top

left hand corner and

enter in the address where you plan to

shoot once you click on that address

the map will then zoom into that

specific location

you can then left-click on that location

to see the portal class rating

in this case we can see the skies are

going to be the darkest

now to set your expectations i actually

shot this from my front yard which is

border class 6 skies

so it's not too too dark now you also

want to avoid direct light pollution

so make sure you stay away from things

like street lamps or house lights

or even ufo lights as all these can

cause glares in your images

street lamps are great ninety-nine

percent of time especially if you're a

moth

but fresh to photography they're

terrible as a final note you also want

to make sure you're allowed to be in

that area after dusk because a

many parks have roles and b there might

actually be ghosts

let's talk next about time and when the

best time of the year is to take this

photo

if you're like most people you probably

feel regret the next morning

after spending a late night and you

probably don't do too well

if that's you then the best time is

during the december to march time frame

that's because the orion constellation

will be highest in the sky earliest in

the evening

that said you can shoot this in the

early evening hours of april as well as

the late evening hours of october and

november

and it's great because you can see the

orion constellation from practically

anywhere in the world

so whether you're tuning in from

switzerland or australia you can give

this a go

you also want to try to take this photo

as close to the new moon as possible

this is when the moon is the least

illuminated by the sun

as it goes to its lunar phases it

becomes increasingly illuminated

and then decreasingly illuminated now

this is ideal but not

necessary in fact i actually shot this

photo during an 87

illuminated moon which looks something

like this

now while this can be done as a general

rule of thumb for astrophotography

you want to do your best to avoid the

moon so shoot during the new moon time

moving right along let's talk next about

camera settings

and if you're a photographer you'll know

the first thing is to change your camera

to manual mode this will give us greater

control

you also want to make sure you change it

to manual focus because we're going to

need to focus on the stars

now chances are many of these settings

that i'm using will look like the ones

that you're using but you may have to

adjust them

in my case i'm using one second

exposures but you'll have to do some

math to figure out what's best for you

let me explain as we know the earth is

not stationary but is tilted and rotates

on its axis from the north celestial

pole

to the south celestial pole now because

the earth rotates and because we are

using a stationary tripod

we have to calculate how long we can set

our exposures for so that the stars

don't trail in our images

that's where the rule of 500 comes into

play there are two values to calculate

the rule of 500

as it pertains to your particular camera

and your particular lens

the first is called crop factor and

basically it's a way

of comparing the sensor size in your

camera to that of a full frame sensor

camera

because i'm using a crop frame sensor

camera my crop factor value is going to

be greater than one in my case it's

going to be 1.6

if you're not sure what yours is go

ahead and google whatever model camera

you're using

plus crop factor and you should get the

answer

the second value is going to be the

focal length of lens we're using

in our case we're using a 300 millimeter

telephoto lens

so our second value is 300. we take the

1.6 from the crop factor

we multiply it by the 300 and we get 480

we then take the 500 and divide it by

the 480 and we get a little bit

over one that's how many seconds we can

set our exposures for

so that the stars do not trail in our

image so you don't have to be an

einstein to apply this rule of 500 to

your setup

it's always a good baseline and can help

you get imaging faster

the next thing i'm going to do is change

the iso to 6400

now i'm choosing 6400 because i'm

actually shooting it at 5.6

so i'm going to opt for a noisier image

because i'm capturing less photons

now if i had the luxury of shooting at

say f 2.8

i would back my iso down to 3200 because

i'm capturing more photons

it really depends on the setup you're

using and you can play it by ear to

figure out what's best

the next thing i want to do is add a two

second delay

because i don't want my hand to be on

the camera while the photo is exposing

so i'll make sure i set two seconds give

myself plenty of time

and i'll be good to go i also want to

make sure i choose a daylight white

balance

now chances are this will probably make

your images lean to the warmer side and

perhaps be a little bit orange

but that's okay because we're going to

fix things in post-processing

and get nice true colors lastly

make sure you shoot in raw and large

jpeg and this is really important

shooting in jpeg actually compresses the

data which is a pretty scary thing

so we're going to shoot in raw because

these large files are actually going to

be the ones that we're using for

processing

the large jpegs are going to be the ones

that we reference when we're taking

photos

so to recap you're shooting a one second

exposure at iso

6400 with a two second delay using

daylight white balance and shooting in

raw and large jpeg formats

you also want to make sure that if

you're shooting with a newer camera like

the t7i

to turn off any long exposure noise

reduction finally after all that effort

we can talk about

shooting remember you're going to look

the direction opposite of the hemisphere

you're in to see orion

orion's most easily identified by the

three stars in orion's belt

but we're actually interested in this

star right here and that star

actually isn't a star because that

cheeky little speck is actually the

orion nebula

now before you go and get all excited

stop

we need to focus literally because this

is critical

the first part of focusing your camera

is bringing orion into view with the

lens zoomed all the way out

it should look something like this we're

going to use the star ride gel to focus

because it's pretty bright

go ahead and zoom all the way on rye gel

and try to keep it centered as best as

you can

it should look like something like this

then use the digital zoom to zoom in the

entire way

notice that it's out of focus so you're

going to focus your camera all the way

to infinity

as we're doing this it goes into focus

but then it goes out again

it's almost focused but not quite so we

actually have to slightly back off the

focus of infinity

until it looks something like this so

ideally to get a good picture you need

to have your stars in focus

and they should look something like this

with the smallest white dot in the

center

and purple fringing is okay it just

means that you've got cheaper glass in

your lens

once you've achieved that focus zoom out

the lens and re-center your camera on

the orion nebula

be careful not to touch the focus and

make sure you take your time

remember the orion nebula is right here

so once you have that in the center of

your camera

go ahead and zoom the lens in all the

way making sure that you keep it

centered

you can then use the digital zoom to

zoom in the entire way and check

it should look something like this so if

you've reached this point here

then you're good to go after that back

out of the digital zoom

and give it a shot

and there it is your first deep space

image and it's a beauty

so go ahead get excited because you're

gonna have to take

300 of these so go ahead and click

and click and click away now if you

don't feel like sitting there and click

click click clicking the shutter of your

camera 300 times

you can get this nifty little device

called an intervalometer

i'll put a link in the description of

the ones i use basically

it's device that plugs into the side of

your camera and it activates the shutter

for you automatically

now if you're using an intervalometer

make sure you set the exposure to bulb

and also make sure that you turn off the

delay because the interferometer will

take care of this for you

using the intervalometer i can set

things like the delay until the session

begins

the length of each exposure the delay

between exposures

as well as the number of exposures once

i have all these fields set

i can go ahead and press start and i'm

off to the races one more thing

see how the orion nebula is drifting out

of frame because of the rotation of the

earth

you're going to have to re-center every

10 to 15 exposures

to try to keep it in the center of frame

as best as possible

now before you head over to processing

stop because we are not done with the

camera yet

we need that camera to take calibration

frames which is the next part of this

tutorial

now unfortunately technology is not

perfect and your camera and your lens

are going to introduce their own noise

into the final image

but don't worry we have calibration

frames and even the hubble space

telescope

uses these types of frames to get

cleaner better images of the deep sky

objects

now noise and artifacts can come from

any number of sources

for instance consider the noise that can

there we go the noise that can come from

the sensor of your camera

hot pixels can also create issues with

your image and you can also get

vignetting from the telescope or the

lens

and finally there can even be pieces of

dust that get stuck on the sensor

or in the lens of the camera so how do

we address this

well we take three types of calibration

frames

the first are called dark frames and

they help us capture the thermal noise

from the sensor

next we can take what are called flat

frames and these help us capture any

vignetting or any dust that may be

present

finally we can take what are called bias

frames and these help capture the sensor

readout noise

which is specific to each camera take

these right after you take the photos

and this is for two reasons

you want the dark frames to be taken at

the same temperature as the photos

and you want to make sure you have the

same focus for the calibration frames

as you had for the photos now i shot

these tutorial videos during the day

but you want to shoot your calibration

frames at night so light doesn't creep

into your sensor

let's begin first dark frames the first

thing you do is put the lens cap of your

camera back on

then turn off the delay because we can

have our hand on the camera when we

shoot

after that go ahead and shoot take 50 of

these dark frames which are essentially

the same settings as the photos just

with the lens cap on

next flat frames you're going to need a

white t-shirt or white cloth

a rubber band and a phone or tablet with

a screen large enough to cover the lens

of your camera

first you're going to remove the lens

cap from your camera next

you'll change the mode from manual to

aperture priority or av

now that you've got your white t-shirt

and your rubber band you're going to

take the camera and point it as straight

up as you can

make sure that you've secured it in

place and that it's not going to move

then take the white t-shirt and place it

over the lens being careful not to

adjust the focus

then stretch the rubber band over the

lens and make sure the cloth is pulled

tight

you want a nice even field after that

you're going to take out your cell phone

and turn on a white background turn the

brightness all the way

up on that device take that device and

then place it on top of the camera lens

you're going to want to make sure that

you cover the lens entirely with the

phone screen

because we want an evenly lit field in

the live view of your camera it should

look something like this

with a histogram 50 exposed go ahead and

take a shot

as we'll see the flat frame did its job

because we captured a dust mote

as well as some vignetting in the

corners go ahead and take

30 of these flat frames finally

bias frames first you'll want to take

off that white t-shirt

wait no you know what i mean

after the t-shirt's off replace the lens

cap then

set your camera back to manual mode and

you're going to select the shortest

exposure possible in my case it's one

over four thousand

once you have that set go ahead and

shoot ideally you should take about 50

of these

so to recap first you're going to take

50 dark frames with the same camera

settings as the photos

the lens cap on and shot in the same

temperature

then you're going to take 30 flat frames

with the camera set to aperture priority

and not changing any other settings make

sure you use the t-shirt

rubber band and phone or tablet to

create an evenly lit field

finally you're going to take 50 bias

frames with the camera set back to

manual mode

set to the shortest exposure possible

and with the lens cap on

in total we should have 430 frames and

we can bump this number up if we want to

increase the quality of our image

but i for one like my camera and i don't

want to kill the shutter

once you have all those footage on your

sd card we're going to create folders

for each set of photos

and this is really important because

it'll help us organize things later

so go ahead and create a folder for the

light frames the dark frames

the flat frames and the bias frames now

that we have our photos organized we can

move on to stacking

well stacking the photos that is in

short stacking is a way of combining

multiple images into one final photo

that we can edit

we use the stars in each photo as anchor

points to align the photos properly

stacking helps us get better images by

averaging the photos

noise which is fairly random across

photos will be averaged out

and the signal which is fairly

consistent across photos

will become clearer so by adding more

photos to our final image we can reduce

the noise

and more importantly increase what is

called the signal to noise ratio

see astrophotography is all about data

and at the end of the day

you want to try to dump as many photos

into that final image as possible

this is going to get you better results

so how do we do this

deep sky stacker i'll put a link in the

description so you can download this

it helps us automate the stacking

process and it's free

when you open deep sky stacker it'll

look like this to upload the light

frames you go to the top left hand

corner and select

here now remember that we've already

divided each of the frames into their

own folders and this is what makes our

life much easier

go ahead and go to the light frames

folder remember we're going to want to

upload the raw files because it's the

uncompressed data

select the first photo scroll all the

way down to the bottom

hold down shift click the last one and

then click

open now even though we've brought all

these into deep sky stacker

we need to still select each of these

boxes to the left of these

so you can either go down manually and

click one at a time

or you can select the first one scroll

all the way down to the bottom

hold down shift select the bottom one

and then right click

and select check this will upload all of

our 300 photos automatically

but we still need to do the calibration

frames so

we'll do the same thing with the dark

frames select dark frames

open the folder select the first one

scroll all the way down

select all of them and then open notice

with these however we don't need to do

the boxes

so we can go ahead and move on and do

the same thing with the flat frames

make sure they're all selected and then

open

finally we'll upload the bias frames at

the last of our folders

select the bias frames select all of

them

and then open so now that we've uploaded

all of our light frames

as well as all of our calibration frames

we need to next

register the pictures so select this

button

there's going to be a value in the

center of this box and i'd change it to

95

this means that deep sky stacker will

keep the best 95 percent of the photos

then go to advanced and we're going to

select the star detection threshold

remember the stars are anchor points as

these photos are being stacked

in our case we've got about a hundred so

that's pretty good

we'll then go to recommended settings

down here and select this

and deep sky stacker does this great

thing where it will select

in red the things that it would

recommend changing

so click the blue underneath each of the

red texts

and this will give you a great out of

box solution for selecting the best

settings for stacking these images

once those are all checked go ahead and

click ok

we're going back to the menu we were at

before and we're going to click ok here

again

this will bring us to the menu just

before we stack we've got all of our

calibration frames

as well as our light frames and the

total amount of exposure time

once you see the screen go ahead and

click ok and we're off to the races

now this could take a few hours

depending on your computer so let's

speed things up

i'd recommend doing this maybe while

you're at work or perhaps while you're

at the gym

or maybe my personal favorite just

before you go to bed

so that when you wake up it's ready to

go once you're done stacking your image

it won't be too impressive and it'll

probably look something like this

but don't worry we're not going to touch

any of these adjustments down here

because we're going to be doing all of

our processing in photoshop

which is where we move next to

processing the best part of

astrophotography

like i said we're going to be using

photoshop which is also free

well a free 7 day trial at least once

you have photoshop opened

go ahead and open the autosave.tiff file

that deepsky stacker has created

again it's not too impressive and we

actually need to change the bit mode

so we can make adjustments go up to mode

and select the 16-bit mode

after you've done that go to the method

and change this to exposure and gamma

go ahead and click ok and now we can

make adjustments in photoshop that we

couldn't otherwise

the next thing we need to do is crop the

image and this is because black space

can be difficult to process and can

really skew the histogram of our image

so go ahead and pull these edges in to

right about there and do the same thing

with the top and bottom as well

once you're done click the check mark

we're going to also rotate the image so

we can see the detail closer

after you've done this we can zoom in

using the view or the control plus

function

the next thing we need to do is create a

new layer from that which is visible

you can do this by holding ctrl shift

alt e on a windows computer

this is a great rule of thumb to always

protect your work and go back to an

earlier version

the next thing we want to do is bring

out this nebulosity here

so we'll adjust levels and you can do

that by holding ctrl l

we're going to pull this slider over

here until it just meets the beginning

and then we'll click ok we're going to

hit ctrl l again

and we're going to move these two

sliders so that they're closer to this

histogram

so we'll bring this one in a little bit

and then we'll bring the other one into

just a little bit as well

you don't want to do too much at a time

so we're going to do this a few more

times in a few more iterations

to bring things in very carefully and

slowly now you don't want to bring the

slider too far in

because you can clip the data so make

sure it's on the edge of the histogram

and not cutting it off

[Music]

let's go ahead and do this one more time

so that we can make sure we get as much

detail out of this nebula as possible

now we've created this nasty green haze

which we can fix by setting a neutral

gray point

hold ctrl l and then select the middle

eyedropper

find somewhere on the image where it'll

be a black part of the sky

and try to get it balanced that looks

pretty good

once you've done that you're going to

hit ok and then again like a good person

we're going to create a new layer from

the visible

once again making sure we're keeping

track of our work

now the next thing we're going to do is

increase the vibrance and saturation of

this photo

so go ahead and take the saturation

slider and bring it up

and do the same thing with a vibrance

slider as well

don't do it too much but we do want to

start to bring out some of this color

after you've done that we're going to

create two new layers from that which is

visible

one of these layers which we'll continue

to edit and the other one which we'll

use later

take the bottom layer and name it

something special that you remember

go back to the top layer and this time

we're going to adjust the curves to

bring out more detail

so hold down ctrl m and you'll have the

histogram tool

hold down control again and click the

eyedropper somewhere where the nebula is

more

faint it'll plot that area on the

histogram which will represent the

values of the pixels you clicked

go ahead and pull that up slightly and

we'll begin to see more detail of the

nebula come out

then go to the other side of the

histogram and pull that down

this is called stretching the curves and

it helps bring out detail in deep sky

objects

after you've done that go ahead and

click ok it's actually looking pretty

good and we can see a lot of outer

nebulosity down here

so like a good person create a new layer

from that which is visible

and the next thing we'll do is adjust

the levels so hold ctrl

l and when the histogram pops up move

the slider to the right this will make

the overall image a little bit darker

and make a little bit more contrasty

click ok and then the next thing we'll

do is increase the vibrance and the

saturation of the image once again

so go ahead and take the saturation

slider as well as the vibrance slider

and bring them up slightly to increase

this color

[Music]

and once again we're going to make sure

we create a new layer from the visible

to back up our workflow now notice we've

got these nasty purple halos around

these stars

and there's a quick fix go to filter

camera raw filter and then there's a

window with a bunch of options that will

pop up

we want to make sure that we go down to

the optics option

and under that there will be a fringe

tab we're going to take the slider on

the purple spectrum and we're going to

pull it over

to about two or three and this will get

rid of those nasty purple halos

and bring out more of the natural reds

and blues that are present

now when we did that we still got this

nasty green color

so we're going to create a new layer

from visible and once we've done that

we're going to set a neutral gray point

again

click the middle eyedropper select

somewhere on the image

where it's good and nice and balanced

and it looks pretty good

so we'll click ok things are really

coming along but we still can do a

little bit more

so we're going to once again adjust the

curves to bring out some more nebulosity

take the eyedropper click on a faint

part of the nebula holding down the

control button

and then pull that part of the histogram

up while bringing the left part of it

down

again we're bringing out more detail and

things are looking pretty sharp

and then we're going to do another

levels adjust so hold down control

l take the middle slider and pull it

slightly to the right

so we've got a darker sky but a perhaps

sharper nebula

now notice we've blown out the center of

the nebula a little bit which is a

little problematic

so we're going to take that layer that

we had saved earlier and slide it up

until it's just underneath

then click that top layer again go over

to the eraser tool

and we're going to make sure that we've

got eraser settings set to about two

percent hardness

a small size and then a small percentage

of opacity

once we have this setting selected we're

actually going to zoom in

on the center part of the nebula which

is called the trapezium

and we're going to erase away the top

layer this will reveal the layer

underneath that is less blown out

and will provide us with more detail in

the final image

you want to take a smaller lighter

approach to this and you don't want to

be too heavy-handed

because you want to make the blending

look natural and you want there to be a

smooth transition between layers

you can see that we're starting to

actually reveal some of this detail

and we're creating what's called a high

dynamic range image

this will create more detail in the

final image and will give us a cooler

view into the trapezium

which is essentially the center of this

star nursery

1300 light years away things are looking

pretty good right now

and i'm pretty happy with how this is

coming out so we're going to zoom back

out

and that looks pretty good so we're

going to create a new layer from that

which is visible

and there's this nasty reddish glow to

this image so we're actually going to

adjust the levels again

and we're going to go to just the red

channel we're going to take that slider

and move it over just a hair

so that it's more balanced of an image

once you've done that

go ahead and click ok

[Music]

now things are looking much better than

they were before but there's still a lot

of noise in this image

so to reduce the noise in the image

we're actually going to go up to filter

noise and then reduce noise you can

change these settings and adjust them to

the ones that you think will be best

i find that middle of the road tends to

be a pretty good solution

but again i'd recommend playing around

with them to figure out what works for

you best

once you click ok you can begin to see

that we have in fact reduced a decent

amount of noise in the image

after doing this what we're going to do

is do one more curves adjustment

so control m and then we're going to

once again

control click on a faint part of the

nebula and pull that up just slightly

and then go to the bottom part of the

histogram and pull that down just

slightly

you don't want to do too much and again

you don't want to blow out the center

because we've already fixed that

but do it just subtly and we're going to

once again

increase the saturation just ever so

slightly

to give it that final punch and you're

all done

you've successfully captured m42 or the

orion nebula

m43 as well as a part of the running man

nebula

which is pretty awesome so

you've made it the entire way through

this video and you've earned your ticket

to join the astrophotography hype train

the question is will you

[Music]

thank you so much again for taking the

time to watch this entire video i

really appreciate it and i hope you

learned a little bit more about this

crazy hobby we call astrophotography

i'm going to be doing more start to

finish videos like this where i show you

how to use simple camera gear

like the nifty 50 lens that's a teaser

to take these photos of space

i'm also working on a few other shorter

videos all things astrophotography

including astrophotography tips as well

as some of the stories behind the images

i've taken

i hope you grow to appreciate this hobby

and god's creation as much as i do

and i hope you stay tuned for those

videos so again thanks for watching

until next time keep your head up clear

skies are on the way

[Music]