Keyword: astrophotography

To begin with, you can use any tethering software -- only later will you use the advantages of solutions tailored to astrophotography. Here I'll discuss both options.

The biggest investment needed for astrophotography is _TIME_. It takes time to learn how to use the tools, time to get to places, time to photograph and time to learn from the mistakes and repeat that cycle. An astrophotography setup with lots of quality equipment isn't cheap but you may want to put it into perspective to other hobbies or to SLR camera equipment you already have bought.

Plate-solving is useful -- especially when you use it to correct a telescope's position in real-time . You also can feed the solver an existing photo and manually read the results but using the output can be cumbersome. Manual copy & paste coordinates of input fields of tools like Stellarium helps, but that approach isn't very user friendly. Here's a different take on this -- solve the image and instantly get the sky map of that region. Again, this is using mostly freeeware tools.

The Moon not only is a stepping stone for humankind's exploration of the universe. The Moon also is a good stepping stone for your astrophotography and often the first distant target people shoot.

A standardized image format is something most users take for granted -- JPG, GIF, PNG and even TIFF are household names when it comes to (web)-images & editing. If you use a dSLR, you have gotten used to adding a tool or two, to process the Nikon or Canon RAW formats. With the astronomy cameras, the formats & necessary conversions become a real mess -- especially if you use a one-shot color "OSC" camera.

For this article, I use the eclipse on April 15th 2014 as an example and as a location I have picked San Francisco. The path of the moon & the timing is dependent on your own location and you will have to make adjustments for that. Here are some examples and a bit of background of the various attempts : www.ipernity.com/doc/stargazer95050/album/389379

PLANNING is in my opinion one of the best ingredients to any successful venture, astrophotography & otherwise. And in another article, I wrote about the WHERE / LOCATION. The right timing of WHEN also is important If I have to explain to you WHY stargazing is great, you're at the wrong page SCOUTING WHERE to shoot is one important step : /stargazer95050/657919 DECIDING WHAT objects to photograph : /stargazer95050/704191 PLANNING WHEN to shoot is another : /stargazer95050/659063 DECIDING WHAT equipment suits the task best : PRACTICE HOW to shoot is just as important : /stargazer95050/657921 POST-PROCESSING of the captured results :

Supernovae are among the most powerful events in our universe and they emit unimaginable amounts of energy. And long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away that has happened but it took 11.5 million years and only now does this energy reach us, some of it visible to our eyes. Look up at the sky & search for the M82 "Cigar Galaxy" -- it will be over in a few weeks.

The tools like Vixen POLARIE, iOptron SKYTRACKER and the ASTROTRAC all have their use and fans. And they are capable to move a small camera setup and effectively eliminate startrails. They are small and comparatively easy to use but are quite expensive for what they can do. They also have limitations and here I want to point to the benefits of a real EQ mount. Some of these mounts cost about as much as any of these devices once you add up all the costs for the additional accessories.