trying out astrophotography

A couple of years ago, on 28 september 2015, there was a lunar eclipse visible here in the Netherlands, so I set my alarm around 3 or 4 in the morning and went outside. Back then I didn't use a tripod nor the manual settings of my system camera. Eventually the pictures turned out very hazy, there was movement visible and I couldn't really even see the red moon. I was very dissapointed and a little upset because it didn't work out while I knew that it must have been possible tot take clear pictures of this special moment. In the end I went to bed again that morning, without any pictures of the lunar eclipse.

After this happened I wouldn't expect it to succeed again, let alone taking good pictures of the starry sky.

But - it happened, and I'm glad it all worked out! On friday night I set an alarm on 1.30 in the morning to take pictures of the stars. But, before I forget to mention this, I spend a couple of hours before that night to research which settings to use to take pictures of a starry sky.

I found out that I absolutely needed to use a tripod (which I have, luckily). I also needed a bright nightsky without any clouds, and when I checked the weather forecast on my phone I saw that it would be bright on friday night. And you also need a camera where you can manually edit the settings (which is most likely always a DSLR or a system camera).

About the settings: there is never one standard setting I can give you for a certain situation, because every situation, especially in nature, is always differnt. Sometimes there's more light than other times, but it also depends on the quality of your camera.

My sister suggested to go outside together, so we did, on friday night on 1.30. I was very tired but it was worth it all!

I know the pictures are probably not as sharp or perfect as you can see in magazines or on photography websites, but I consider myself a beginner still so I'm happy with these results.

I'm already checking the weather forecast on my phone everyday again to see if there will be a bright night sky soon (the days are very bright and hot at the moment, around 35 degrees, a heat wave), but the nights are somehow a little cloudy. So hopefully the stars will be shining soon again for us.

It's so incredibly warm at the moment... this afternoon I'll be going for a lovely swim again (already went twice this week hihi).

Here I will share the pictures I took, feel free to ask more about the way it was all done.

For all of these pictures I used a shutterspeed of 5 seconds and an ISo of 800.
I used my 50mm analog Olympus lens on my Canon 600D with f2/8

I hope you will enjoy the warm summer days (and the cold winter days for the people from the other side of the world...)

Sasja