Astrophotography: 13 Awesome Backyard Astronomy Photos
Categories: Cool Photos, Featured
Written By: lightstalking
Backyard astronomy photography is probably one of the most difficult types of photography that can be undertaken by the amateur photographer. It is also one of the most equipment intensive and expensive types of photography.
Luckily for us, some amateur photographers still take the time to equip and train themselves and so are able to show us remarkable work like the astronomy photos below. But it is not an easy thing to do this type of photography. In fact a quick look at the Flickr pools available to photographers of astronomical images quickly shows that this niche requires a lot of dedication and practice – not many images turn out as well as those below!
Below we have found 13 stunning examples of astrophotography (astronomy photos) taken by backyard astronomers – of stars and galaxies, that we think are some of the most beautiful examples of what can be done with a telescope, camera and some know-how from anyone’s backyard. Please feel free to link to any other examples of great backyard astronomy photography in the comments.
[The Horsehead and Flame Nebulae. Taken with a SBIG ST-L-4K 3 CCD Camera.]
[The Pinwheel Galaxy.]
[Comet 17P/Holmes with Tail. Taken with a SBIG ST-L-4K 3 CCD Camera]
[M81, M82, NGC 3077 Galaxies. Taken with a SBIG ST-L-4K 3 CCD Camera]
[The Milky Way. Taken on a DSLR]
[The Great Orion Nebula (M42). Taken with a Pentax K200D]
[Andromeda. Taken with a Canon 350D.]
[The Rosetta Nebula. Taken with a Canon 350D]
[The Jellyfish Nebula. Taken with a SBIG STL-4020M]
[The Orion Nebula. Take with a Canon 300D]
[The Eagle Nebula.]
[Messier 74.]
[The Whirpool Galaxy. Taken with a Nikon D70]
Other Astronomy Image Photography Resources:
March 3rd, 2009 at 12:23 am
Astounding photographs. I always thought this quality was the province of Nat Geo. Well worth a Digg :-)
March 3rd, 2009 at 1:08 am
can someone explain how it was possible to take those photos? Do you need a special lense?
rob @ http://www.tinman.ie
March 3rd, 2009 at 1:22 am
Beautiful!
March 3rd, 2009 at 1:34 am
amazing. wish I had the internet when I was a kid in the backyard with a telescope
March 3rd, 2009 at 1:36 am
Awesome!
March 3rd, 2009 at 2:10 am
Glad you guys are enjoying the photos! Don’t forget to take a look at the Flickr pool – there are some breathtaking shots there.
March 3rd, 2009 at 2:27 am
I have a Canon 350d and would LOVE to learn how to take pics like this. Believe me I have no problem putting in the time and effort. I have tried many times to photograph the orion nebula but always end up with a purple blob with my 300mm/tripod/rc. :(
The resolution these guys are getting is mind blowing.
I am all over those primer/tutorial links. Thanks so much for this post!
March 3rd, 2009 at 2:39 am
Cool, really good photos.
March 3rd, 2009 at 2:53 am
Beautiful space photos. My favorite has always been the Andromeda galaxy.
March 3rd, 2009 at 3:11 am
[...] More… var addthis_pub = ”; var addthis_language = ‘en’;var addthis_options = ‘email, favorites, digg, delicious, myspace, google, facebook, reddit, live, more’; :Backyard, Photography, Space [...]
March 3rd, 2009 at 3:57 am
I have no problem putting in the time and effort.
March 3rd, 2009 at 8:26 am
Those pictures are mind boggling. What makes all the crazy colors?
Thanks for posting.
March 3rd, 2009 at 8:27 am
great set! One photo is mislabeled as Andromeda “Nebula”.
March 3rd, 2009 at 1:19 pm
@alan – glad you enjoyed. If you do a Google search, you should be able to find a few more tutorials on astrophotography.
@mulberrycat – the colors are enhanced in the processing phase. My (poor) understanding of these astronomy photos is that the process assigns colors based on heat signature. Could be (very) wrong n that though.
@eric – thanks for picking that up – I will fix that.
March 4th, 2009 at 2:58 am
@robert, yap… you would need something like a telescope instead of a traditional lens
March 4th, 2009 at 7:55 am
Beautiful!!
March 5th, 2009 at 4:01 am
Wow, cheers for putting my Milky Way pic up here with the others. I have post on my blog on how I processed it if anyone is interested.
March 5th, 2009 at 4:10 am
@Cain – thanks for stopping by! Awesome work on that photo by the way. I have just edited the post to include a link to your post on photographing the Milky Way. Thanks for letting us know about it!
March 5th, 2009 at 11:07 am
[...] de lograr, con medios caseros, fotos tan bonitas como ésta. La web Light Stalking ofrece un tutorial sobre astro-fotografía y reúne a algunas de las fotos más espectaculares que pueden verse en Internet. Al final del [...]
March 6th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Wow, that one shot of Andromeda taken with a Canon 350D is incredible! I never knew you could do so much with an entry-level DSLR
March 6th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
@josh – check out some of the links to the tutorials – you might be pleasantly surprised. ;)
March 16th, 2009 at 10:00 am
[...] Absolutely incredible if you ask me! These stunning photographs were found on Light Stalkings. [...]
August 31st, 2009 at 4:57 am
Just an FYI, the Skynews link (Starting Out in Astrophotography) at the end of the article has changed. It’s now located at http://www.skynews.ca/pages/astrophotography.html
Great photos…one day I’ll be taking photos like these! ;-)
January 5th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
can someone explain how it was possible to take those photos? Do you need a special lense?
rob @ http://www.tinman.ie
February 1st, 2010 at 6:43 am
superb