Astrophotography: 13 Awesome Backyard Astronomy Photos

By Light Stalking on 2 Mar 2009 in Cool Photos, Featured[ 28 Comments ]

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.

Other Astronomy Image Photography Resources:

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Tags: astronomy, astrophotography

28 Comments

Ade Martin:

Astounding photographs. I always thought this quality was the province of Nat Geo. Well worth a Digg :-)

March 3, 2009 at 12:23 amReply
robert:

can someone explain how it was possible to take those photos? Do you need a special lense?
rob @ http://www.tinman.ie

March 3, 2009 at 1:08 amReply
Maverick S.:

Beautiful!

March 3, 2009 at 1:22 amReply
Anthony Barba:

amazing. wish I had the internet when I was a kid in the backyard with a telescope

March 3, 2009 at 1:34 amReply
Jame:

Awesome!

March 3, 2009 at 1:36 amReply
LightStalking:

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 3, 2009 at 2:10 amReply
Alan Riaso:

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 3, 2009 at 2:27 amReply
+2 Web World:

Cool, really good photos.

March 3, 2009 at 2:39 amReply
Dawid Michalczyk:

Beautiful space photos. My favorite has always been the Andromeda galaxy.

March 3, 2009 at 2:53 amReply
Astrophotography: 13 Awesome Backyard Astronomy Photos | Our World...travelling by the seat of our pants....:

[...] 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 3, 2009 at 3:11 amReply
Deferred Fixed Annuity:

I have no problem putting in the time and effort.

March 3, 2009 at 3:57 amReply
+1 mulberrycat:

Those pictures are mind boggling. What makes all the crazy colors?
Thanks for posting.

March 3, 2009 at 8:26 amReply
eric:

great set! One photo is mislabeled as Andromeda “Nebula”.

March 3, 2009 at 8:27 amReply
LightStalking:

@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 3, 2009 at 1:19 pmReply
Mosca:

@robert, yap… you would need something like a telescope instead of a traditional lens

March 4, 2009 at 2:58 amReply
Erik:

Beautiful!!

March 4, 2009 at 7:55 amReply
+2 Cain:

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 5, 2009 at 4:01 amReply
LightStalking:

@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 5, 2009 at 4:10 amReply
Ciencia y tecnología :: 100cia.com:

[...] 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 5, 2009 at 11:07 amReply
Josh:

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 6, 2009 at 10:07 amReply
LightStalking:

@josh – check out some of the links to the tutorials – you might be pleasantly surprised. ;)

March 6, 2009 at 7:34 pmReply
Some awesome astronomy photographs | iMod:

[...] Absolutely incredible if you ask me! These stunning photographs were found on Light Stalkings. [...]

March 16, 2009 at 10:00 amReply
Tim:

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! ;-)

August 31, 2009 at 4:57 amReply
robert:

can someone explain how it was possible to take those photos? Do you need a special lense?
rob @ http://www.tinman.ie

January 5, 2010 at 3:17 pmReply
urineone:

superb

February 1, 2010 at 6:43 amReply
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November 4, 2010 at 12:47 amReply
BSDVisions - Barbara Deer:

Super photo, as are all the rest in this beautiful gallery. Just phenomenal photography – super work!

May 31, 2011 at 7:08 amReply
Ziad:

Great photos indeed! I’m an amateur astrophotogropher myself. You can check out my photos (and learn some about astrophotography) on my website: http://students.aub.edu.lb/~zme15, or on my flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/astroZ1

January 22, 2012 at 8:46 amReply