Your gear is essential, but it doesn't have to be expensive. Let's see if we can do some time traveling with things you probably already own.

Let's walk through setting up your gear for a successful night of time traveling!

Picture of a camera

Your gear is essential, but it doesn't have to be expensive. Let's see if we can do some time traveling with things you probably already own.

Tripod

First, let's start with the tripod. Make sure it's sturdy and level. A good tripod is crucial because even a slight shake can ruin your long exposure shots. You don't have to spend a lot, but you need something better than a selfie stick or a cheap travel tripod. I've been doing this for a while and I have a lot of tripods to choose from, but the ones that are used the most are a Bogen 3033 and a Slik U8800. I like them because they're light, sturdy, and easy to set up and take down. And as the saying goes, the best equipment is the stuff you already own that you use, so making it easy to store, set up, use, and take down goes a long way towards getting added to my "favorites" list!

Camera

Next, attach your camera. For beginners, a DSLR or mirrorless camera works best. Today, I'm using a Canon 80D, but I got started with a Canon 450D. Despite being released in 2008. it's a perfect little time machine for taking a quick spin around the cosmos. Any modern DSLR or mirrorless camera will do, as will a good quality cell phone camera. But we want something that has a manual mode so you have full control over the settings, so we'll leave the cell phone for another time. Make sure you've read your camera manual enough to know how to take pictures without relying on automation. It's dark at night, and most non-dedicated astrophotography cameras are not really designed to take pictures in the dark.

Lens

A wide-angle lens is perfect for capturing a broad view of the sky. I'm using a Canon EF-S 10-18mm zoom lens so I can change the framing a little by changing the zoom. It's great for star trails, Northern Lights, and Milky Way shots. Your lens is probably the second most important part of your time machine, so you want as good of one as you can get. But don't buy anything special. Just use the widest angle lens you have, or barring that, use the fastest one you have like an f/2.8 or faster. My 10-18 is an f/4.5-5.6 so it's a little slow, but remember - the best equipment is stuff you already own that you use, so for me, it's perfect!

A Quick Note about Expensive Lenses

If you're coming from a traditional photography background, throw most of your knowledge about exposure, focal length, f-stops and light light balance away. For AP work, the lens is just a piece of glass to focus what amounts to very little light to the sensor in the camera. And the camera isn't there to get proper white balance or skin tones; it's just capturing photons. So you can dumb things down a little. You don't need expensive, "fast" lenses, because you can always take a longer exposure (assuming you have a good tripod). But the longer your exposure, the more noise there will be in the image, so it's a trade-off between short exposures to get rid of noise, and long exposures to capture lots of light.

Luckily, we have software that let's us cheat, and stack images to minimize noise and increase the amount of useful data in an image. More on stacking later. For now, just realize that you don't need to take a 1/2000th of a second shot when you're doing astrophotography. If anything, you'll need to take a 20 second shot. That $5000 300mm/f2.8 lens, especially after we do our software tricks, is going to be wasted in this context. So get something cheap that you don't mind having to replace if you drop it on the rocks in the middle of the night. You'll thank me after the swearing stops.

Shutter Release

Don't forget a remote shutter release. This little device helps you take photos without touching the camera, reducing the risk of camera shake. The one I use has multiple functions like taking many pictures in sequence and taking pictures with a programmed delay between successive images. All of which can be useful for other photography techniques, too. If you're going to buy one, it's worth spending a little more to get one that has more features.

Some cameras may have these functions built in, or work with a mobile app, so you can push a button on your phone and do it that way. If you have no other options (or want to go old school), you can use your camera's self-timer mode. When I do this, I set it to 2 seconds, push the button, and then move out of the way to let the camera settle before it takes the shot.

Software

Speaking of apps, there's lots of free software like Stellarium that you can use to plan your shoot. It shows you where stars and planets will be at any given time, helping you find the perfect composition. We'll do a deep dive into Stellarium in a future chapter, but for now, make sure you put your location into the settings and then you can "fast forward" to when it gets dark and look at its virtual sky to find interesting compositions or objects.

Putting it All Together

And there you have it! Your gear is set up and ready to go. In the next chapter, we'll talk about camera settings like ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. Until then, clear skies, happy shooting, and I'll see you...in the dark!


Until next time, clear skies and I'll see you in the dark! Connnect with me quickly at BlueSky! Want more content? Please subscribe to my YouTube channel. Or you can (usually) watch live sessions on Twitch. Or even better, help support me in creating new content, getting new equipment to test, and to gain access to all of my digital imaging raw data! All content is copyright 2025 by astropotamus.com

Introduction to Astrophotography Camera Settings for Astrophotography