Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Chapter 1 Earth and sky
- Chapter 2 Moon and planet observer's hardware
- Chapter 3 The Solar System framed
- Chapter 4 Stacking up the Solar System
- Chapter 5 Our Moon
- Chapter 6 Mercury and Venus
- Chapter 7 Mars
- Chapter 8 Jupiter
- Chapter 9 Saturn, Uranus and Neptune
- Chapter 10 Small worlds
- Chapter 11 Comets
- Chapter 12 Our daytime star
- Appendix 1 Telescope collimation
- Appendix 2 Field-testing a telescope's optics
- Appendix 3 Polar alignment
- Index
Chapter 3 - The Solar System framed
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Chapter 1 Earth and sky
- Chapter 2 Moon and planet observer's hardware
- Chapter 3 The Solar System framed
- Chapter 4 Stacking up the Solar System
- Chapter 5 Our Moon
- Chapter 6 Mercury and Venus
- Chapter 7 Mars
- Chapter 8 Jupiter
- Chapter 9 Saturn, Uranus and Neptune
- Chapter 10 Small worlds
- Chapter 11 Comets
- Chapter 12 Our daytime star
- Appendix 1 Telescope collimation
- Appendix 2 Field-testing a telescope's optics
- Appendix 3 Polar alignment
- Index
Summary
Nowadays a large proportion of amateur astronomers are astrophotographers. In fact, I am fairly sure that most amateur astronomers do at least some astronomical photography. This was not the case until relatively recently. I was certainly aware of being in a minority of practising amateur astronomers when I began astrophotography in the early 1970s. Back then, most commercial film processors and printers did not do a good job with astronomical subjects. So, to get the best results normally required the aspiring astrophotographer to set up a darkroom and get involved with the chemicals and operations needed for processing films and creating the final prints. I happened to love doing all that but for most other amateur astronomers that was a step too far.
The recent availability of a range of electronic imaging devices, all fairly easily used with laptops or PCs to give immediate results, has resulted in a veritable explosion of practising astrophotographers. Also, I must say that the quality of the images now routinely achieved using electronic imaging with the best amateur equipment would have been the envy of even the professional astronomers of yesteryear who used light-sensitive emulsions on film or glass plates as their recording medium.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Observing the Solar SystemThe Modern Astronomer's Guide, pp. 67 - 94Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012