Customer Reviews

Heavenly Bodies: The Photographer's Guide to Astrophotography

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If you are looking for a book that will teach you the essentials of astrophotography, or a book that will help you get those elusive images using a 35mm SLR, THEN THIS IS NOT IT.

Its amazing how misleading titles can be - this book talks about astrophotography but i have yet to be convinced, other than a lot of artistically composed fancy landscapes and mountains with some random astronomical object in the background you will find very few examples of real long exposure deep sky objects, nebulae or galaxies, or anything astronomically important.

This book is more about FANCY photography meeting astrophotography - a good example is page 12 where the image is supposed to be an example of a large angle view - well its large angle alright - a beautiful image of a ferris wheel set in a carnival park the moon is somewhere in the distant background doing god knows what. The image on page 77 goes even better - a beautifully composed garbage dump with an overcast sky hiding the sun passes for "incorporating the sun into an image without a flare" - how ridiculous can you get.

CCD - forget it, it gets a bare mention, so does most of the current equipment, lenses adaptors etc - anything you would consider important like filters for polluted city sky's, or solar / lunar filters are perhaps "not artistically important" to mention.

A lot of the examples are astronomical rubbish and are just intended to look good - not reveal any astonomical phenomena or detail or techniques.

IF YOU WANT A BOOK ON ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY LOOK ELSEWHERE - if you are looking at artistic compositions for your nightly escapades you may consider this - one the whole A WASTE OF MONEY FOR THE SERIOUS ASTROPHOTOGRAPHER.

Another dimension to photography is explored by Bert P. Krages. This book is intended to guide the reader on evolving their skills in astrophotography on an introductory level and fulfills this genre nicely. Photographing deep space objects such as galaxies, star clusters, and nebulae are not part of the scope of this book. The equipment needed for such projects can easily reach beyond the ten thousand dollar mark when you factor in a quality telescope, a ccd camera, adapter and motor drive; another book could be written on this alone. All chapters are based on photographic equipment almost all photographers already have, making this an appealing endeavor.
A brief lesson in astronomy is given since this knowledge is helpful in becoming more efficient, especially when tracking certain celestial objects. Equipment such as lenses are dissected and advantages and disadvantages are discussed. Film and filter selection and exposure have a chapter dedicated to them as does tracking techniques. Photography through a telescope is touched upon and insight is given for those looking to pursue this adventure. Overall, an informative book, well written and recommended.

This is an awesome book for anyone interested in learning about astrophotography. The book is easy to read and well laid out. The great thing about this book is it shows that anyone can do astrophotography without spending a lot of money on gear. It is full of information on how to get started, what you can use, how to plan for potential shots, etc. The author even included some well timed wit here and there. The photos in the book are very good and inspiring, especially the cover shot! This is a great book for any outdoor photographer whether you have ever considered doing this type of photography or not.