The Astrophotographer's Guidebook - The Best DSLR Astrophotography Targets Each Season
Updated: Jun 8, 2023
The Astrophotographer's Guidebook is a guide to the best DSLR astrophotography targets of the year. Inside, you will find 60 deep-sky objects that you can photograph each season with 15 targets per season. While out on the field it's great to have a list of targets on hand (or digitally) to easily find ideas for astrophotography targets each night and perhaps improve your imaging and processing skills with objects you haven't photographed before.
Learn about this astrophotography book and get an idea about what to expect. Consider ordering one for yourself or an aspiring astrophotographer you know.
The Astrophotographer's Guidebook Synopsis
Whether you are a beginner, intermediate, or advanced astrophotographer, this detailed book of the best deep-sky objects will serve as a personal guide for years to come!
Discover which star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies are the easiest and most impressive to photograph for each season.
We created this guidebook to help astrophotographers stay motivated with a checklist of ideas for imaging. It can be tough if you're not totally familiar with the sky. In the book you will learn how to find each object in the night sky and read our recommendations for how to best photograph them.
Each target listed in this guide contains our advice on imaging, photos of expected results, and a useful information table. We've also included a few cool facts about each target, a map to find it in the night sky, and more! See what a page looks like below!
Book Information
Published on: Amazon
Price: $34.00
Available as a digital PDF on our Digital Store
Price: $18.00
Total Number of Pages: 153
Book Format and Content
Each page in the book is a double page featuring a target and all of its information. The same format continues throughout the book making it quite easy to follow and fun to look at.
There are helpful key facts about the deep-sky object you are planning to image, such as its designation (like NGC or M), how to locate it in the night sky, difficulty level, advice on imaging, a statistics table, and more!
A few targets will have the Galactic Hunter logo and a link on the bottom right of the page. This link will direct you to an episode from our YouTube channel that will help you capture that specific target. This is especially useful as you will hear us explain more in-depth about the object and determine if said target is a good option for you to photograph.
Astrophotographer's Guidebook Summary Table
The last pages of this book contain a summary table. This is useful for finding any target and its specifications in seconds. It's probably the only time it's acceptable to flip to the last page of a book!
What Strategy Should I Use?
It may be helpful to start at the summary pages because you can see the difficulty more easily, but you can use any strategy as you navigate the book. All year round you have targets to choose from.
Whether that's per season and difficulty, going through each season and challenging yourself, or just going one year with all beginner targets, and so on. All we recommend is that you take your time and don't beat yourself up if you didn't get them all in a one-year span.
This book is a great companion no matter your skill level and helps for last-minute imaging sessions. Say you are packing up to go imaging, but are still undecided on which target to go for. You can look over the chart and quickly decide which object would be a good fit for the night. Or at the end of a session, if you have extra time, you can find another target you might not have thought of.
Final Thoughts
It is our hope that this guide will be useful to you during your time exploring deep-sky objects in the night sky. Be advised that all targets listed were chosen because they are, in our opinion, the best suited for new astrophotography hobbyists.
Clear Skies,
Galactic Hunter
Astrophotography Books
The Astrophotographer's Journal
Description:
The Astrophotographer’s Journal is a portable notebook created for the purpose of recording observations, cataloging photographs, and writing down the wonderful memories created by this hobby.
This book contains more than 200 pages to memorialize your stargazing and imaging sessions, as well as a useful chart on the last pages to index exciting or important notes.
Consider purchasing this book for yourself or someone you love who enjoys astronomy. You can learn more about this book by reading our post about The Astrophotographer's Journal.
Purchase a Physical Copy.
The Constellations Handbook
Description:
The Constellations Handbook is a logical guide to learning the 88 constellations. Learning the constellations is difficult. Remembering them is even harder. Have you ever wanted to look up to the night sky, name any pattern of stars and be able to tell their stories?
This book groups the constellations in a logical order so that the reader can easily learn them by their origin, and see how their stories interact with one another as a group.
Get more info by reading our blog about The Constellations Handbook.
Buy a Physical Copy or a Digital Copy.
