'Exposure'

How to Become a Great Astrophotographer

A question that I am often asked is - How do you become a great Astrophotographer?

Before I answer, the question should be clarified. Does the phrase great astrophotographer, mean how do you take great images? Or does it really mean a great astrophotographer, i.e. someone who is truly great and makes a significant contribution to astrophotography.

If it is the former, then the words: enthusiasm, dedication, perseverance, ‘love of computers’, patience, technical knowledge, practical ability, willingness to learn, choose the right equipment and so on come to mind.

However, if the questioner means the latter, then the answer becomes much more difficult to give.

The only way to answer this question is not to base it on my experience, as I certainly am not a ‘great astrophotographer’ in any sense of the word, and never will be; but to look at the great pioneers themselves and see what made them special.

So, here is the advice that I believe they would give on becoming a ‘truly great’ astrophotographer:

Be the First: John William Draper (1811-1882); he was to first person to successfully photograph an astronomical object, when he imaged the Moon in 1840 with a Daguerreotype Camera attached to a 13cm Reflector. Louis Daguerre had taken an earlier but unsuccessful blurred photograph of the Moon.

Don’t Give up your Day Job: Edward Emerson Barnard1857-1923); for over 17 years Edward Emerson Barnard worked as a photographer’s Assistant in Nashville, Tennessee before becoming a staff astronomer  at the Vanderbilt University Observatory. He was to later become one of the greatest observational astronomers of all time, as well as being  famous for his magnificent wide field photographs of the Milky Way and the catalogue of Dark Nebulae which bears his name.

Give up your Day Job: Lewis Morris Rutherfurd (1816-1892); he started out life as a lawyer but decided to give up his work to concentrate on science and in particular astronomy. He later became one of the pioneers of astronomical spectroscopy and took in 1865 photographs of the Moon which were the best of the day, and remained unsurpassed until the later work of Puiseux and Loewy.

Find a Good Wife (or Husband): William Huggins (1824-1910) the father of spectroscopy married Margaret in 1875, and for the next 35 years she became her husband’s assistant, co-worker and inspiration. It was Huggins who carried out pioneering work in our understanding of the physical nature of nebulae, discovering that some were made up of gas whilst others were made up of stars.

Form a Society: James Edward Keeler (1857-1900) formed the Maybury Astronomical Society in his home town in Florida in 1875. In 1898 he was appointed Director of the Lick Observatory, where he began photographing Deep Space Objects with the 36” Crossley Reflector. Even today these photographs remain some of the finest images ever taken.

Change Your Career: George Ritchey (1864-1945); in 1919 he was fired from Mount Wilson Observatory in a dispute with its then director George Ellery Hale over the usefulness of his telescope design (the Ritchey-Chretien optical system). For the next five years he eked out a living on his Orange Grove in Azusa, California. The Ritchey-Chretien design forms the basis of the optical system used in the latest generation of ‘super’ telescopes including the Hubble Space Telescope.

Become Well Known: Henri Chretien (1879-1956); in 1954 he became the only astronomer ever to win a Hollywood Oscar for his invention of ‘Cinemascope’, a type of projection system used in many a Blockbuster movie. He is famous today along with George Ritchie, for the optical system which bears their name. Initially, it was difficult to test and expensive to make, but recently affordable RC systems have become available, giving ordinary amateurs the benefits of its wide flat field.

Learn from Others: Henry Draper (1837-1882); in 1857 he visited the estate of William Parsons, the 3^rd Earl of Rosse, at Birr Castle, Ireland; where he saw the Earl’s 72” Reflecting Telescope known as the ‘Leviathan of Parsonstown’. On his return to America, he began to construct mirrors using techniques learnt from his visit to Birr Castle. On the 30^th September 1880, Henry Draper took the first ever photograph of a Deep Space Object when he imaged the Great Orion Nebula (M42).

Give it a Name: John Herschel (1792-1871); was the person who in 1839 coined the term Photography from the Latin, meaning literally ‘writing with light. He was also instrumental in making advances in photographic processes, as well as completing the work began by his father William and his Aunt Caroline in cataloguing DSOs in the southern hemisphere.

Inspire Others: William Parsons (1800-1867); almost single handed created the 72” Reflector known as the ‘Leviathan of Parsonstown’, which was for nearly three quarters of a century the largest telescope in the world. He inspired others to do great things with his enthusiasm, hard work and ingenuity, including the likes of Henry Draper and Johann L.E. Dreyer (compiler of the NGC/IC).

Invent Something Special: Pierre Janssen (1842-1907); in 1874 constructed what his ‘revolver photographique’, a special camera which was capable of taking a sequence of photographs. In one hour it could take up to 100 photographs. He used this remarkable camera on a trip to Japan, to observe the transit of Venus which took place that year. This was the very first webcam!

Become Master of Your Trade: John Adams Whipple(1822-1891); was one of the earliest professional photographers, being the first to import the chemicals required for the Daguerreotype process, as well as a pioneer of night time photography. He became so much of an expert that William Cranch Bond recruited him as a technician to work with him at the Harvard College Observatory and became an early pioneer of astrophotography.

Good Equipment is Not Essential, but it Helps; William Cranch Bond (1789-1859); when he was young, although he had no telescope he used to prepare himself for an observing session by climbing down a well in order to adapt his eyes to the dark. He later became the first Director of the Harvard College Observatory, and used a 2.75” Refractor (which was at that time the only telescope available to him) to observe in September 1846 the newly discovered planet Neptune.

Collaborate with Others: The Henry Brothers; Paul (1848-1905) and Prosper (1849-1903) Henry were two brothers who worked together all their lives at the Meudon Observatory in Paris. It was remarked at the time that they were inseparable, and that their work was a joint effort with no brother dominating the work of the other. They were responsible for taking the first successful photographs of the Planets when they imaged Jupiter and Saturn the years 1885-86; as well as the design and construction of some of the finest telescopes ever made, including the great 33” Refractor at Meudon.

Never Let Adversity Stop You: George Phillips Bond (1825-1865); was responsible for taking the first ever photograph of a Double Star when he imaged Mizar and its companion Alcor in 1857. He also suggested in 1858 that photography could be used to measure stellar magnitudes, i.e. photometry. In an eleven month period ending on 29^th January 1859, George Bond suffered the tragic deaths of his youngest daughter, his wife and his father.

A Physical Handicap is Not an Excuse: Bernhard Schmidt (1879-1935); was probably the finest optician who ever lived. In 1930 he designed the first ever practical optical system which possessed a wide angle flat field. This design became known as the Schmidt Camera, and was used in 48” Schmidt-Oschin telescope at Mount Palomar, completed in 1948 after his death. It was later used in many amateur telescopes. When he was 15 years old he had to have his right hand amputated when one of his experiments with Gunpowder went wrong.

Education is Not Essential:  Milton Lassel Humason (1891-1972); was responsible for carrying out much of the photographic work from which Edwin Hubble derived the first distances of galaxies and which enabled him to formulate his famous law. Humason was a man who had no PhD or education of any kind whatsoever, and who began working at Mount Wilson Observatory as a lowly janitor.