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How to do Astrophotography in Tekapo (Mt John)
If you would like to have a go at astrophotography, using your own camera and lenses in Tekapo all you need to do is join the Mt John starwatching tour offered by Earth & Sky Limited. Earth & Sky have there office in Tekapo village next to the I-site, main road - very easy to find, tours depart at various times depending on the time of year, weather conditions and number of bookings. Earth & Sky intend on doing tours every night but tours are weather dependent and a final call on weather or not the tour will go ahead will be made 1/2 an hour prior your departure by a guide on Mt John, useally the office will have an idea of conditions much earlier so if you are travelling just for the starwatching tour I would recommend ringing before leaving.
What you need to bring on the Star Watching Tour
Night time offers a unique challenge for cameras so not all will be able to take astrophotos, basically you need to be able to control 4 things (at the same time) 1- shutter speed, 2- aperture, 3- ISO and 4- to be able to manual focus. It would help if your camera has a port for a remote switch to be plugged in so you can control the exposure without having to touch the camera (Earth and Sky have a selection of different wired remotes, for canon, nikon, sony, minolta) Sadly if we can't plug in a contoller the exposure will be set to the longest your camera will allow (useally this is 30 seconds). You can use any lens you like depending on the field of view you want to obtain, if you have any large aperture lenses or lenses with a fixed focal lenght this would certainly help the image quality. Camera batteries have a bad habbit of becomeing flat especially when cold - so please recharge yourself and them prior to your tour, and remember to allow some space on your memory card.
Camera - Full battery - lens - memory card - warm clothing
What happens on the Earth & Sky, Mt John, Star watching tour
General format for the Mt John star watching tour is:
* Book the tour - to ensure a place on the bus, because the tour is weather dependent no deposit is required, the office will tell you which tours are available for that night and inform you of departure times
* Check in to the Tekapo office - 1/2 hour before your departure time, the office staff will inform you of weather conditions (if weather conditions are not suitiable for the full tour to run you will be offered some different options for you to chose) and take payment
* Get on the bus and be taken up Mt John - no private vehicles are permitted up Mt John after 6pm summer / 5pm winter
* Welcome and introduction to Mt John by a Astonomy / Star watching guide
* Warm Jackets offered - you are welcome to get that later if its not required straight away
* Naked Eye tour of the night sky - the guide will explan about the night sky / navigation / and basic astronomy information so you can understand the rest of the night more easily and then inform you where and what is available
* You are then free to wonder around and look thou different telescopes, meet the different guides and what they have to show you and inform you - hopefully this is where you will come over to the astrophotography section and meet me (Fraser Gunn) I will then explain about astrophotography and the equipment that we will be using, help attach your camera to the tracking mount and tell you how it works and recomend different areas / objects of the night for you to try and photography. Explain about the necessary camera settings and help you set your camera (if needed), attach a remote timer and show you how that works, help you get focus and get you started taking photos, if at the point you wanted me to take the photos for you I am happy to do so while you look thou the different telescopes or warm up with a nice hot chocolate from the cafe (included in the price of the tour)
* Sadly at some point the bus driver is going to announce the end of the tour and you will be driven back down to the Tekapo Village - hopefully with a few great photos of the night sky which you can show off to your friends and family
Scorpius and Sagittarius with the Milky Way, this is a good example of what you should be able to get using a standard SLR camera
24mm lens ISO 250 f/4.0 600 seconds exposure
Star Watching Photo Archive |
Mackenzie Splendour DVD - Rom |
Photography by Fraser Gunn
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Earth & Sky offer night starwatching tours on Mt John and Cowans hill as well as run a cafe and day tours around the Mt John observatory on Mt John during the day for news, an almanac, bookings and information visit:
Earth & Sky
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