Astro photography while on board

[cruisingbooboo]

Hello,

Im interested in trying astro photography while on board. Has anyone tried this? didn't know if moving ship would inhibit the long exposure. Thought...???? experiences????? Any tips would be appreciated.

thanks

[Docker123]

When I was on QM2 there was a resident astronomer. With good winds he would do some workshops on the top deck. Not sure if he could get main lights turned off.

 

Someone called Greg Redfern has written a book on astronomy and astrophotography on cruise ships.

 

[AquariusOne]

Yes I see two problems, you may not find a totally dark/black area on the ship, any stray light on time exposure would ruin your image. Second would be movement of the ship. Timed exposures would not have proper focus on moving ship. Besides that, for shorter exposures (5-10 seconds) you are going to need a very sharp wide angle lens  1.4, 1.8, 2.8 etc.

[AL3XCruise]

Ship movement is going to limit exposure time, and that will be exacerbated if using a long lens.  I've seen someone get reasonable results on a ship by stacking many relatively short exposures from a fast, wide-angle lens.  With enough total exposure time and good post processing he was able to overcome the light pollution of the ship itself.  I don't recall if he used any kind of tracking or if the exposures were short enough that it didn't matter.

 

Personally I'd be more inclined to drive an hour or two to a darker area at home and shoot than try to worry about it onboard unless there was something very specific happening I wanted to capture.

[cruisingbooboo]

On 2/17/2020 at 12:14 PM, AL3XCruise said:

Ship movement is going to limit exposure time, and that will be exacerbated if using a long lens.  I've seen someone get reasonable results on a ship by stacking many relatively short exposures from a fast, wide-angle lens.  With enough total exposure time and good post processing he was able to overcome the light pollution of the ship itself.  I don't recall if he used any kind of tracking or if the exposures were short enough that it didn't matter.

 

Personally I'd be more inclined to drive an hour or two to a darker area at home and shoot than try to worry about it onboard unless there was something very specific happening I wanted to capture.

Excellent points... thanks! I think the tripod will be left at home!