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You can get some stunning pictures of the night sky without going to very much trouble. All you need is a 35mm Single Lens Reflex (SLR) camera. Most of these cameras have a bulb setting on the shutter speed knob or selector. The (B) setting allows you to keep the shutter open for as long as you like to capture faint objects in the sky. Since the shutter will be open longer you need to stabilize the camera on a tripod to prevent blurring of the image. A cable release is also a good idea to keep vibration down when you take the picture. Be sure to use a fast film. Choose speeds ranging from 400 to 1600, they are ideal for picking up stars. You should set the lens to the lowest f/number available to allow the most light into the camera. That's all you really need to get excellent pictures of interesting objects. The only thing left to do would be to find a dark sky! The images below were taken with the simple setup mentioned above unless otherwise noted.

The Constellation Cygnus (The Swan)

Also known as the Northern Cross, Cygnus dominates the summer sky and is a favorite of many skywatchers. It's easy to get lost in this beautiful starcloud! The North America Nebula can be seen at lower left. Cygnus' brightest star Deneb, located just above the North America nebula, is one of the three stars that make up the famous summer triangle. The other two stars completing the triangle are Vega in Lyra and Altair in the constellation Aquila, the eagle. The nebular region in the center of the picture is the Gamma Cygni region. This is a thirty-five second exposure.
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The Dawn Conjunction of Venus, Jupiter & the Moon

Located above a giant Texas oak tree, a celestial smiley face greets early risers one summer morning in 1998. Venus is to the upper left with Jupiter to it's right and the cresent Moon hangs below. The sunlit crescent is over-exposed revealing earthshine, sunlight reflected from the Earth to the Moon. TOP

Jupiter & Saturn in Taurus

Jupiter is brighter than Saturn and lower in the sky. The V shaped stars close to Jupiter are known as the Hyades open star cluster. The more compact open cluster above Saturn is the Pleiades or M45 the 45th entry in Charles Messier's famous list. The Pleiades are sometimes refered to as the seven sisters from Greek mythology for the seven daughters of Atlas. TOP

The North Celestial Pole

Polaris, the north star or pole star, is centrally located in this twenty minute exposure of the constellation Ursa Minor which is sometimes referred to as the Little Dipper. The arc's represent the distance the stars travelled due to the rotation of the Earth on its axis. TOP

The Constellation Orion (The Hunter)

This is a thirty second exposure of Orion. The Great Orion Nebula is the bright orange patch located just below the three belt stars. TOP

Sagittarius and the Heart of the Milky Way Galaxy

This thirty second exposure is looking back toward the center of our galaxy. Sagittarius is the teapot shaped constellation of stars just to the left of center. The tail of Scorpius the scorpion can be seen through and above the trees at lower right. The open star clusters M6 and M7 are visible between the constellations. M23 can be seen near the top center on the picture. M7 is the brighter open cluster just southeast of center. The red patch just north of center is the Lagoon Nebula. The much smaller Trifid Nebula is just above the Lagoon and the bright red spot at the very top of the picture is M17 the Omega Nebula. The bright diffuse area in the center of the picture is caused by the millions of stars we see looking into the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. Finally, the darker areas are the vast dust lanes of our galaxy viewed edge on. Also visible in this picture are the globular star clusters M22 and M28. TOP

The Great Galaxy in Andromeda

The fuzzy star in the middle of this 35 second exposure is actually a spiral galaxy composed of 2 to 4 billion stars. The Andromeda Galaxy or M31 appears as a hazey star in this shot because of the lack of magnification in the lens I used and the incredible distance, 2.2 million light years, between it and us! Even though it's that far away, astronomically speaking, it's still close to us. In fact, it's the closest large galaxy to our own Milky Way Galaxy. Astronomers like to say it's in the neighborhood or a part of the "local group" of galaxies. The Andromeda Galaxy is also said to be the farthest object visible with the naked eye, and under a suburban sky it's pretty easy to spot this galaxy. There is another galaxy in this picture. Have you spotted it yet? It is tough to see I admit but it's there none the less. It's the Triangulum Galaxy or M33 and it's located in the upper left of the picture. M33 is a little farther out than M31 at about 3 million light years. It's a face-on spiral galaxy and the second brightest galaxy in the northern sky next to M31. TOP

The Full Moon

This shot of the Moon was taken with a 60mm refractor working at F/15. I used a Nikon FM camera and 100 speed film. The exposure was 1/125 second. TOP

The Sun

This picture of the Sun was taken with a 60mm refractor working at F/15 and a solar filter. I used a Nikon FM camera and 100 speed film. The exposure was 1/125 second.