Astrophotography

Astrophotography is the title of a gorgeous and very useful new book by Thierry Legault

I had to taper off doing book reviews, much to the annoyance of all those lovely people who persist in sending me just the sort of books that I actually really love to read - it just got too time consuming - but, when Rocky Nook told me Thierry Legault had a book on Astrophotgraphy coming out, I agreed to review it immediately.

This is why:

shades of Atlantis

Atlantis

From NASA HQ Photo on Flickr

Thierry Legault is an expert and he takes beautiful photos. He is particularly known for his patient set up of uniquely timed and angled shots such as the one above.

The book discusses how he does this, and the general art of astronomical photography, starting with serious amateur level photography with digital single lens reflex cameras and going on to semi-professional level photography with tracking telescopes and more advanced techniques.
In a couple of hundred pages M. Legault covers the equipment, the setup and composition, and then the primary targets: solar system, Sun, and deep sky, followed by processing.

I will probably never take photographs even close to being in the same league as Thierry, being a theorist and whatnot, and I may never end up reading through the whole book, but having it, browsing it, dipping into the various sections, looking up random snippets I had always wondered about.
In a few hours the book has already given me more pleasure than most that have sat on my shelf for years.

Most highly recommended.

Astrophotography
ISBN-13: 978-1937538439
Publisher: Rocky Nook; 1st edition (July 6, 2014)