Zoom Oct. 19th Program Night Features Steve Peters – Astrophotography

For the October program I will discuss astrophotography that can be done primarily with  a camera and tripod. I plan to touch on nightscape planning and composition, focusing, technical considerations for shooting in the dark, and maybe a bit about post-processing. My goal is to provide enough how-to instruction and perhaps inspiration to get a few folks to go out and try some night sky photography themselves. Hope to see everyone on Zoom.

I’m a photography hobbyist concentrating on landscape, seascape, and nightscape photography in my limited spare time after work, family, life, etc.  I am a product manager for Orion Telescopes & Binoculars, a California-based company where I have worked since 1995 (now remotely).

I picked up “terrestrial” photography in earnest in 2014 after attending a one-day workshop on seascape photography in Santa Cruz, CA. But I have been doing deep-space astrophotography – using telescopes as the lens – since the late 1990s. I do it for enjoyment as well as for work; my astrophotos are used in Orion’s direct-to-consumer catalog, websites, advertising, and products.

In recent years my personal “astrophotography” pursuits have been focused more on what I can capture with a DSLR or mirrorless camera and standard photographic lenses on a tripod; namely, wide-field “nightscape” scenes often featuring the Milky Way set against interesting foreground elements. I also enjoy shooting the Moon, the planets, comets, the occasional solar eclipse, and star trails.