Introduction to Astrophotography

Essential Information

Type	Courses
Location	Online
Date and Times	Tuesdays, 7-9pm \| 6-week course beginning on 20 Feb 2024
Prices	£96

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This course provides the basic knowledge, skills and techniques needed to create images of space.

It will explore how nighttime photography is different to daytime and how, with a few key ideas and practice, it is possible to create amazing images.

The course tutor will guide the class through the first steps in learning how astronomy images are made. Starting with understanding camera settings, targets in the night sky and some straightforward processing, students will go on to capture and process their own images.

The course will also touch on some more advanced techniques using telescopes and guiding to give students a taste of the possibilities of deep sky astrophotography.

This course will run three times in the 2023/24 academic year on Tuesdays:

31 October - 5 December 2023
2 January - 6 February 2024
20 February - 26 March 2024*

*Two sessions in this course will run on a Wednesday rather than Tuesday. The full dates are: Tuesday 20 February, Wednesday 28 February, Tuesday 5 March, Tuesday 12 March, Tuesday 19 March, Wednesday 27 March.

The course will be held online via Zoom and is ideal for students who are not within commutable distance of London or cannot travel to Greenwich.

Students will ideally have access to their own equipment for this course, including a DSLR, lenses and a tripod. A telescope is not required, though students are welcome to use a telescope for photography.

Note: This course runs online on Zoom.

Everyone taking a course at the Royal Observatory is entitled to a 10% discount for books purchased from Royal Museums Greenwich - please check with your course tutor for more details!

Age: 18+ yrs

Meet the tutor: Les Brand

Les is a part-time astronomer at the Royal Observatory and regularly delivers exciting and informative shows to schools and the public at the Peter Harrison Planetarium. He also delivers the ever-popular Evening with the Stars events, showing people the wonders of the night sky from the heart of London. He teaches introductory online courses on astronomy and astrophotography.

Les has his own back garden observatory and owns several telescopes and cameras with which he battles London's light pollution and clouds! He was an advisor on recent BBC series Universe where he showed it was possible to capture an image of a distant galaxy from Canary Wharf. Les is a committee member of his local astronomical society and as a STEM ambassador regularly gives talks to schools and leads the young astronomers club.

A Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and lifelong learner, his knowledge of astronomy and astrophotography is largely self-taught and he will soon complete a masters degree in astrophysics.