Video: How to Capture Astrophotography Images Without a Star Tracker

In astrophotography, a star tracker is a piece of gear that compensates for the Earth’s rotation so you can take sharp long exposure photographs of the night sky.

Unfortunately, not everyone can get their hands on one of these, and so we’ve dug up this awesome tutorial by astrophotographer Forrest Tanaka on how to capture impressive astrophotography images without a star tracker.

Tanaka starts the video by briefly explaining what star trackers are and how they can both improve and hinder your workflow. After that brief rundown, he dives into the process he uses to take astrophotographs without the use of a star tracker.

The process is fairly simple once you break it down. Using a number of dedicated shot ‘types,’ Tanaka walks you though how to do everything from capturing the images to importing them into DeepSkyStacker. From there, it’s just a matter of adjusting the files and crops accordingly until you get the desired result.

At 24 minutes the video is a long watch, but this is a must-see for anyone even considering diving into astrophotography.

Thanks for sending in the tip, Paolo!