Simple astronomy with digital camera / デジカメで手軽に天文学

This post is based on a stand the JEM-EUSO group  prepared for RIKEN open campus, in April 2012. 

After the Venus passage we do not need to stop with backyard astronomy: With current quality of digital cameras everyone can take good astronomical pictures. They will not be detailed as those of Hubble Space Telescope, but you can have a lot of fun discovering the universe with your own eyes.

You only  need a tripod or a place to set your camera steady, any camera will work:

If your camera has fixed setting, choose night, or star.

If you can change settings manually usually it is better to choose largest aperture, long exposure, set the manual focus to infinity, ISO 400 or higher. 

Moon, stars, nebulae and the planets are easily accessible: start using the settings in the pamphlet  and experiment with your own!

The poster prepared fo RIKEN open campus 2012. Click to enlarge
Special thanks to I. Kaneko for the graphic layout and to H. Miyamoto
for the Japanese translation.

誰でもデジタルカメラで天体の写真をとることができます。ハッブル宇宙望遠鏡みたいな性能はなくても、自分の目でたくさんの天体を発見するのはすごく楽しいですよ。必要なのはカメラを固定する三脚だけ。どんなカメラでも大丈夫。

カメラを固定したら夜空に向けてみましょう。特定の星を選んで向けてみても良いです。手動でカメラの
設定を変えられるなら、絞りを最大、露光時間を最長、焦点を無限大に合わせて、ISOを400かそれ以上にすると良いでしょう。それが終わったらたくさんのターゲットの中から見たいものを選びましょう。