Astrophotography: My Very First Try

This morning I woke up early with my daughter and decided that I was going to try to take advantage of my digital camera's high zoom and a tripod I found laying around. The following are my very first ever photos of Venus taken. While certainly not "groundbreaking", I at least got close enough to distinctively show that it's a planet.

The planet actually showed up exceptionally well on the LCD, however, the tripod was absolutely necessary or it wouldn't have been stable enough to photograph. The color got completely out of whack when I took the picture, and I think it is because the sun was coming up pretty fast. The pictures came out kind of well, so I'm thinking I might better prepare myself for tomorrow. I didn't realize this, but my camera has like a 40x Mega Zoom. It's a Konica Minolta Dimage Z1. While my pics are no Bob Johnson pics, I think it's a good start into the world of amateur astrophotography. I've currently got Moon and Milky Way on my "pictures without a telescope" list.
I'm an amatuer astronomer (as I like to think of myself) without a telescope, but the digital camera did pretty well.

If you're interested in amateur astrophotography, you should head over to Astropix and take a look at some of the great pics and advice. Great book!

• http://www.astropix.com/