Good Book for Beginners in Astrophotography

I've come across a rather nice new book, which I think would be of interest to those just starting out in astrophotography. The book is "The Dark Skies of the North Pennines. An amateur photographer's delight" by Graham Relf.

Graham is a well-known member of the BAA and he has self-published this book... I think it's an ideal introduction to astrophotography using a DSLR. Aimed very much at the beginner, it takes you through some very basic techniques and is packed full of Graham's wonderful images. At just £13.50, I think it's great value.

I think it's fair to say that this book has caused a bit of controversy at the BAA... there has been much debate on the BAA forums about one particular passage in the book, which made me chuckle given our recent debates on this forum. Graham writes this:

"Those who already know a bit about astrophotography will be wondering why I have not mentioned dark frames, flat frames or bias frames. The reason is that beginners using today's digital cameras (of the non-specialist non-CCD kind) really don't need to bother with them. Nearly all of the photos in this book were made without them!

So for beginners: don't be put off by books and articles that dwell on such things. Get started without them and then read further when you are already getting good results but want to do even better.

The only proviso is that if you want to measure star brightnesses accurately (to do photometry on your images) then you really do want to use dark, flat and perhaps bias frames."

Crikey... provoking stuff... but along the same lines as I mentioned in my earlier posts. Suffice to say that not everyone agrees with Graham, but a large number of BAA members seem to be in agreement at least with the general sentiment of this statement.

Anyway... forget about the controversy... it's still a good read.