Resources

Astronomy Websites

Here are a number of links to interesting astronomy websites as well as some tools and programs used by astrophotographers.

Night Sky Network!
Get it all here… the clubs in your area, night sky planner, moon phase, and outreach resources

JPL & NASA Photo Journal
Excellent site to fine photos from the space program.

Ronald Greeley Center for Planetary Studies
This link will take you directly to the downloadable poster page, there is a lot more to explore on this website.

The Weather Channel
Check out the current weather conditions for the Phoenix area

Arizona State Parks – Star Parties & Astro Events
Astronomy events right here in our own Arizona state parks

NASA New Horizon Mission
This exciting mission launched in January 2006 and is enroute to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. It is the fastest spacecraft and arrived at Pluto in July 2015 where it flies by this mysterious, frozen world and its moon Charon. The mission has already discovered two new moons around Pluto and many more discoveries are in store.

International Dark Sky Association
The International Dark-Sky Association is the only non-profit organization fighting to preserve the night, working to protect wildlife, cut energy waste, and stop light pollution.

Light Pollution Interactive Map

Astronomy Games
Astronomy: Computer Software games for kids

Moon Calendar
Moon rise, Moon Set and Moon Phases Calendar

Light Pollution Map
A color coded interactive map of light pollution around the world with Bortle scale and more.

Stellarium
A free and open source planetarium for your PC that has just about everything you could ever need to find a wide swath of deep space objects and so much more.

PolarFinder
A free PC based polar alignment tool used for aligning your equatorial mounts with alignment scopes.

NightSkyGazing

This website helps people to get into amateur astronomy. It describes easy targets for observations, explains telescope types and characteristics, and helps to make first steps in astrophotography.

Introduction to Amateur Astronomy This page lists a 5 part video series presented by the Kalamazoo Astronomical Society (KAS).

Observatories

Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory

Lowell Observatory

The Large Binocular Telescope Observatory

Kitt Peak National Observatory

Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter Observatory

Butterfield RV Resort Observatory

Astro-Photography:

APT (Astro Photography Tool) An optional camera control program for astrophotography compatible with a large number of cameras.

Astronomy Picture of the Day Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

A Beginner’s Guide to Choosing Equipment for Deep-Sky Electronically-Assisted Astronomy (EAA) Call it what you will, electronically-assisted astronomy is becoming a popular pastime for several reasons.

ASCOM Controllers A open source software required by many other softwares to connect and control electronic scopes and mounts.

Deep Sky Stacker Free Astrophotography software with manual and tutorials

PHD2 (Push Here Dummy 2) A free and open source powerful telescope guiding program used with guiding scopes for astrophotography.

Backyard EOS/Nikon A paid and powerful tool for all you DSLR astrophotographers looking to control your DSLR with ease.

NINA Astrophotography Tool (Free) Nighttime Imaging ‘N’ Astronomy (NINA) is a free tool that provides astrophotographers the tools to choose targets, control image framing, focusing, centering and control equipment. The tool is open source and in active development to improve capabilities. See the NINA home page for full details.

AstroBackYard Homegrown website about back yard astrophotography

Beginner/Overview Astro Photography Sites

Bernard Miller: Video on Youtube

Forrest Tanaka (a bit old but great overview of equipment): Video on Youtube

James Lamb: Video on Youtube

Patriot Astro: Video on Youtube

Peter Zelinka: Video on Youtube

Small Optics: Video on Youtube

The Digital Astronomer: Video on Youtube

Using Images of Others (Hubble Playlists) : Video on Youtube

Nico Carver’s 5 levels of Equipment: Video on Youtube

Trevor Jones Perfect Starter Kit: Video on Youtube