We will be spending 2 nights learning the fundamentals of low light photography, nightscape photography, Milky Way photography and even try out some Astrophotography by mounting your Canon, Nikon or Pentax DSLR directly to the group telescope.

 

Day 1 - July 1st:

 

We will be meeting in the public parking of the Wateridge Housing Community in Sorrento Valley at 7:30 AM. 10368 Wateridge Cir., San Diego, CA 92121. We will get on the road at around 8:15 AM. Estimated travel time is 6 hour and 20 minutes, placing our arrival at around 2:35 PM.

 

Upon our arrival, we will begin to set up camp, pitch our tents, organize all materials, meet and greet, etc. After setting up, we can take a quick drive to the nearby store to pick up any necessary items and wood.

 

Upon our return to camp, we will set up the campfire and make some dinner. I will be bringing some food but probably not enough for everyone for 2 nights. It will be more fun to treat this as a potluck and have all bring something to the table. 

 

Through and after dinner, I will go over the fundamentals of low light photography, DSLR functions, explain the exposure triangle, talk about wide angle lenses, composing your images, light painting, milky way imaging & the importance of the Lagoon Nebula, star circles, time lapse imaging and give everyone starting settings for their cameras to begin imaging.

 

We will image the sky at different angles, facing different directions and with different foregrounds. Next we will do some Star Circles and finally get to Milky Way imaging. We will finish off our imaging session by doing time lapse imaging of the milky way.

 

See examples of Nightscapes & Milky Way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 2 - July 2nd:

 

We will begin the with breakfast around 8:30 AM. There are coin showers in the campground available. At around 10:00 prepare for our day photo hike! There are many different trails around the campground, but we will start with the lake trail first. It is a relatively easy hike that circles the scenic subalpine lake in about 1.6 miles. We will see lovely pockets of aspen trees and more displaying various colors.

 

From there we can take the much longer Dorothy Lake Trail and continue until we tire out. Features include plants, wildlife, awesome geological structures and great landscapes!! Take a snack and have plenty of water!!

 

I use 3L Camelbak and recommend that or a water pack of some kind as to keep your hands free for imaging. The weather should be pretty nice on the hike. Have a good hat, comfortable/breathable clothing (NOT COTTON), and sunglasses. I will be bringing along sunblock and a first aid kit on the hike. 

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We should get back to camp by no later than 5:00pm to prepare for the night. Also we don't want to get caught in the wild in the dark. Next I will talk about telescopes! The three primary styles, how to pick one, benefits, about optics, telescope eyepieces and accessories, how to set up at telescope with hands on experience for all, locations of night sky objects, basic navigation using the night sky, how to image planets, how to image deep sky objects and a basic rundown on the time it takes to process deep sky images. I have a list of interesting objects prepared for us to view and image, including Jupiter, Saturn, M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy, M13 - The Great Hercules Cluster and more!!

 

I have telescope adapters for only Canon, Nikon & Pentax DSLR cameras.

 

See examples of Astrophotography.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 3 - July 3rd:

 

Wake up around 8:30 AM and enjoy breakfast and each other's company.

 

After breakfast we will be doing the Group Nightsky Photo Contest!! Everyone will pick 1 photo from all their own images and enter it in the contest without it being named (no one will know it is your photo). Then we will all judge based on certain criteria I have laid out. Owner of the winning image will get everyone's admiration and a prize!!

 

Next we begin to take down our campsite, capture some group shots and exchange information before saying our goodbyes.

 

Camp check out time 12:00 PM - Thank you and Clear Skies to you all!!

 

Note!!

 

I HIGHLY recommend that everyone have a remote intervalometer, plenty of storage space and batteries for their cameras. Please visit my Amazon Store if you need any of these item.s

 

 

Image Processing Class:

 

Learn how to process your milky way and nightscape images by joining us on Sunday, July 24th for the classroom portion of this workshop.

Full Details Here. Enter the Discout Code: SpaceCadet for $10 off the listed price!