If you’ve ever seen the sky at night – the moon rising over Lake Taupo, say, or maybe you can see what might be Venus –  and thought to yourself, “that looks awesome, I should take a photo of it”, and you do, but the photo just looks like toothpaste on your best black top and you can’t understand why, then hurry to the Central Library tonight. Hurry!

Would you like to take photographs of the night sky? Not sure what to use or where to begin? John Field from the Wellington Astronomical Society will explore and explain how to use your Digital SLR camera and software to produce images that were previously beyond the scope of amateur photographers. Topics include what you need, how DSLR cameras work, what settings to use, how to polar align your mount using a DSLR, taking unguided images using a tripod, piggy-back and prime focus imaging through using a telescope, and image processing using freely available software. John will also include both the good, the bad and the ugly images he has taken to show what can go wrong and what you get when it all goes right

That’s happening tonight (May the 13th) at 7pm on the second level of the Central Library.