Astrophotography planning

I’ve already commenced astrophotography planning for 2022. The great thing with astrophotography is that the position of the night sky, the moon and the sun are all wholly predictable. Things that are not predictable are the physical conditions of the location, access or the weather. Did I mention … the weather -which apparently has a direct correlation to people buying astronomy/astrophotography gear (not based on any peer review study).

Anyhoo – I’m a strong advocate on planning because in this very busy world that we’re in its easy to wake up a year later and be in the same spot that I started in, unless I’ve got a plan in place to get out and photograph the night sky. As part of my personal/business plans, I know that I need to capture various landscapes with the celestial objects which involves planning some longer duration trips (several trips of multiple weeks) and this will also reduce environmental impact by less travel. In my location (Perth Western Australia) it looks like there aren’t any full lunar eclipses or solar eclipses in 2022. However I know we have a significant solar eclipse in 2023 (hoping the weather is good).

Things that I look out for are your no moon times and crescent moon. Even if there is a moon on a day, satisfactory imaging can be done before moonrise and after moonset. I personally also like photographing and timelapsing with an amount of moon, because the moonlight helps light the foreground and creates more depth to the image/timelapse. I do need a moonless environment though for measuring dark skies.

The calendar has taken a few days to manually type out (while I’ve been having other work going on in the background) and is based on my location in Perth, Western Australia. This year I’ve prepared it as a pdf document.

Astro calendar 2022 Perth Western Australia