At first glance, the challenge of astrophotography may appear daunting. But not only are spectacular results possible, they are easy to learn with the step-by-step instructions provided in Stephan Seip's ''Digital Astrophotography: A Guide to Capturing the Cosmos''. Today, amateurs can produce images that only twenty years ago a large professional observatory would have been proud of; and this book shows you how.This book helps you learn how to: set up your camera for optimum results; focus your camera for razor-sharp images; take beautiful night shots with a simple compact digital camera, a tripod, and a telescope; use a DSLR camera to shoot the Sun, Moon, stars, star clusters, and nebulae through your telescope; get brilliant images of planets with a Webcam; capture remote galaxies with a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera just like a pro; select which cameras are best for the various celestial objects, what to look for when buying a camera, and what accessories you really need, from a simple camera and tripod to highly specialized equipment.Also included are lessons on the processing that is done in the ''studio'' after your shoot, including how to: shoot RAW format images and improve them with calibration frames; take short exposures of faint deep-sky objects and combine them into a longer exposure; perform brightness, contrast, and color correction; make corrections to correct for vignetting and uneven field illumination; and process your images for stunning results.