The Deep-sky Imaging Primer, Second Edition

This is a very impressive and fairly comprehensive book on deep sky astrophotography. The book covers everything from sensor chips and signal to noise ratios to suitable imaging targets and processing tips (including walkthroughs for DSLR and CCD imaging) and everything in between in a clear, concise and authoritative way. The book appears to be self-published and - in the UK at least - looks to have been digitally printed-on-demand but the quality of the many images stands up pretty well considering. There are a few more typographic errors than I would consider normal but the quality and breadth of the content is terrific. Calling the book a primer does it a bit of an injustice in my opinion as the content will keep good intermediate level imagers entertained and I am sure most amateur astrophotographers will get a lot out of it; it's a great next step on from Steve Richard's acclaimed Making Every Photon Count and is very highly recommended.

This book is written with an impresively clear voice. Charles Bracken does not back away from the complexities of digital imaging, but instead explain with clarity and patience. The book clearly adds to other more practical books by another level of depth in understanding and explanations. I can warlmy recommend to any astro imager, except perhaps the absolute beginner in the field, for whom there are better suited books.

I'd strongly recommend this book to anyone starting off down the dark and mysterious path of astro-imaging. The book is as the title suggests, and had I read it before buying my scope and mount, I would definitely have chosen differently. From the earliest days of digital photography, I have never understood the complex world of sensors, their sizes, pixels and photosites, but found that I needed a basic understanding of all this plus signal/noise ratios and the like to be able to take my astro-imaging further. This book has given me this understanding - though he mathematical stuff is way beyond me - the examples and scenarios given more than compensate for my lack of mathematical knowledge.

This is a really good book and should be read along with Getting started with Long Exposure Astrophotography - Allan Hall. If you are starting out in this field this is all you need. I would have preferred more detail in Chapter 15 - Calibration process. The author give details about Light / Dark / Flat / Bias frames that you need to capture but doesn't give an example so to some extent we are left in the dark. I haven't finished reading the book. I only got it yesterday. I certainly recommend this though. It has a lot technical details ( enough to keep you reading, not too much to make you yawn and put the book down never to lift it up). It has certainly given me a lot to go on and understand the underlying fundamentals about photons, trackng, image quality, etc etc . I would recommend it without hesitation to an amateur. I don't intend to put this book down any time soon.

Quite an in depth book for someone who wants to know the technicalities of taking images, matching the optics and the sensors to get the setup to work and post-processing images etc. etc . Amazing book. Well explained ! There are some typos here and there but that does not affect anything.

The book does exactly what it says and a lot more. The layout is very easy to follow and the technical information is written in a clear and easy style which I found simple to follow. I would recommend this book to anyone starting out with Astrophotography.

Great book, very informative and concise. Very interesting and a definite must for anyone interested in Astrophotography

The book is a gem. It is well written and gives a detailed and easily understood account of the theory behind deep sky imaging for the amateur together with advice on equipment. I throughly enjoyed reading this book.

Here's the "I'm too Lazy to Read the Whole Review Summary" Overall, this is an excellent reference and will provide a foundation to the beginning and intermediate imager. Excellent discussion of signal, noise, CCD operation, etc. There is information in this book even for the advanced imager. Review I purchased this book based on the other reviews and a desire to better understand CCDs, noise, signal and image calibration/processing as these topics relate to astronomical imaging. Charles Bracken delivers on all these subjects (and more) in a concise, understandable way. The first two chapters of the book deal with how a CCD sensors actually works, types of noise and signal to noise ratio. I think these chapters are so good they're worth the price of the book alone. Don't think if you're an imaging veteran these two chapters are too elementary - I would guess most people who read this book/chapter will walk away saying "I didn't know that..." or "So that's what ___ is". Bracken supports the topic with a small amount of math, but explains virtually all the math terms along the way; i.e. Standard Deviation, mean, etc. Other texts I've read quickly devolve into the mathematics without adequately preparing the reader. These initial chapters (chapters 1 and 2) are the best I've read on these subjects and will allow you to answer questions like "Do I need bias frames if I'm not scaling my darks?", "What is my true signal to noise ratio?", "Why does imaging under a dark sky matter?", "What is noise in a mathematical sense?". You may know these answers already, but after reading this book, I can say with confidence you'll have a deeper understanding of the underlying concepts. The other chapters are equally well written and applicable to both CCD and DSLR users. The chapters on image calibration are particularly good and there are detailed image processing examples to demonstrate the concepts.

Al momento il miglior libro sull'argomento. Penso di averli tutti e ognuno ha dei pregi in un singolo campo ( teoria dei ccd, software di gestione etc...) ma il libro di Bracken tocca ogni aspetto in modo esauriente! Da avere!

Muy Bueno, técnico y exhaustivo. Recoge varios aspectos fundamentales de la astrofotografía describiéndolos con mucho detalle y en profundidad. It's a must.

Une lecture agréable, le sujet est abordé sans détours et de manière complète. Ouvrage spécialisé mais cependant rendu très accessible par l'auteur. En anglais uniquement.

The book is a great introduction to the hobby of astrophotography. It is a clear no-nonsense approach to a difficult subject. Charles Bracken takes a step by step approach which works very well in bringing you deeper into the subject matter. Highly recommended.