Using a planetarium program is a very common thing for any amateur astronomer. I use three such programs, namely: Stellarium, Cartes du Ciel (SkyCharts), and KStars.

Astrophotography is usually an expensive hobby, and occasionally a very expensive one. But it does not have to be so.

I have been doing astrophotography using used equipment for around 11 months now, with a total of only 7 months experience (if you count the winter hiatus and another two month hiatus in autumn).

While a typical astrophotography setup would cost a minimum of C$2,500 (with the upper limit being as much as 10X that), I have been able to get acceptable results with a total cost of equipment (including a used DSLR camera) is less than C$1,000.

Taking pictures of the night sky almost always involves exposure times that are more than 30 seconds. This is often couple with taking many pictures for later stacking into better images.

For this, the camera has to be set to Bulb mode. You can automate taking multiple exposures by using an intervalometer, which is a remote release with a device with some electronic circuits and LCD screen to make all this possible.

You can also automate this using a Linux computer running gphoto2 software. The computer can be as small as a Raspberry Pi, or a laptop.