Astrophotography
farfromthesun
Registered Users Posts: 24 Big grins
Anyone here into imaging the night sky?
I'm at a failry remedial level - it's a massive challenge.
I've a couple of images, such as those below - has anyoe else on dgrin attempted this?
Lunar Eclipse ( + some stars in Leo):
Jupiter:
The Southern Cross:
I'm at a failry remedial level - it's a massive challenge.
I've a couple of images, such as those below - has anyoe else on dgrin attempted this?
Lunar Eclipse ( + some stars in Leo):
Jupiter:
The Southern Cross:
0
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Lake Macquarie NSW Australia
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These look great, especially the first one
.
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re: the southern cross - I got that when I was in Sri Lanka 6 weeks ago. I took a LOT of optical equipment (including a telescope!) with me. Both of the shots (SC and Jupiter) were taken straight off the tripod with the kit lens on my 400d. Exposure was around 35 - 45 seconds - you cannot go beyond this because of the earths rotation, unless you have a guided telescope mount. Then things get very tricky!
To put into perspective my humble offerings, take a look at this image (NOT by me): http://www.astrosurf.com/lorenzi/images/SouthernCross.jpg (too big to post here).
The great thing about guided astrophotography is that you can basically see more in a photograph than you can with your eyes at the telescope eyepiece. Your eyes can only let in a certain amount of light at any given moment, but a guided camera can theoretically receive light for hours, and this all registers on the camera sensor, and when processed reveals details that simply cannot be seen in any other way. Multiple images taken at different settings can also be "stacked" to create an even more detailed image. This is an absolutely fantastic example (total exposure time of 17 hours over 6 days = again NOT by me): http://www.poigetdigitalpics.com/imagesccd/M51LRGB_NaturalBEST_CN800600.jpg
re: the moon - this was taken with a 200 mm zoom, and cropped, as part of this project (which I was "over the moon" about considering it was my first attempt at anything serious in astrophotography):
I'd encourage anyone (with an slr) to give some basic shots a go - just point it up and bulb it for 35 seconds or so (on manual focus) and see what happens! Those blessed with clear skies and great viewing conditions (eg: undisturbed by light pollution) are doubly encouraged!
Thanks again, Ryan.
Thanks...Scott
I really like the first one as well.
Ryan...check out kiwi's astro pics on this gallery, especially the Milky Way shots:
http://www.kiwipo.1020.photoshare.co.nz/
www.flickr.com/photos/serrator
Great shots!
I highly recommend the book Astrophotography for the Amateur by Michael Convington. I used that as a 'textbook' for an astrophotography lab/class I teach/taught. It covers many basic topics (including camera equipment, tracking, telescopes) and how to best photograph types of astronomical objects and constellations. It's a good guide for bracketing, knowing how much 'apparent still time' you have for your f-stop, taking into consideration what kind of lens you are using (telephoto has slightly different rules than wide angle), your ISO setting, and other factors like 'where' your intended object/area is (objects move slower nearer the pole star and faster nearer the celestial equator). It's really a fabulous guide!
In addition, if you really get into it (or even if you don't and you want to play around with astronomical image data from research telescopes) ---
check this out:
http://www.spacetelescope.org/projects/fits_liberator/
Just amazing
My Gallery
Cheers Scott. As I mentioned above, it's a Canon 400d with the kit lens for the 2nd and 3rd ones, just using a tripod. Here are the EXIF details: http://farfromthesun.smugmug.com/photos/newexif.mg?ImageID=149645097 & http://farfromthesun.smugmug.com/photos/newexif.mg?ImageID=149645664
It's preferable to use a remote control or cable release, but when I was doing these one of the batteries somehow managed to fall out of my radio control thingy and consequently was lost on a pitch black beach. To get around it I just used the timer instead.
For the moon, again, it was on the tripod but with my 200mm zoom. Then I cropped it to fit the moon and the stars you can see (they were "artefacts" of the picture - because the sky was so dark at this stage of the eclipse, I had to extend the exposure time by quite a lot compared to the brighter images.) Exif: http://farfromthesun.smugmug.com/photos/newexif.mg?ImageID=150440168
Hope this is of use, Scott.
They're very cool. I was hoping I might get the chance to get at the Milky Way but I either couldn't see it, or am even more remedial than I first thought.
Thanks Adrienne! That's a super resource - just downloaded it now. More software that I will take for ever to learn, to throw into my pot.
Go for it Jan! Is it dark where you live?
Here's a couple more:
Complete "luck" - not the greatest from an optical point of view but interesting none the less (for me at least). Doubly lucky considering aforementioned battery loss was still in effect and this was caught with a 10 second timer! Venus is top left.
And, as I have a moon addiction:
Thanks guys, post your attempts up if you get the chance! Ryan
You said, "They're very cool. I was hoping I might get the chance to get at the Milky Way but I either couldn't see it, or am even more remedial than I first thought."
It depends when you are out, but you'll need very dark sky to get a good Milky Way shot since it's going to be a long exposure. Start with 30 seconds, then repeat the shot and work your way up to 3 minutes using 10 second intervals. Yup...that's a lot of shots
If you don't have a star map, try here:
http://skymaps.com/ Follow the link for Download Now in the middle of the page.
This guys maps show the Milky Way.
The center of the Milky Way (what you saw in those gal's shots someone else linked to) is in Sagittarius. Point your camera that way and open it up all the way.
Another great slice of the Milky Way is through the Summer Triangle (Vega, Deneb, Altair) when it's overhead...so that's like midnight right now. If you have a wide enough lens, you'll be able to get M31 in the shot too.
Good luck! I always encourage people to bring their laptop out with them to quickly download and view photos to make adjustments to the technique as needed.
If you really get into this...you can make yourself a barn-door tracking tripod setup which tracks the Earth's rotation and you can stay on a constellation or deep sky object without blurriness or star trails...or they sell these sort of tracking mounts for a coupla hundred dollars.
Adrienne
Hi Adrienne, thanks for your reply! I have 4 telescopes, 2 of which have guided mounts but I'm still working my way towards using them in conjunction with a camera. I'd like to learn more and practice more before attempting more complex shots - I do have all the necessary adaptors for the camera / eyepiece, so could go at any time....except that I live in London, and it's very light polluted. The planets may be an option from my back garden, but for other objects I will have to get out in to the countryside. When I was in Asia (the only realistic time that I would have been under dark enough skies to see the milky way) it was full moon time, so I had no chance. I was there before when the moon was much less bright, and there was much, much more visible, including the milky way. At that time, I only had a point and shoot which would not have been capable of getting a good shot.
As for sky maps - I use stellarium which is awesome, and occasionally employ the rotating star charts. But usually my laptop is out there with me so stellarium is definately my number one choice. It's also great for going back to the sky that you were photographing / observing, and identifying which objects you've managed to catch, like this: http://farfromthesun.smugmug.com/gallery/2807601#149645097
Thanks!
Stellarium is a good program. I have access to Starry Night Pro so I use that most of the time. I wasn't sure your 'level of astronomy' when you've been posting so I just referenced a quicky star chart.
As per your question in the Awais' thread --- I used to do astrophotography all the time, but once I moved to AZ I didn't have the local resources. This was pre-digital camera for me, all film...had a film processor "all trained" at the local Ritz camera on how to develop properly. I also taught astrophotography labs at the Univ of VA, where undergrads would go out with SLRs and fast lenses to capture the night sky up atop our mountain observatory. It was fun, I miss it
I haven't been able to get anyone to go out with me into the desert to do astrophotography here in AZ...I won't go out alone as it's too dangerous.
Adrienne
Thanks....Scott