04-29-09 – Farkstronomy – Its not photography, its Farktography

This topic has 82 replies, 19 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 12 months ago by corsec67.

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March 19, 2009 at 5:21 pm #1562

Elsinore
Keymaster

The sun/moon/stars/planets/other celestial objects or observatory equipment. Stacked exposures allowed, but not HDR. Difficulty: No sunrises, sunsets, cloudy sun/moon shots, or the like.

Thanks for the theme suggestion, orionid!

March 19, 2009 at 10:07 pm #21799

millera9
Participant

Oh man, I’m really looking forward to this one.

March 19, 2009 at 10:46 pm #21800

soosh
Participant

as am I.

March 19, 2009 at 10:51 pm #21801

linguine
Participant

Since we’re including the sun, does that mean things like sunset pictures are allowed?

March 20, 2009 at 12:22 am #21802

mopsy
Participant

Okay, what’s the difference between stacked exposure and HDR?

March 20, 2009 at 2:38 am #21803

corsec67
Participant

as am I.

Is it too early to just hand you the trophy?

March 20, 2009 at 4:29 am #21804

orionid
Participant

Oooh… this alters my plans a little. I didn’t think it would be so soon after lunacy. Hmmm……

Since we’re including the sun, does that mean things like sunset pictures are allowed?

The direction I had in mind leans towards no, but it’ll probably be hard to enforce/make judgement calls with alot of the non-regulars. I’d say that as long as the sun is the primary subject, rather than the scenery or setting it’d be okay. I’d also be okay with adding “no sunsets” as a firm rule (I left the ability of observatory equipment as an out for light pollution challenged people – most people in an urban area will have a museam or specialty shop in the relative vicintiy).

Any feedback?

Okay, what’s the difference between stacked exposure and HDR?

Image stacking is a method of astrophotography used to get a better signal to noise ratio for clearer low light images. It does more of an averaging, where HDR combines different levels of exposure. A program such as Registax does this by taking several (or lots) of your photos of the same subject, aligning them, and then looking at each pixel to determine either an average value or a median value. A surprisingly common method for photographing planets in decent detail is attaching a webcam to a telescope that will automatically follow the planet as the earth rotates for 5-10 minutes, and feeding each frame into registax as a separate image.

March 20, 2009 at 6:09 pm #21805

nobigdeal
Participant

Sunsets that actually have the sun in them should be ok. Sunsets after the sun sets and therefore is not visible don’t seem to fit the theme to me.

My .02$

March 20, 2009 at 9:32 pm #21806

bucky_bacon
Participant

Sunsets that actually have the sun in them should be ok. Sunsets after the sun sets and therefore is not visible don’t seem to fit the theme to me.

My .02$

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. Hopefully this will be the case.

March 20, 2009 at 10:59 pm #21807

millera9
Participant

Sunsets that actually have the sun in them should be ok. Sunsets after the sun sets and therefore is not visible don’t seem to fit the theme to me.

My .02$

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. Hopefully this will be the case.

I would go further than that and agree with Orionid‘s original idea that the sun itself needs to be the central subject, not the beautifully lit-up foreground objects.

March 20, 2009 at 11:32 pm #21808

bucky_bacon
Participant

So something like this… or no?

March 21, 2009 at 2:52 am #21809

orionid
Participant

So something like this… or no?

Beautiful shot, but not exactly what I was leaning towards for this contest. Then again, I have no doubt that there will be several similar submitted. Hmmm…. I’ll have to think about it for a few days. And consider more of the group concensus.

This is more of what I had in mind when including the sun in the list:

March 21, 2009 at 3:06 am #21810

linguine
Participant

Maybe we could say no sunsets for this contest and plan on doing look to the skies again sometime in the future to let everyone get there sunset shots in. I think if we allow sunsets then we could allow the contest to go in a very different direction than it was intended.

March 31, 2009 at 1:21 am #21811

orionid
Participant

I’m going to go ahead and say ixnay on the unsetsay, and keep this theme focused on the astronomy aspect. I’ll suggest a new theme for everyone’s gorgeous sunset photos.

Also:

If anyone is still looking for inspiration for this theme, the Lyrid meteor shower is just under a week beforehand. Historically, it’s not incredibly stellar (pun inetended), but it is fairly consistent, and coincides with a new moon this year. It averages about 20 meteors an hour ranging from specs of dust (what you usually see) and occasional pea-sized fragments (“Huge” fireballs). Break down the math, and with 30 second exposures on wide angle, you’ll catch a streak every 12th shot give or take. I know there are some farktographers who don’t mind freezing their ass off all night taking photos of the sky. I’ve got other plans for this contest, but I might take some shots for fun anyway.

/Hint: Figure out optimum ISO and aperture settings to go with your 30/45/whatever second exposure, frame your shot, set camera to continuous fire, tape down button, go back inside where it’s warm.

March 31, 2009 at 1:28 am #21812

corsec67
Participant

/Hint: Figure out optimum ISO and aperture settings to go with your 30/45/whatever second exposure, frame your shot, set camera to continuous fire, tape down button, go back inside where it’s warm.

That opens the possibility of stacking the exposures, although a tracking mount would make the picture better.

I think my entries from this contest will be taken in Japan, although that shouldn’t change the possible entries that much…
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