05-12-10 – Happy Farktography Anniversary 5

Thanks. I seems like it’s a uber-heavy night. But, I think I’m going to have to make a push this weekend and get the new server in place by next week. W00.

Orionid; like I said, I need new toys.

On that note, I just purchased online a reducer for the scope. It seems that in prime focus, my setup is the equivalent to an f-10. This, in addition to a very limited FOV, means that the 4 minute exposure came out pretty dark. The reducer drops me to an f-6.3, and widens my FOV considerably. That will shorten my exposure time by a factor of 3, and allow me to capture more nearly the entire Orion nebula (and dang if it isn’t moving right towards the sun as we speak! Oh well…). I’m hoping, as they are shipping USPS priority, that I get it Monday (if it ships today, maybe), so I can try it out. As my original Whirlpool nebula was plenty big enough, I’m hoping the reduced exposure time allows for less star travel during exposure, yet also allows for a brighter, less noisy picture. We’ll see.

You are correct about the filters. I gotta get me some filters! Those and a wedge mount and some decent software and I’ll perhaps be golden to rival IJ’s photos. I do have one red-spectrum filter, but without the polar mount setup, I’ll never get the exposure time I’d need to make a decent picture. My retail seller of my scope has the wedge kit and the extra kit for easier fine-polarity alignment for $395. It’s on my list (if overtime at work holds up, I’ll have it by the end of June.)

Between all these things, I could possibly rival IJ’s pictures, and I look forward to that possibility. But regardless, it’s a fun process to have have already done more photographically than I’d ever done before, and I look forward to whatever strides I make in improving upon the results.

Elsinore – we’ve got broken images (at least one) going on again. I’m so sorry our server is being dicky. Please to fix? Thanks.

Not to quibble, but you guys need to buy your own domain for $10, complete with free hosting account (and I KNOW you would know how to use it). This hardly ever ever ever happens to me (maybe twice in the past 5 years.)

ravnostic, this is actually the first time I’ve had an issue like this in a good long while – and the first time with this server. Before last night it hadn’t even been rebooted in nearly a year – and that was when we lots power long enough that the UPS ran out.

elsinore, I’m going to have to let those two broken links stay broken. Not sure if it’s too much, or if there’s something funny with one of those files, but the moment that Fark breaks them, the whole system runs happier :/ Thanks anyway.

I have never printed out anything of mine on anything larger than A4 photopaper, and I am not sure if my 10 Megapixel 4/3 mount camera can go much larger without seeing a significant drop in picture quality.

if you’re still reading this thread go to sam’s (or cosco possibly or any place that has one of those roll printers) and try it out. i had a 3008×2000 pixel 3.78MB photo blown up to 16×20 and it turned out great. was using a 5 megapixel DSLR camera.

the folks at sam’s told me the size was too small to do that. ha, fooled them. and it was <$20.

Thanks. I will check at my local camera stores to see what type of printer they are using.
The websites I looked at seem to suggest that the limit with 10 megapixels is 12.91″ x 8.64″ at 300ppi (about A4 size), but that seems a little conservative to me.

I’m quite curious about print sizes. I currently scan a lot of 35mm film negatives at 4800 ppi (or is that dpi?), which creates a bigger file with more pxiels than images taken on my digital camera, so I am wondering how big I can go with prints.

I’d like add my apologies to kestrana, orionid and everyone who wanted to vote for them to this forum as well as fark. It’s not my/our fault, but I still feel really bad that the OBO hosting went sour. Some one of those pix was corrupted or some such and gave our server existential fits. We couldn’t even get into the directory I’d placed them in without going to a level of computer expertise that Olav thankfully has, though I don’t. It totally changed our plans as to which of our network computers we were going to replace. 😯

I tried, I failed, I’m really really sorry. 😥

The thing is, as print sizes go up, the dpi/ppi count can go down some, but you won’t notice it in the final print partly because you just don’t necessarily need 300dpi, and partly because viewing distance goes up with print size (e.g. you aren’t viewing a poster sized print with your nose 2 inches from the print–you stand back further to take it in).

That’s very true, and I hadn’t really thought of it like that. I have been toying with the idea of getting the local camera store to print out a photo or two on A3 size, just to see how it comes out (and we need some decoration on our walls), now I think I will go ahead with it. Thanks! 😀