Astrophotography: A beginning.
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Seemed like a good place to leave this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17539315
My first thought when I went to the link was, “meh. looks noisy.” Then as I zoomed, I realized the noise was just more stars.
/Crushing feeling of meaninglessness is a great way to start Friday morning.
So why did they redact parts of the image??? What are they trying to keep from us?
Awesome image.
/Apparently it’s a conspiracy kinda morning for me.
//I’m not usually like that.
///No, really.
goddammitsomuch
/awesome stuff, really.
So, I just learned something. I work with this guy‘s son. There was an article about him in the company magazine highlighting his astrophotography and current endeavors (including a 400-ish page book about scientific AP and development of a new drive package). About three minutes into barraging Josh (my coworker, his son) with questions, I was told “Just email him, damnit. He’s in the company directory.” A couple emails and a phonecall later, and I’m convinced this guy is totally awesome. And he’s president of the local (by rural terms) astronomy club, so of course he invited me out. Turns out, there’s actually quite a bit of neat things I hadn’t even thought of to make things easier (like a servo-based rebuild kit for the Astrola mount. It still won’t have “go-to” capability, but it will eliminate AC frequency error and put it on par with the tracking of $5-10K mounts for less than the price of a prosumer DSLR.).
Now I just need shiftwork to end so’s I can go play.
Awesome find, Orionid I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with! Tonight, Venus will be in (literally in) the Pleiades Cluster after the sun goes down (well, it’s there before then, too, but you know what I mean). Even if you’re working, set Kes out with a 300mm to capture it for you. (or settle for my shots if you’d rather–I’m tempted to set the scope up in my ‘back yard’, but probably will be lazy and just use the 300mm.
I saw that, ennui; had I not already bought the T2i, I’d probably go for it. Still bummed about the one I got converted doing so crappy-ly. :o(
OOOOOhhhhh… nice to see them bringing back the da… many folks don’t do the mod because it voids the warranty.
Here’s what’s up tonight; last chance for 8 years; it’s our ‘sister’ planet Venus, in the ‘Seven Sisters’ cluster. Anyone with 200mm or better can catch this.
//there’s only 6 sisters with the naked eye, for many people (I fare better and can see 10, some can see 12 or 13) So Venus should complete the bunch. She’ll be -4.4, the brightest in Pl. is 2.8, so keep that in mind. Should be a stellar shot, and I’d love to see samples if anyone captures it.
Gonna be cloudy, windy and cold here. Maybe rain. Low of 36. Imma gonna pass I think… Last time I was out, Venus simply dominated that whole area of the sky, the glow spread across a 20 degree radius. Hope you get to capture some of the stars through the blaze! 🙂
Same here. Overcast with rain.
Speaking of which – did all our Dallas friends make it through today unscathed? Barracuda, fluffybunny – y’all OK?
Same here. Overcast with rain.
Speaking of which – did all our Dallas friends make it through today unscathed? Barracuda, fluffybunny – y’all OK?
Fine here,.. ‘Cuda was probably closer than I was, most of it went North and east of us.
We had a power outage around that time in Phoenix. I’m sure it’s related. The skies were clear but….
anywho, here’s one version of the shots I took of Venus in the Pleiades (I’m quickly coming up with various tweeks in contrasts and tones, etc. I think it came out okay, for a central Phoenix light polluted area. some 30 darks, some 80-90 lights (best 75% of 123). This one is SOOC DSS, I didn’t fiddle with Elements yet.
Did you consider doing multiple exposures of lights? Say, half exposed for venus and half exposed for Pleiades, then overlay them with an alpha mask? Once I figure out what I’m doing, I plan on a similar approach for my nebula (M-42).
Not that this isn’t neat/beautiful as it stands.
That’s much better than I expected, hard to see candles while staring into a searchlight… 😆
I did consider that, and I have shots to accomplish it, orionid, but I can’t stack them. DSS requires finding at least 5 ‘stars’, and if Venus is exposed properly–over 5 stops away from the brightest Pleiade–, then it only finds one. I could overlay it, but it actually loses drama–the blown out Venus is much more effective than the 1/2 ‘moon’ Venus crescent shopped in. One of my favorite things is the light rays emanating from it; I don’t usually get that with my 75-300mm pieces of Tamron glass (I was hai-elped by having ‘live view’ to use for the sharp focus–a nice benefit over the xTi).
Thanks, chupa; indeed!!
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