Some recent astrophotos

[chupathingie]

Plama, I really like the images you started this thread with… seriously, having that subject with that foreground…

It’s funny, most astrophotographers consider “wide field” to be 2-3 degrees. When referring to telescopes, that is a pretty wide field, but next to nothing compared to a camera lens. If it were only possible to get a stack with foreground and sky without resorting to photoshoppery…

[Plamadude30k]

Astronomers consider anything >.5 degrees to be pretty wide field. The detector I’ve been using has a field of 9.7 arcminutes on a side, or ~0.02 square degrees. Basically, hold the head of a pin at arm’s length. That’s considered a fairly normal field of view.

[chupathingie]

hahhaa… to put this in perspective… if telescopes were cars, I’d show up in an RX-8, while you’d be digging through the key bag full of Ferrari keys looking for that Lambo key you haven’t used in a while.

😉

[Farktographer]

One of my favorite things about your star photos, Plama, is the blending colors you get in the sky. Is that light pollution coming off a city nearby, or are you capturing at awesome moment at sunset? I wonder how you get the stars to show up so brightly without overexposing the rest.

[Yugoboy]

Nicely done, Farktographer. I like how the trees ground the photo–I find you really need something interesting in the foreground in wide field astrophotography to really make a good image. Even just a few trees can improve it greatly.

If/when I find the right place, I’m hoping I can use my Jeep with its top down for this.

[Plamadude30k]

Chupa-and then my friend Rita blows past both of us in a Bugatti Veyron (she just got a job as a night operator at Subaru-my favorite telescope in the world, and currently the seventh biggest optical telescope in existance!). I actually like the car/telescope analogy, but the big, world class observatories make almost everything I’ve used look like a collection of old Hondas. A 1.55 meter is actually pretty small. Even a 2.3 meter isn’t considered huge. The 3-4 meters are the workhorses these days.

Getting the stars to show up brightly is all about optimizing aperture/shutter/iso settings and being VERY careful with white balance. Other than that, I guess you just have to pick your site and subject carefully, but that’s the same for any photo. As for the blending of the colors, it’s just light pollution from Tucson (or Tucson and Nogales in the shots from Kitt Peak). I do have some older shots with subtle coloring due to the zodiacal light, but you need an EXTRA dark site for that.

[chupathingie]

good lord would I love just a tour of Subaru. Not like there’s a “look thru” option on the above-amateur level scopes.

But to discard the car analogy, research-grade scopes are long. Imagine a fast 4 meter at f4 (for the rest, Plama, you already know this)… that’s a 16000mm fl. Tiny FOV, still f4 tho…

[Plamadude30k]

You can get a tour at both Subaru and Gemini on Mauna Kea. You should go. It is amazing. You cannot get a tour (or really anything) at Keck, which is really disappointing, but really that’s fine-Subaru is better.

EDIT: I forgot to mention-Subaru DOES have a ‘look through’ (eyepiece) mode. They built an eyepiece plate for the commissioning and the princess of Japan got to look through it. Apparently the crew had fun with it for about a week before they started science observations. Now, I just got to look through the Bok 90″ on Kitt Peak not too long ago-we did the whirlpool galaxy (M51) which has to be one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. Subaru is 3.6 times larger in diameter, 13 times larger in light gathering ability. I can’t even imagine what that would be like.

[chupathingie]

You’re gonna make me piss off some TSA clown… I have relatives in Puako and really want to visit, but I HATE to fly. Airliners just make me completely irrational. No prob if I’m steering (I solo’d when I was 15), but I hate sitting in a seat on the bus, as it were. Can’t fly a Piper to Hawaii, tho.

I can see me saving some OT cash to make that happen. Dammit. I’m gonna have to break my trend, haven’t been on an airliner since 92.

[Farktographer]

So which of you two is going to be the first to hack into the Hubble operating system and take that for a spin? Or is that now too aged to be worth it?

[Plamadude30k]

So which of you two is going to be the first to hack into the Hubble operating system and take that for a spin? Or is that now too aged to be worth it?

I could just apply for time on it. Come to think of it, I have a project idea that would be perfect for Hubble…

Hmmm…

[ravnostic]

Actually, IIRC, anyone can apply for time with it–and if the science is deemed worthy, you might just get it. Which begs the question, pulled from an earlier debate regarding taking pictures versus making pictures (when someone else pulls the trigger after all the hard work–settings, composition, et al was done by another–who really made the picture), and takes it to a whole new level. 🙂

//oh yeah–I’d want credit for it. It’s the friggen H.u.b.b.l.e.!!!

[orionid]

So lemme see if I have this analogy right. I’m tooling around currently in an 86 mazda “truck” (Meade 5.1 inch that does what it wants, not what I want), but I have a 1963 Ferrari GT California up on blocks in my garage (mid-sixties vintage 20 inch Newt, literally on blocks in the garage in need of a full overhaul)

Oh, and I know, I know…. pics or it didn’t happen, but my dad worked for Contraves Optics when they built and ground the mirror for the Subaru. I got to touch it while it was still in a seismically-monitored underground facility near Pittsburgh.

[Plamadude30k]

Yeah, a 20″ could almost do research grade stuff, if set up properly. I think I’m really more like the top gear guys, though-I get to rent the supercars and drive them around all I want, but I don’t own any. Personally I’ve got a 2002 Kia Optima (Celestron 6″) and my pride and joy-a custom model 70 hp engine that I’ve got in the garage waiting for me to finish a car around (A 4.25″ mirror and telescope parts that I either built myself or scrounged. For example, I ground and aluminized the mirror and machined the eyepiece holder and focuser from scratch, but I found a big cardboard tube and a secondary rig to use with them).

[orionid]

The 20 inch needs a good bit of work, the mirror needs cleaned as a minimum, and I’m sure it needs collimated and aligned. Right now it’s in a roughly 200 pound fiberglass tube standing about 8 feet tall. It’s also got an archaic-looking, ac-driven equatorial mount that I don’t really trust plugging in.

If the mirror cleans up real purdy-like, I want to build a lighter frame for it, and pick up a Losmandy HGM Titan (or a G11 if I can reduce the weight enough). In the grand scheme, it’ll have it’s own top-opening shed, controlled with a laptop for eyepiece viewing or the desktop indoors for image capturing. But that’s low on the priority list after getting a house and more realistic (as in sub-$10,000) projects like a darkroom and a smokehouse with a cold box.

If the mirror is mediocre at best, then I’ll just make it into an eyepiece-only dobsonian and/or use the mirror for cool things like Schlieren photography.

I also really need/want to play with the 5.1 some more, I’ve seen other folks put out good images with it, but new england skies just don’t draw me enough to warrant dragging it out, setting it up, cursing at it, and taking it back home. If I could just take it out in the yard at my leisure, then it’d be a whole different ballgame.

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