[chupathingie]

Oh, a side tip to save anyone some grief if you’re looking for multiple images to stack: double over a rubber band so that it rides 1/2 on the focus ring and half on the lens body. It will make focus a little more difficult (since it’s a bit springy and draggy), but will prevent your focus from drifting if you’re shooting overhead. I lost a whole night’s data a few years back because of this. First couple/three subs looked great, but as the night wore on my focus got softer and softer…

[chupathingie]

Focus on Jupiter, Venus, Vega or any other -mag object.

And yeah, not having a tracking mount will make things more difficult, but you can cheat and use anything distant enough to approximate a point source. A streetlight on the horizon will work pretty well.

I got really tired of *nudge*, 30-sec exposure, wait for download over USB1.1, “damn. still blurry”, *nudge*, etc, ad infinitum…

[chupathingie]

2 words: Bahtinov Mask.

There is no better way (that I know of, anyway) to get precise focus on stars.

Turning focus all the way out will, in fact, focus beyond infinity and setting via the infinity mark is imprecise at best. Live view works well, as does auto-focus on the moon or lights on the horizon, but using a mask is as precise as you’re going to get without breaking out the scientific gear.

/spent over an hour one night with a 300D trying to get sharp focus, don’t be me.

[chupathingie]

I can actually see a use for this. The adapter would allow mating a T-adapter for shooting planetary images at prime focus provided someone has a software solution for adjusting gain in movie mode on the iphone. It’s got a small sensor, which is perfect for that sort of thing and mated with a scope of 1000mm fl or greater, you could likely fill most of the sensor with Jupiter or Saturn.

As a DSLR substitute though? Not so much.

Needs to come with a “Kick Me!” sign.

[chupathingie]

? I visit vimeo all the time with FF… under linux, no less…

(cool vid, BTW)

[chupathingie]

good lord… welcome to the desert southwest.

That’s some spectacular ish, right there.

[chupathingie]

Seek help. Or open a store. 😉

[chupathingie]

Pretty! That looks like it was quite a show!

I was looking at the first few shots thinking “There’s some yuckus on that sensor” but looked at the full-size versions and discovered it to be a blimp!

[chupathingie]

Nicely done.
I need to find soem time to tinker… or keep working like mad and retire early. Nah, I need to just stop answering the phone when work calls! LOL

[chupathingie]

Nice shots, Rav! What are the wavy lines in the background down low? Looks like headlights on whoopdedoos…

No fireworks pics from me this year, they were banned due to fire risk (not sure why, most of Texas has already burned down).

[chupathingie]

OK, first picture… why only 2 (since you obviously have 3 or more hands)?

Last picture: Nice catch! How did you time that?

[chupathingie]

It was every bit as delicious and unhealthy as it sounds

Man, that looks good.

And you have our plates, BTW.
(go figger)

[chupathingie]

Makes me homesick… There are many places up there where you can canoe from lake to lake for days. Although it’s nice to know I’m not the only one with sorry hiking weather luck, every time I went up Marcy or Whiteface we wound up inside the cloud deck.

Oh… the droplet….pretty sure that’s lake water clinging to the dragon fly from depositing eggs in the water. They dip their tails into the lake to drop eggs. You’ll see them repeated tagging the surface of the water after mating. They’ll try doing it to clean cars as well, they think the reflection=water.

[chupathingie]

Oh. My. God.

Yes. That looks completely unhealthy. And delicious.

[chupathingie]

we actually got some storm action here tonight. We might even be up to an inch of rain for the year. I was going to snag some pictures, but it came up on us too quickly; it wasn’t in the forecast…

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