[chupathingie]

Thank you, linguine.

ravnostic, Hugin Panorama incorporates Enfuse/Enblend so it does some basic HDR for you right out of the box. There aren’t many adjustments for the HDR side of the house though, so I’ve been using Luminance (formerly Qtpfsgui) to create individual HDRs tonemapped into LDRs to stitch together. Luminance has many adjustments and I’m very fond of a couple of their included algorithms for both photographic and surreal images. The latest release of Luminance is worth getting even if you have Qtpfsgui… full multi-core support now plus some major glitch fixes with large images and overall color handling. It still can’t handle CR2 files properly, but conversion to 48bit tiff files is something we’ve all had to do for a while now anyway. They’ve also fixed the “missing EXIF data” crash.

If you’ve got the resources you may be able to work completely in 48bit color, but when you run out of ram and start using swap space things slow down *painfully*. I’m beginning to think that 16gig of ram may be a minimum requirement for HDR pano work, unless you don’t mind mashing “go” and going to bed while the processing takes place.

[chupathingie]

Thanks! Means a lot to get compliments in this place! 😉

I hear ya on priorities. Do what I do and use the free stuff. Everything I use is free and/or open-source. All 3 of the programs I used for that image have windows ports, if that’s what you’re using. I’ve been really impressed with Hugin’s Panorama Creator once I learned how to use it properly. The AI needs a little work, but plotting the inevitable manual control points to stitch the images seamlessly really is easy and takes less time than the actual processing. The “original” of the above is ~15Kx5K and Hugin’s worked fine until I ran out of RAM, and then ran out of swap space. That’s with a 10G swap partition BTW… 24 120meg 48bit TIFFS seem to eat up resources for some reason…

[chupathingie]

Looks like you’ve already got the shooting part off to a good start… what scope are you using? From the FOV I’m gonna guess a cass…

I’ve got a GEM, but it’s circa 1977; OK for ~200mm telephoto use (barely) but dropping a meter’s focal length on it is out of the question for anything but webcam planetary imaging. I had planned on having a losmandy mount and a 10″ royce conical by now, but instead bought another vehicle to deal with the snow here (anyone want to buy a gently used RX-8?). Had to choose between astrophotography and getting reliably to work 🙁

What are you stacking with? And what OS? More importantly I guess, what kind of learning curve for stacking are you looking for? You can do a lot manually in PS if you have it, and if you’re using windows there are a lot of free/reasonable stackers available; somewhat fewer for mac and plenty of power tools for linux (steep learning curve there tho, not so many GUIs for them).

You really aught to make a 2-3 day camp and shoot from the rim up above Sedona somewhere. 2-4 hrs drive would put you in some of the most pristine skies in the SW. I used to drive from Flag to the Mogollon rim all the time to enjoy a campfire and the stars. Just bring a shotgun to scare the bears off 😉

[chupathingie]

The LPR lens helps. As does the reducer. Three pictures; the Trifid Nebula, the Hourglass Nebula (both taken this morning long before dawn) and Comet McNaught 2009 (now on display at near-nekkid eye visibility). I also got multiple shots of Saturn in the evening sky and Jupiter in the morning; those, however, I need to stack before displaying. These three, other than resizing/cropping, are completely unedited in any way (I’m hoping I can make them better, of course, but that’s later.)

Wow. Those look *really* good for single exposures. Hope the stacks came out right, they aughtta be gorgeous.

Shooting on an alt-az by chance? Only thing to pick on really is field rotation. Your focus looks pretty sharp. Lots of detail in there, pretty stuff…

I’m gonna have to sell off a car to buy a mount, myself! 😉

[chupathingie]

An amateur astronomer’s nightmare 😉 Very pretty, tho…

[chupathingie]

So I’m trippin over the full-rez power plant… man, there’s a lot in there. The steam plume looks like a fountain and I see one aircraft trail. I need some windless nights to get a continuous hour-long stack of registered images LOL

neat stuff.

[chupathingie]

Hahahah… very neat idea! I needed a smile about now.

[chupathingie]

hmmmm….. I will be digging thru the archives for this one!

[chupathingie]

RcMacStudent, your post got me thinking so I tried that with my 5D2 in Ubuntu and it fired right up and read the card in the camera easy as you please.

Zumaki, I’m willing to bet the European sites have drivers because Canon doesn’t have to worry over software patents there and have yet to pay the extortion money… er… I mean hammer out a deal with MS over the drivers for the US market.

[chupathingie]

Remote capture needs the cam tethered to the PC. In some circumstances and in dim light the only way to get good focus is to use the remote live view on a laptop screen (needed that last night, actually).

[chupathingie]

Thank you for that. Of course now I have to ask: Why is there an option to add attachments in the forums?

[chupathingie]

OK, so I’ve got the rig out in the backyard shooting with the stock remote capture software. Ran off 20 shots of the Pleiades at 105mm, and working on 20 widefield frames of Orion at somewhat less. Shooting at f4, wanted to test the L-series wide-open. I do see some coma, but I’m able to shoot 8X faster than I was with my *shudder* Rebel (the OLD one…. 300D). So I’m running off 30 second exposures at ISO 6400, equivalent to 4 minute subs on the rebel. I shot 5 darks, hope that’s enough. Haven’t had time to shoot lights, I’ll do that at some point.

Next I get to stay up and try to stack these in Cinepaint and see what processing I can manage. Will post results, if anyone’s interested.

ok, I can’t seem to add attachments… anyone wanna clue me in? Firefox 3 in Ubuntu.

[chupathingie]

5D MKII is on sale at Newegg… $200 off. So yeah, I ordered one. Hopefully the skies will be clear and I can got some first light action. Looks like the Orion nebula complex is favorably positioned, we’ll see what the kit lens at 100mm does for it. Will have to use my old crappy mount made by Barney Rubble, tho… limits me to 2 mins exposure thereabouts. But, I’m planning on testing it all the way up to ISO 25600, so 2 minutes really aughtta be plenty.

[chupathingie]

Oooooh… samples?
One of these days I need to take a passenger to either run the camera or drive while I stand up thru the sunroof… My wife simply won’t ride when she can fly (I prefer to see the scenery driving, myself)

Rig up a mount and fire it with a remote?

That’s something I’ve thought of doing with my Jeep, using my fisheye on some long exposures. I’ve done it with the D90 sitting on the dash, but it’s not quite the same.

I’ve got a Bogen tripod that’s perfect for that kind of thing; I wedged 2 legs in the corners of the dash and one leg between the passenger seat and console, which placed the camera just under the rear-view mirror. Great for time-lapse, but little else. There’s no substitute for an eye behind the viewfinder.

Orionind: nice pics. I think the effect would be more pronounced with the macro version, of course… the separation is a bit a bit close for longer range shots. A nifty gadget to be sure…

[chupathingie]

Oooooh… samples?

Side note: I’ve been making 3d-landscapes by shooting out the car window at 90mph in multiple exposure mode and using images separated by 2-3 exposures. One of these days I need to take a passenger to either run the camera or drive while I stand up thru the sunroof… My wife simply won’t ride when she can fly (I prefer to see the scenery driving, myself)

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