[ravnostic]

Ah. I won’t have anyone to leave my legacy of digital photography to (at least not a direct descendant), but that does afford me some liberties as to my schedule (which I’d give up in a heartbeat for a daughter as beautiful as yours).

[ravnostic]

What’s 50 miles? Is that like some sort of limit or something? I expect I’ll get out of jury duty at a reasonably early hour, and may just head south….I won’t work until Friday at 6:30 pm, there’s time.

[ravnostic]

Lightning trigger arrived today…had jury duty so I don’t have to work my shift (I’m fortunate to have an employer who pays me anyway!), and I’m called back for tomorrow because they didn’t get enough jurors, so I’ll have some time to maybe use it if conditions are good! Yay!!

[ravnostic]

Oh, and the hail was when I was at 87 and 188, and thereafter for about 1/2 hour (at like 15 mph) heading home.

[ravnostic]

errr…yeah, you did caradoc I don’t own boots, though. This is what I get for waking up and grabbing my stuff with no forethought at all.

[ravnostic]

If you say so, chupa…. meanwhile, I woke up at 8pm yesterday, and went out to capture this shot:

http://fossilspringsaz.com/pics/2012/jul/21/20120723light03.jpg

It’s not even close to perfect. I had a lot stacked against me. Here’s the paste from my posts at G+ and Facebook with what I went through in capturing it:

“Okay, so this might be the best shot I got last night, and it’s meah (in full size; it’s fine at interwebz size). Here’s a list of what I endured to get it:

1) nearly ran over an elk carcass in the road (yes, we have them) that some unfortunate soul hit 30 minutes before (they were o.k., fortunately, and help was on the way)
2) Nearly lost control of my truck in avoiding it, at 70 mph. Camera got slammed against the passenger door. TG it wasn’t damaged.
3) Forgot my remote trigger release (I woke up, saw the weather, and jumped into the car~~poor choice)
4) Also forgot my flashlight, which lead to:
5) Sliding down a ravine and then,
6) Walked into a barbed wire fence (I’m okay, jeans got torn)
7) Endured rain so hard I did 15 mph on a freeway and…
8) Did I mention the 1 inch sized hail? Windshield is being replaced as I type…
9) Couldn’t find an off-road that wasn’t ‘closed’ with a barricade to save my life; hence everything I got is cropped to get rid of traffic ‘noise’
10) Some asshat defecated (as if in “that means they shat ) on an off~road, in the middle of it even, which I didn’t notice until~~wait for it~~

I got out of the truck and stepped in it. Jebus phuqin’ Cripes.

Talk about the _ shit _ shiat we go through to try to capture compelling images. I literally went through it. I had only the dirt road beyond to try to get it off the bottom of my shoe. With less~than~full effect. I drove home, 60 miles+, enjoying the lovely odor of someone’s feces wafting up from the sole of my shoe.

And THIS is what I have to show for it. It’s okay, at this size. But trust me: I’m not sure it was worth it. “

[ravnostic]

Yes, Chupa; it did blow over me.

Visibility down to around 1/2 mile I’d guess

[ravnostic]

Very nice image!

[ravnostic]

There were some truly fabulous shots this week, congrats to all the top finishers!!

[ravnostic]

//that’s what HE said…

[ravnostic]

olavf; he’s been on one (the 1st anniversary walk, which I briefly attended and where we first finally met, and we attempted a lighting walk together a week or two ago (in which the lightning didn’t pan out).

[ravnostic]

That’s a VERY good question, staplermofo, and one I haven’t yet pursued. But my guess would be…nothing, unless there were not too very many stars, and I think the moon needs to be in-frame to give something to get skewed like in the first image. I already know from deep sky stacking that satellites get ignored in stacks with plenty of stars, they just accumulate as a big long streak across the frame. In fact, Due to it’s location on the celestial sphere, it’s a pain in the ass to capture the Orion Nebula WITHOUT one satellite or another crossing across the image. Even the little itty-bitty satellites show up in a good stack.

However….you make me wonder what would happen if I stacked several images of Iridium flares in different parts of the sky…might have to investigate that.

[ravnostic]

It skewed three images, each a little differently. I processed for all images, even ones with very few stars, which it mis-interpreted in it’s alignment, skewing them in a warp to make them ‘match’. Neat effect, if I can learn to control it (say, just one bad one) I could get some very unique night imagery shots.

[ravnostic]

A-ha This seems to explain it. Restacked, a little differently, and the culprit becomes clear (or rather, skewed). Don’t know what happened to the city lights, but it’s fairly obvious where the mysterious alien lights come from.

//as usual, it’s not from aliens. Not as neat a pic to look at, but very educational as to what went wrong. (Also didn’t mess as much with processing as I just tried to work things out.)

[ravnostic]

A lot of astrophotographers rave over the resolution they get from their macro lenses, so they are often the favored glass for wide-field shooting.

*perks ears*

Oh? I think I know what I’ll be shopping for next….

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