You all know how it is, the sun goes down. The camera goes away, batteries go on charge, data is downloaded. Yeah right, it's the time to go out and shoot the night sky. If you shoot the moon, stars, comets, the planets, ufo's, or whatever you find, post it here. So for my 1000th post, here is a starting image. For those of you who live in the Southern hemisphere, you should recognize this, the Southern Cross. Taken with my RP, Sigma 40mm, on a Star Adventurer. I struggled with polar alignment, so I will try again. If you know where to look, you can also find the globular cluster Omega Centauri, and the galaxies Centaurus A, and NGC 4945. Not bad for a 40mm lens. I know that have a long way to go before I actually know what I am doing. RP, Sigma 40mm, ISO 3200, 30 seconds Gary
Even though I have posted this else where, I thought I would repost it here. Just so I can look back on it, and see if I am progressing. I have had a play with it in gimp as well. RP, Sigma 40mm, ISO 3200, 30 seconds. Gary
The lens is a Sigma 40mm f1.4 Art. How dark were the skies? I don't know. This is not long after sunset, and there was a quarter of a moon out. I have heard of the bortle scale, but I don't know how to apply it to the night sky. I would have stayed longer and kept on going, but I was not having much success finding Octans while looking through the polar finder. Mind you, I have since then done a little more research, and I have found a few more aids to help me out. So I would like to try again (not this weekend, maybe the one after). I do think I can do a little better than this. And thanks for the comment. Gary
Jupiter and three of it's moons. The moment you discover that 400mm on a full frame sensor is not going to cut it. RP and a 400L 5.6 Gary
try exposing for jupiter itself, i had the same thing with mars, exposing for sharp on the stars blew out the planet, at 400mm its never going to be detailed but you should be able to have the disc there. with the full frame sensor you should be able to make use of the x2 on your 400mm as i'm typing this my crop will have a slightly higher mag on a 400mm, i wont be able to get a pic of jupiter or saturn for a while from here, they were pretty close together this summer
Thanks for your input Caladina. I knew that 400mm was not really going to pull out a lot of detail, but it was just more playing about for me and see what the results turned out like. I am pretty sure that I have read somewhere that you need a focus length of a couple of meters for a decent sort of image. It sounds as if you have some knowledge in this area, so I will be listening to what your thoughts. I have dabbled in astrophotography for years, and I really like and enjoy it. But there is always something that comes first in life, so this always gets put the back burner. I can roughly polar align using a compass, my focusing is not bang on, but it sort of works when I use a wide angle lens. To progress, I need to properly polar align and focus. I know this. I have a lightweight tracker, and I think that using a 400mm lens is pretty well as long as I can go with it. If I buy a bigger tracker, I am still going to face the same issues. My thinking is that do I go down this path of frustration, or do I call it a day now. Polar aligning is not the easiest in the southern hemisphere. I have tried it many times, and I have fluked it a couple of times. I don't want to add a lot of new equipment at once as I feel as I will get bogged down if I have a problem. So to overcome the polar alignment problem, I am looking at getting myself an ipolar polarscope, and add that into the mix. If that works, that will be that hurdle over come. Next will be getting correct focusing. I am going to take small steps, and see what the results are. Watch this space. Gary
for me the next step is to get a tracking mount so i can do longer exposures. i had a quick look for the mars shots i took but i couldn't see them. at first i was focusing on a double star next to mars at the time as it was a good indicator of focus, they both dissapered very quickly when it was out of perfect focus. i used a hight iso to focus on the stars then dropped it right down to around 400, i'm guessing from memory so i might be wrong on that, then adjusted the shutter speed up faster till the over powering glow went and it started to see some form of detail, well i say detail it was just some different tones on the tiny disc only visible by maxing out the zoom in post. i do have an old refractor telescope that is burried away in the back bedroom somewhere, it was good enough to make me cry as a child when i first saw Saturn's ring with my own eyes for the first time. the good thing is the telescopes i really wanted as a kid that were out of question are pretty much affordable now so a dedicated set up might be on the cards for the future but not for a couple of years. location (london) is not ideal so it can wait till i move out to the country, sooner the better for that! a focusing trick i found worked well on faint objects was to put the camera into video mode, focus seemed cleared with that (it was in auto video) then switch back to stills. the above was using the sig 100-400mm, cant remember if i used the x2 i still want to take some more wide angle shots of the sky with my takumar 55mm 1.8, but the clearest skies also bring the coldest temperatures, walking around in cold rain is no problem, standing still on a cold night freezes my tits off, walking around keeps me warm.
Are you using a bahtinov mask? I have never used one. But I am looking at getting one and giving it a go. Currently, I am just focusing using the 10x magnification button in live view, but I am finding it hard to get the focus bang on. I do that as well. I can understand that. There are some amazing things that you can't see with the naked eye. I Have a lens that I am itching to point at the night sky. But my current mount won't carry it. Also it is not in a Canon mount, so I am going to have to get an adapter if I want to use it. Plus a bigger tracking mount. Christchurch NZ. Same boat. Have brought some land out in the country. Just working on building a house. So we are going to end up in a small town (village in your neck of the woods). But most importantly, there is a place that I go to do night shots, and our new place, when we get there is an hour less driving to get to our current home. Where we go is in the mountains.........what3words.com/divots.cans.poorly I am looking forward to see how you get on with that. Post some images please. Milkyway time of year for us. We are the same but we wrap up and look like the Michelin man and woman. But hey, no one is around to see us and laugh. We have a big-ish car, so next year we are going to throw a gas bottle and cooker in the back of the car so we can have hot drinks and food. I love doing daytime photography in the winter, but daytime photography as spring rolls into summer I find a little uninspiring. I am having a think, and that is always dangerous, but I may buy some stuff and practice while the nights are milder. I'll let you know how I get on and what I decide. I look forward to watching your journey as well. Gary
no i dont have a bat mask just use the x5 x10 in with the evf, thats where running up the iso then back down to take a smudge works, or the video mode seemed clearer
You've done well Gary. I reckon they look really cool. Living here in the bright lights doesn't get me even close to taking images like that. The closest to night shots I get is the lightning shots when storms pass over.
At least someone is happy with them. I thought that I would post the image so to show I am trying with this. Note to self, try harder. Gary
It's been a while. I was not 100% happy with my last years effort with the Milky Way. And that was due to an oversight from myself, and a few other things that I didn't understand and get right. So out I went again last night to see what I could do. We were out before the moon made an appearance this year as well. I have only had a quick flick through what I got last night. But I found this one, complete with the large magellanic cloud. Last night, I shot in both jpeg and RAW. This is the jpeg, and pretty well straight out camera with a small crop. I will have a play around with the RAW files when we get some cloudy nights and I learn how to process them a little better than this effort. For us Southern Hemisphere people, the crux and pointers are just out of the image on the top left. RP, Sigma 40 Art F1.4, @F2.2. ISO 1600, 45 seconds single image. Tracked but not guided. -12 degrees as well. (There is another story here, but I will explain that one latter) More to come. Gary
nice wide astro, good detail. as i havent done any rotational mount etc could you tell me the difference between guided and tracked
Me not typing what I was thinking. What I meant to say was polar aligned, but not guided. My mistake, I'm sorry. Don't be fooled Craig. It was the first time that I have been able to get out for around two months to do this sort of imaging. There have been few chances to get out for a while now. I have been playing around with a guide camera and lens, PHD and Sharpcap software in our back garden along with a small star tracker. I almost know what I am doing now. I know how to polar align, and guide. But Saturday was meant to be a clear still day, and there was a big gap between sunset and when the moon was due to rise. So we packed up the car with my gear, and off we went out of the city. We arrived and set up before the sun went down. When the stars started to come out, I got my laptop out and polar aligned. I was ready to go. So while waiting for it to get dark, I just took in the Milky Way. We have the core of he Milky Way above our heads. What I did notice is that I was putting on layer after layer of clothes, but not really getting warm. So I started to get going with test shots, and once I was happy, started the tracker, and just started to get images without worrying about guiding. I thought that I would get enough images to do a Milky Way pano, and then I would do a second session, this time with guiding , longer exposures, and lower ISO. But then I noticed that my laptop had a layer of frost forming over it. And after each 45 second exposure, I had ice forming on the front element. I did clear the ice off the lens for a while, but I was finding that my fingers were getting a little cold. I did have a thermometer with me. A quick look at it, -12. So we packed up as it was a running battle against the cold and the dew forming to frost. A couple of hours drive home. All the gear got put in front of a dehumidifier once we got home. I did learn things form that night. Yes I want to go again. Yes I want to get out of using a normal focal length lens and try something longer. This Saturday is looking good. If it stays clear, I would like to have another go. Lets see how we go closer to the time. Gary
The large magellanic cloud. A single image, iso 3200, f2.2, 20 seconds, and on a tracker. RP, Sigma 135 f1.8 Gary
