Stargazing Expert Astrophotography Tips & Discussions | Share Your Photos!

AI Thread Summary
The discussion focuses on sharing astrophotography tips and showcasing personal astrophotos among members. Participants share their experiences with different equipment, including digital cameras and telescopes, and discuss techniques for capturing celestial events like lunar eclipses and planetary transits. There is an emphasis on the importance of practical stargazing alongside theoretical discussions about astrophysics. Members also express interest in learning from each other and improving their photography skills. The thread serves as a collaborative space for both beginners and experienced astrophotographers to exchange knowledge and inspiration.
  • #201


Does anyone know where I can find data on meteor rates for various meteor showers? I was out last night with my T1i and tripod and managed to capture one. My shots are a little lacking though, and I spent a lot of time fiddling with my camera instead of watching the sky. I'd like to try again with some new settings and connect my laptop to the camera for automation, but I want to include some sweet, sweet math into the mix.

What I'm looking for is any data regarding the distribution of meteors in the sky by date, so I know roughly how many to expect given my view of the sky and I know when to stop looking. Any compiled data regarding the statistics of meteor distribution would be awesome.
 
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  • #202


Just trying out setting on my camera and caught a plane and a meteor and thought I would share it. 30 second exposure F3 cheap GE 14.1 meg pix camera.
It's a nice camera the cheap part was the price.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69555355@N07/6325503509/in/photostream/"
 
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  • #203


Nice! I don't even have a camera with adjustable exposure other than the one specifically for my telescope.
 
  • #204


sas3 said:
Just trying out setting on my camera and caught a plane and a meteor and thought I would share it. 30 second exposure F3 cheap GE 14.1 meg pix camera.
It's a nice camera the cheap part was the price.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69555355@N07/6325503509/in/photostream/"
As Drakkith said ... nice! Even without the meteor.

I'm not spotting the plane, where is it?
 
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  • #205


The plane is the bright streak the meteor is to the right and much dimmer heading into the trees
 
  • #206


Haven't done much lately, but here's a shot of Jupiter last week, with Io passing in front of it. I took a dozen sets and the quality was inconsistent, but this is one of the better ones. I'm still working on processing and will probably put together an animation of most of the transit.
 

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  • #207


One of my recent favorites, of the Andromeda Galaxy:

6118111104_fe55022412_b.jpg


- Warren
 
  • #208
There are lots of lovely shots here - I particularly like Russ' - I'm very impressed with the detail you got on those galaxies. I'm going to spend some time looking through all of these!

I feel a duty to link to my observatory's Astrophotography page. Not everything is up there - just some particularly nice shots people took through our old facility. We're currently in the process of setting up the main instrument at the new one.

http://www.bridgew.edu/Observatory/Astrophotography.cfm
Enjoy!

Edit: Wow, chroot - that's lovely. I'm confused as to how I missed it five minutes ago!
 
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  • #211
  • #212
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  • #213


sas3 said:
I Shot this with my Coulter Odyssey 1 and a cheap Garmin GPS (has a built in camera like a cellphone) held up to the eyepiece

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69555355@N07/7112650509/

Nice! I like it!

I see we had the same problem with way too much light as the details (except near the edges) got a bit washed out. (Putting the camera up to the lens = afocal coupling, or something... heh)
 
  • #215


Hi noob here :) I only recently managed to really get into astrophotography (kids often dictate otherwise i.e no time!), and decided to test run my shiny new camera on the super moon. I did manage to get a few reasonably good shots, but they were all a bit too dark. I looked.up some advice on the best settings to use on my camera, and was recommended to switch the ISO to 100. I tried again the next night but just couldn't get the exposure right. Any suggestions? I'm using a fuji HS20 EXR bridge camera. Thanks in advance!
 
  • #216


Bikersquirrel, I don't shoot with a normal camera so I can't really help you much on the settings, but if you head over to cloudynights.com and hit up the DSLR forum or beginning and intermediate astrophotography forum there should be plenty of people who can help you.
 
  • #219


Excellent shot of the transit of Venus Sas3!
 
  • #220


Thanks I just through something together to take some pictures since this will not happen again for 105 years and I wouldn't have another chance to see it. I did have several people stop to see what I was doing and had one person try to look into the wrong end of the telescope, just love when that happens...LOL
 
  • #221


Bikersquirrel said:
Hi noob here :) I only recently managed to really get into astrophotography (kids often dictate otherwise i.e no time!), and decided to test run my shiny new camera on the super moon. I did manage to get a few reasonably good shots, but they were all a bit too dark. I looked.up some advice on the best settings to use on my camera, and was recommended to switch the ISO to 100. I tried again the next night but just couldn't get the exposure right. Any suggestions? I'm using a fuji HS20 EXR bridge camera. Thanks in advance!

Put it into manual mode and just play with different ISO, aperture, and shutter speed settings until you get the right one, that is the nice thing about digital cameras no film to waste.
I have a GE 14 Megapixel camera similar to yours however with mine I do not have a way to set it to manual focus, (don't know if you have the same settings) so it is almost useless to use through my telescope. Manual mode on my camera let's me set the ISO, aperture, and shutter speed, but no dam manual focus...
 
  • #222


Only an amateur photographer and astronomer here, yet I love combining the 2 professions! Will post photos later... stay tuned...
 
  • #223


I just bought a Nikon D5100. I have an 18-55, 55-200 and a NIKKOR AF-S 50mm f/1.8 Lens. What else do I need? Can anyone give me any advice? I've only practiced at our local observatory but that was much easier. I'd like to do some astrophotography without the use of a telescope. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
  • #224


AnnieJackson said:
I just bought a Nikon D5100. I have an 18-55, 55-200 and a NIKKOR AF-S 50mm f/1.8 Lens. What else do I need? Can anyone give me any advice? I've only practiced at our local observatory but that was much easier. I'd like to do some astrophotography without the use of a telescope. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I'd say you need something to mount the camera on. If you plan on doing any exposures longer than about a second or so you need a mount that tracks the sky. Luckily your camera has a relatively low amount of magnification so the accuracy of the mount does not need to be as good as what a telescope generally needs. If you're interested in astrophotography then I would suggest heading over to www.cloudynights.com and going to the forums there. That is pretty much the goto place for the hobby.
 
  • #225


Drakkith said:
I'd say you need something to mount the camera on. If you plan on doing any exposures longer than about a second or so you need a mount that tracks the sky. Luckily your camera has a relatively low amount of magnification so the accuracy of the mount does not need to be as good as what a telescope generally needs. If you're interested in astrophotography then I would suggest heading over to www.cloudynights.com and going to the forums there. That is pretty much the goto place for the hobby.

Sounds good...for when I have the time. I can barely get a breather with my studies, job AND internship right now :/ I always wanted to try it but browsing endless forums ... well, let's just say I went ADD after 5 seconds. I did figure I'd need a different mount. Which I can't even afford right now.

In the meantime, are there any particular settings I should consider?
 
  • #226


AnnieJackson said:
Sounds good...for when I have the time. I can barely get a breather with my studies, job AND internship right now :/ I always wanted to try it but browsing endless forums ... well, let's just say I went ADD after 5 seconds. I did figure I'd need a different mount. Which I can't even afford right now.

In the meantime, are there any particular settings I should consider?

That depends entirely on what you are doing with the camera. And as I don't have a normal camera I don't think I can help you in this area.
 
  • #228


LadyStardust said:
I just bought a Nikon D5100. I have an 18-55, 55-200 and a NIKKOR AF-S 50mm f/1.8 Lens. What else do I need? Can anyone give me any advice? I've only practiced at our local observatory but that was much easier. I'd like to do some astrophotography without the use of a telescope. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I'd use the f1.8 lens. Set your ISO setting to 6400 and everything else to manual. Manual focus to infinity, ISO6400, lowest f-number possible and exposure time to 30 sec. Any longer on the exposure time and you will get trailing stars. Aim toward the southern sky at around 11:00 pm at a dark site. You won't see as much near a big city. Do this when there is no moon.

Good luck!
 
  • #229


I believe most DSLR's are optimized at ISO 400 for long exposures. Assuming that is still true, you should get your best pictures with that setting.
 
  • #230


Chronos said:
I believe most DSLR's are optimized at ISO 400 for long exposures. Assuming that is still true, you should get your best pictures with that setting.

I don't think they are really "optimized" for it, they just happen to perform well around that much gain due to the nature of CMOS sensors. There's a lot of controversy around noise injection vs exposure time when it comes to low and high ISO settings. I've always had to use high ISO settings (1600,3200,6400 when its cold out) due to the limitations of my mount/camera but I just got a new mount last week and will soon be testing this theory.
 
  • #231


Finally got some spare time and clear skies a couple nights ago and got to try out my new mount for the first time. I had a lot of technical issues early on in the night but managed to get 15 x 1min exposures of M101. Haven't really had the time to fully process it though.

2m51dw5.jpg
 
  • #232


Not bad for 15 minutes! Get that exposure time into the hour+ mark to really start seeing some detail.
 
  • #233


Nice round stars! What camera did you use?
 
  • #234


chemisttree said:
Nice round stars! What camera did you use?

further to that... what was the telescope, telephoto lens ? prime focus setup ? etc etc

Dave
 
  • #235
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  • #236


davenn said:
further to that... what was the telescope, telephoto lens ? prime focus setup ? etc etc

Dave

I use a Pentax K-5 (*gasp* not a Canon, I know). The scope was an Orion ST-80 which is in pretty bad shape but it works surprisingly well for a $100 scope. Mount was a CG-5gt which I quickly setup using a polar scope and two star alignment. If I did a four star alignment and sighted things up a bit I probably could have easily gotten up to three minute exposures I would think.
 
  • #237


Well I got my a new (to me) scope last week and first lighted it last night. I was floored with the higher quality optics. The moon was amazing and in stunning detail. Stars are sharper, colors better, and practically no false color visually.

Pictures come out a lot nicer too. I shot M101 again (among others) to see how it compared to my last scope.

104rzo6.jpg
 
  • #238


Topher925 said:
If I did a four star alignment and sighted things up a bit I probably could have easily gotten up to three minute exposures I would think.

Using more reference stars only helps with the GOTO functionality of the mount. The tracking accuracy is solely due to polar alignment and cannot be corrected with any alignment methodology except perhaps the polar alignment function on the CG5-ASGT mount. You can autoguide with the CG5-ASGT via the 'Guide' port if you want to use longer exposures or do a very precise drift alignment.

Nice pic of M101 using the new scope. Is it an apo or a reflector?
 
  • #239


chemisttree said:
Using more reference stars only helps with the GOTO functionality of the mount. The tracking accuracy is solely due to polar alignment and cannot be corrected with any alignment methodology except perhaps the polar alignment function on the CG5-ASGT mount. You can autoguide with the CG5-ASGT via the 'Guide' port if you want to use longer exposures or do a very precise drift alignment.

Nice pic of M101 using the new scope. Is it an apo or a reflector?

Whoops, what I meant to say was using an ALL-star alignment, not four star. Although lately I've found the polar scope does a better job with polar alignment than the all-star alignment. I've been thinking about guiding but probably won't do that for a while as I'm still progressing up the learning curve.

The scope is an Orion ED80, so its one of those fake APO's. I've got a focal reducer on the way for it. Here's a shot I took of M31 last week with an Astro Tech AT72ED w/FF:

aa1d1a21-1ac9-466b-9789-98f535c62628_thumb.png


I think I went a little heavy on the high pass filter. I've been learning photoshop CS6 with this image data.
 
  • #240


This week the population of the far north Queensland city of Cairns, NE Australia, had a boost of some 60,000 or so in its numbers. People from all over Australia and from worldwide converged on the region to catch a glimpse of the 2 minutes of totality that was on offer.
My wife and I did a 3 hour flight from Sydney, Australia, others did 10 hrs in a plane from Perht city on the Australian west coast. This was still nothing compared to those that traveled from the far corners of the earth. From our beach site we were surrounded by people from as close as 5 minutes down the road to those from England, France, Denmark and many other places

attachment.php?attachmentid=52929&stc=1&d=1352874120.jpg


it was not looking good at sunrise, with only a thin gap of sky between the horizon and the base of some thick clouds that extended up to ~25 deg elevtion

attachment.php?attachmentid=52930&stc=1&d=1352874120.jpg


~10 minutes before totality, the bulk of the cloud finally moved off and we were treated to sun looking decidely smaller

attachment.php?attachmentid=52931&stc=1&d=1352874120.jpg



Dave
 

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  • #241


Totality was heralded by the Diamond ring effect and the solar filters came off the scopes and cameras

attachment.php?attachmentid=52932&stc=1&d=1352874494.jpg



Totality was spectactular and from our location we had 2mins and 2 sec of "lights out"

attachment.php?attachmentid=52933&stc=1&d=1352874494.jpg


and before you knew it it was all over and the moon was moving off the sun

attachment.php?attachmentid=52934&stc=1&d=1352874494.jpg



Pentax, K5 DSLR; 500mm telephoto witha 2 x teleconverter (1000mm total f/l) f12.6,
iso 3200, exp 125th sec for diamond ring and totality.
ISO 400 and exp 80th sec for solar filtered pics before and after totality

Now if if I manage to aviod "kicking the bucket" in the 16 years, there is another total eclipse that passes right over home in Sydney (Australia) ~2028 - 2029

cheers
Dave
 

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  • #242


Very nice Dave!
 
  • #243


thanks mate :)

that was my 3rd total eclipse and my second one in Australia

my first total eclipse was 30 something yrs ago back in New Zealand

cheers
Dave
 
  • #244


I have yet to see a total solar eclipse, and only saw my first partial this past summer right at sundown.
 
  • #245


We have seen the total eclipse of 1999 over the lake Balaton in Hungary (I planned the vacation in such a way we got there on our way back home from the Croatia/Venice). From what I remember no next total eclipse in my lifetime in Europe.
 
  • #246
Hi here is my rendition of Orion, Jupiter, and part of Taurus imaged Sept 23/2012 from approx 49n 97w. 0900UTC. I used a Canon P and S G-12 with CHDK hacked onto flashcard. I was able to bump my ISO up to 10,000 and had my lens at 6mm. f4.0, approx 35 secs.
(there is also a link to view it in larger format)

Orion 10 k iso 2.JPG
http://www.flickr.com/photos/49843779@N08/8301509367/
 
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  • #247


Nice Spark!
 
  • #248


thanks drak!
 
  • #249


NGC 3372, The Carina Nebula.
Shot in narrowband. Red-Sulfur II, Green-Hydrogen Alpha, Blue-Oxygen III

9x300s - HA
10x300s - OIII
14x300s - SII

Edit: Didn't realize it would be so big in the post. Forgive me as I have no idea how to make a small thumbnail and the file is too large to upload. (Had to shrink it down 50% just to upload it to imageshack)

http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/3316/ngc3372hubblepalette6re.jpg
 
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Likes 1 person
  • #250


Nice image Drak!... Rich color, lots of detail.

Dave
 

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