Calling all Astrophotographers, all skill levels. Post your work.

reply to post by opethPA


Those are some great shots, especially seeing as they are un-processed! You should stitch them together, looks like they would link up nicely!

Originally posted by eriktheawful
Now all I need to do is figure out a tracker for the camera. The only electronic tracker I have is the GoTo mount for my 5" reflector, but the mount was flimsy as heck, and one of the motor controller circuits burned out.

I do have a old German EQ mount that is very heavy duty, and I'm thinking of mounting a Barn Door tracker on it. Made on a long time ago, and might be fun to do it again.

That way I can take longer shots.

Only problem though: My Canon Rebel T3i can't take shots longer than 30 seconds I think.

If you can get the Goto to track, you should be able to mount a camera and lens to it and take some very long exposures! Wish i had an EQ.

As for the T3i, i have the same camera i think. We call it an 1100D over here i bought a cheap intervalometre off Amazon for about £20. It allows you to easily program the camera to take as many exposures of what ever amount of time you want. Its great, i can leave my imaging rig outside while i sit inside on my laptop on ATS!

Originally posted by eriktheawful
One of the things I'm waiting for is next month when I don't have to stay up quite so late to try imaging the Milky Way. Right now I'd need to stay up to 2am and I'm just not as young as I used to be.

Amen to that brother, and i'm only 23!

Hi All

A little link to a thread on science/technology I started about a new type of sensor possibly 1000x more sensitive than current technology.

Just think of that for astrophotography!

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by wmd_2008

Hi All

A little link to a thread on science/technology I started about a new type of sensor possibly 1000x more sensitive than current technology.

Just think of that for astrophotography!

www.abovetopsecret.com...

The original press release was a bit misleading; they're 1000 times more sensitive than previous graphene-based sensors, not traditional CCDs. I'm not sure what the sensitivity difference is when compared to the latter, but they're walking back the original statement.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published with the headline “Graphene Image Sensor 1000 Times More Sensitive to Light.” The new headline reflects changes to the post that correct a factual error about the relative performance of a new graphene image sensor. A press release out of Nanyang Technological University heralded the creation of a graphene sensor by researchers there, ascribing to it a 1000-fold increase in the light sensitivity over “current imaging sensors found in today’s cameras.” But in the paper detailing their work, the researchers actually reported that the photo-responsivity (with high photoconductive gain) of the graphene sensor was three orders of magnitude greater than other graphene-based imaging sensors.

spectrum.ieee.org...

Still, it has great potential and a very wide spectral sensitivity.

In an effort to resurrect a great thread, here's a photo I took of NCG 4565, or more commonly known as the Needle Galaxy. I had read on another forum that with a canon, to use ASA 400 instead of what I normally use which is ASA 800. That would result in the same amount of photons captured and less noise. Doesn't seem to be true in this image. This was taken earlier in the year when NGC 4565 was low in my eastern skies, lots of light pollution to deal with.




Vince

Originally posted by ngchunter
reply to post by vinceg

 

Yeah I don't think it hurts to use higher ISOs when shooting raw images as long ad you also use equivalent dark frames and bias frames. That's a great shot btw!

Here's my latest, just another Saturn pic.

That's a really nice photo of Saturn. I made one attempt at planetary photography, Saturn, and it didn't come out good. It was only one attempt but I now realize I don't have an ideal telescope for planetary work, the image size was very small. I don't know if shooting with a barlow would improve it, of if it would just make the result worse.

reply to post by vinceg


Great image. You can see that bright center just peeking over the dust lanes.

I manged to get a new tripod for my camera, at a pawn shop. It's a lot smoother, and a little more stable than my previous one. I have been practicing a little. Not much to speak about yet. But I hope I can post something decent soon.

Hi All

Lets keep the ball rolling with this great thread.

A simple shot of our nearest neighbour



1/400th of a second f8 iso 400, Sony SLT A37 with a 300mm lens (heavy crop)

I snapped some images of part of the Milky Way while waiting for the Perseid meteor shower tonight. The first one is 4 frames stacked of 20 and 30 second images. The second one is a single 30 second image:

reply to post by eriktheawful


Nice erik any other details camera,focal length,iso etc.

reply to post by eriktheawful


Nice job!
How is the meteor count so far?
We had a nice rain a couple of days ago, skies were cleaned up.
And tonight, the prevailing winds are bringing smoke from a California fire...I can almost make out bright stars.

reply to post by wmd_2008

Really crisp. Good glass on that Sony?

Originally posted by spacedoubt
reply to post by wmd_2008

 

Really crisp. Good glass on that Sony?

Actually I was surprised it's taken with a Tamron 70-300 zoom which is a bit soft at 300mm that was a good night very still air and manual focus and a little pp on the image and quite a heavy crop.

Originally posted by wmd_2008
reply to post by eriktheawful

 

Nice erik any other details camera,focal length,iso etc.

DOH! You can tell it was late for me when I posted those and forgot to add that info!

Camera: Cannon Rebel EOS T3i 1100D (unmodded firmware. Not brave enough yet to void the warranty)

Lens: set to 18mm, manual focus, f5.6
ISO: 6400

Used Deep Space Stacker 3.3.3 beta 51 for the stacked image.

Hate the lens. It focuses past infinity, so I have to set up the camera and set the focus on a lit object far away to get it right, else the stars end up as blobs. Too used to the old lenses on my old Cannon AE-1 that the focus stops right at infinity.

@spacedoubt:

I stayed up until about 2:30 am my local time. Started taking pictures right at midnight. Meteor count then was only about 5 to 6 an hour. I saw some impressive ones, but none decided to streak by where I had my camera at.

while trying to capture some meteor streaks last night, I captured the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) in these pictures.

It's the bright fuzzy blob just to the left of the pine tree in the center, just before you get to it's top.

These are stacked frames using Deep Space Stacker. Four frames at 30 second exposures, same settings as in my last post.

The 2nd picture is a crop of the original 4272 x 2848 frame:

reply to post by eriktheawful


Hi erik have the lens wide open and try iso 3200 / 6400 I have see a few shots doing that.

Originally posted by wmd_2008
reply to post by eriktheawful

 

Hi erik have the lens wide open and try iso 3200 / 6400 I have see a few shots doing that.

Those shots were at ISO 6400. The f stop is controlled by the software and will not go any lower than f5.6

I'm SERIOUSLY considering using that firmware that you gave me a link to that "upgrades" the camera so I can take longer exposures and change other settings, etc.

Of course that means I'll have to build a new Barn Door Tracker. Fun times!

reply to post by eriktheawful


Hi erik can you not set your camera to full manual control? It's still no great weather for me to try this it's only really dark for 2-3 and most nights I have had cloud cover.