Author Topic: Astro Photography (Read 51367 times)

Binary Shadow · **on:** February 22, 2013, 13:37:46 PM

Astro Photography

on: February 22, 2013, 13:37:46 PM

After reading Russells thread I thought I would share my experiance.

I to went out to see if I could see the near miss asteroid. Was cold.. and I had nothing but my 7D 100-400mm lens and a tripod.. and I had no chance of seeing it lol.

I took a few snaps anyway: I used the 2 second self timer to try and reduce camera shake when taking the shot, should have broken out the remote really and used shutter lock up, the tripod wasnt as sturdy as it could have been either.

Moon by Adam Woodford, on Flickr

Jupiter by Adam Woodford, on Flickr

Orion's Belt by Adam Woodford, on Flickr

Orion's Belt by Adam Woodford, on Flickr

I was blown away by what I wasnt seeing.. the naked eye vs even just the 400mm lens, so much I cant see, really fancy a telescope now.

Jupiters moons I believe anyway in shot.

Clock'd 0Ne · **Reply #1 on:** February 22, 2013, 14:02:06 PM

Re: Astro Photography

Reply #1 on: February 22, 2013, 14:02:06 PM

If I had a decent sized garden I'd love to be able to get outside with a telescope and have a proper look at the sky, the difference is amazing.

Eggtastico · **Reply #2 on:** February 22, 2013, 14:36:28 PM

Re: Astro Photography

Reply #2 on: February 22, 2013, 14:36:28 PM

i tried a telescope & mount for my camera. was really difficult as when zoomed in that much everything moves really fast.
I even tried hooking it all up to my computer, realised in the end my equipment wasnt up to it. I would love a computerised telescope & not living to far from brecon is handy. Just i know I woudnt have the time to use it & to much light pollution in my back garden

I believe a lot of people remove/replace the IR from the camera sensor to capture more detail.

Russell · **Reply #3 on:** February 22, 2013, 15:02:02 PM

Re: Astro Photography

Reply #3 on: February 22, 2013, 15:02:02 PM

I went out with pair of binoculars to try and see the asteroid but didn't see it but I'd agree its amazing the amount of stuff you can see with binoculars or a telescope. With cameras I've found to get the detail out you really need to do a bit of work in Photoshop etc when your editing it to try and get the stars to come out otherwise they just aren't bright enough by themselves without doing a really long exposure.

Looking at your pics it looks like you've boosted the ISO to get the shutter speed down, you might be better putting your ISO on say 200/400 and making your shutter speed a lot longer, you loose detail and dynamic range when you boost your ISO up high.

Russell · **Reply #4 on:** February 22, 2013, 15:04:14 PM

Re: Astro Photography

Reply #4 on: February 22, 2013, 15:04:14 PM

Quote from: Eggtastico on February 22, 2013, 14:36:28 PM

i tried a telescope & mount for my camera. was really difficult as when zoomed in that much everything moves really fast.
I even tried hooking it all up to my computer, realised in the end my equipment wasnt up to it. I would love a computerised telescope & not living to far from brecon is handy. Just i know I woudnt have the time to use it & to much light pollution in my back garden

I believe a lot of people remove/replace the IR from the camera sensor to capture more detail.

I've got an adaptor so I can attach my camera to a telescope but it takes out the eye pieces which give you most of the magnifictation instead your telescope just becomes a big say 700mm lens, I think most people use webcams attached to the eyepiece to get good results but yeah things move very quickly, you maybe have 10-15 seconds at most whilst watching Jupiter through a telescope so not good for a long exposure shot.

Serious · **Reply #5 on:** February 22, 2013, 15:44:39 PM

Re: Astro Photography

Reply #5 on: February 22, 2013, 15:44:39 PM

If you live in a built up area a lot of the stars you can't see are unfortunately hidden by light pollution. For proper night sky viewing you need to get away from the security lights, street lights and preferably high up.

Eggtastico · **Reply #6 on:** February 22, 2013, 16:15:17 PM

Re: Astro Photography

Reply #6 on: February 22, 2013, 16:15:17 PM

Quote from: Russell on February 22, 2013, 15:04:14 PM

Quote from: Eggtastico on February 22, 2013, 14:36:28 PM
i tried a telescope & mount for my camera. was really difficult as when zoomed in that much everything moves really fast.
I even tried hooking it all up to my computer, realised in the end my equipment wasnt up to it. I would love a computerised telescope & not living to far from brecon is handy. Just i know I woudnt have the time to use it & to much light pollution in my back garden

I believe a lot of people remove/replace the IR from the camera sensor to capture more detail.

I've got an adaptor so I can attach my camera to a telescope but it takes out the eye pieces which give you most of the magnifictation instead your telescope just becomes a big say 700mm lens, I think most people use webcams attached to the eyepiece to get good results but yeah things move very quickly, you maybe have 10-15 seconds at most whilst watching Jupiter through a telescope so not good for a long exposure shot.

problem I had with the adapter was Id find something interesting using an eyepiece, then the weight of the camera & adapter when fitting would move the telescope. lot of arsing around & I gave up in the end

XEntity · **Reply #7 on:** February 22, 2013, 19:26:27 PM

Re: Astro Photography

Reply #7 on: February 22, 2013, 19:26:27 PM

I follow Trey Ratcliff on facebook who is pretty much the god of HDR, if you need to know how to do HDR visit stuck in customs, the other day he uploaded an amazing photo under this category.

http://www.stuckincustoms.com/2013/02/13/the-church-of-the-good-shepherd-under-the-stars/

Mind blown!

M3ta7h3ad · **Reply #8 on:** February 22, 2013, 21:31:43 PM

Re: Astro Photography

Reply #8 on: February 22, 2013, 21:31:43 PM

Take lots and lots of shots. Layer and you'll see lots more.

zpyder · **Reply #9 on:** February 23, 2013, 09:46:26 AM

Re: Astro Photography

Reply #9 on: February 23, 2013, 09:46:26 AM

When I went to wales last year I took advantage of being in the middle of nowhere one night and took loads of shots. Used the opensource "DeepSkyStacker" program. Didn't have a clue what I was doing, but it did give really good results with not much effort. As M3ta says, stack the shots. I can't remember what the rule of thumb is (if there is one) but I think I was stacking something like 10 shots of 30s each together. I think the idea is that combining the shots brings out the really weak stars, and by using shorter single exposures it compensates for the movement of the earth etc.

If it's clear tonight or tomorrow I might be tempted to head out into the NF or something.

Russell · **Reply #10 on:** February 23, 2013, 11:44:37 AM

Re: Astro Photography

Reply #10 on: February 23, 2013, 11:44:37 AM

Quote from: XEntity on February 22, 2013, 19:26:27 PM

I follow Trey Ratcliff on facebook who is pretty much the god of HDR, if you need to know how to do HDR visit stuck in customs, the other day he uploaded an amazing photo under this category.

http://www.stuckincustoms.com/2013/02/13/the-church-of-the-good-shepherd-under-the-stars/

Mind blown!

Oh my! Saying that however when you look at it full size theres a few bits that are a tad well weird infront of the house, still a great shot though.

Quote

problem I had with the adapter was Id find something interesting using an eyepiece, then the weight of the camera & adapter when fitting would move the telescope. lot of arsing around & I gave up in the end

Think I had the same problem, you really could do with your camera on a tripod itself to hold the weight but then it'd be just about impossible to move around at all so I gave up too

Mongoose · **Reply #11 on:** March 20, 2013, 23:04:59 PM

Re: Astro Photography

Reply #11 on: March 20, 2013, 23:04:59 PM

I long ago gave up on trying to use my SLR on a Newtonian, the contrast isn't up to it and as has been observed even the really big ones just end up being a 1000mm F/5 lens. You're better off either using a webcam and stacking or just looking through the thing and marvelling at the wonders of the universe.

For astro photography with an SLR, what you need is refractive optics, and big ones. I have used my 300mm f/2.8 with some success. The other thing you need if you want to get anything other than star trails is an equatorial driven mounting, or a good computer drive with a star tracker. You will also need to be prepared to spend as much time setting your mounting up as you do taking photographs.

I use (or have used in the past, haven't broken it out in much too long) a Celestron equatorial mount which came with a 4.5" Newtonian telescope. I picked this because it turns out you can get a scope with a single axis driven mount for less than the mount on its own. Go figure. I made some modifications to the mount, basically attached an old air-rifle sight to it, to make it easier to align with the pole star, and at 300mm with careful alignment it's good for a 3 minute exposure. Any more than that and you'll need a computer controlled dual axis drive with a star tracker.

I always think the night sky is worth it though, especially showing it to people who've not seen it before. The only thing more amazing than the planet Saturn is the look on the face of someone who has never seen it before, the first time they look through a big telescope. For some reason, no one is quite prepared for the fact that Saturn looks exactly like you think it does.

M3ta7h3ad · **Reply #12 on:** March 21, 2013, 00:24:52 AM

Re: Astro Photography

Reply #12 on: March 21, 2013, 00:24:52 AM

There is an interesting YouTube video of a talk at an astronomy symposium from someone who used an SLR, 50mm prime lense and took short exposures to eliminate star trails.

Then used image stacking and post processing not only to remove noise, light pollution and hot pixels very very effectively but to produce images of the entire messier atlas, a large number of NGC objects and more.

Have a look for astrophotography with an SLR on YouTube.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

Mongoose · **Reply #13 on:** March 21, 2013, 19:39:15 PM

Re: Astro Photography

Reply #13 on: March 21, 2013, 19:39:15 PM

Quote from: M3ta7h3ad on March 21, 2013, 00:24:52 AM

There is an interesting YouTube video of a talk at an astronomy symposium from someone who used an SLR, 50mm prime lense and took short exposures to eliminate star trails.

Then used image stacking and post processing not only to remove noise, light pollution and hot pixels very very effectively but to produce images of the entire messier atlas, a large number of NGC objects and more.

Have a look for astrophotography with an SLR on YouTube.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

v interesting, I can see how that could work, I shall go have a look thanks!

Stacking is an extremely powerful technique.

Mongoose · **Reply #14 on:** March 21, 2013, 20:18:23 PM

Re: Astro Photography

Reply #14 on: March 21, 2013, 20:18:23 PM

M3ta7h3ad, I've just had a look on YouTube and there's a LOT of astro photography vids on there, can't see the wood for the trees if I'm honest. Do you have a link to the one you're talking about? it sounds really interesting.

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Author Topic: Astro Photography (Read 51367 times)