Ant

The middle one is very nice, with the slightly zoomed in view. 

Your focus is darn good as well, something I always struggle with on these sort of shots. 

Ant

The top one is awesome. I took me a few seconds to spot Venus, but the timing is fab!

Love them both! 

Ant

Dave, the police round here have no issue with being out for a spot of stargazing.

I've been out the house twice for non essential purposes. Last night to see the conjunction, and 28 days ago to see the crescent moon  The Police were fine. 

That's a lovely couple of images Peter   Even though Mercury is easy to spot in the second, I like the one with the ground in the errr foreground best. It adds something nice to the image I think,

Cheers

Ant  

On 10/05/2020 at 15:48, woodblock said:

Great picture Ant. Can I ask - Did you sharpen after stacking?

Cheers

Steve

 

Yes there was a slight adjustment to levels, and a single unsharp mask on both images.

Ant

Thanks for the comments. The 3D thing did look good, even though it was quite 3D.

Ah right, that would explain it. I've just looked at the camera, and it's a 400D lol

Thanks for the info though, John appreciated.

I have drives coming so that should make life a little easier. Might even get back into some Web cam imaging.

Ant

23 minutes ago, maw lod qan said:

Very nice Lunar images.

Interesting seeing your ISO and exp time.

I shot a few this morning with 400 and exp 1/4000 just trying to cut down on its brightness. 

Didnt look bad on the camera live view but I haven't downloaded them to the computer yet.

Yes I actually think you've probably got it right. My images looked about right on the camera preview (don't have live view), but I think dropping the ISO and exp would have been ideal.

Your end result should be better.

Thanks for the comments guys, trying to get back into this daft hobby, so just taking things one step at a time.

Ant

The moon being 100% full while below the horizon is frankly rather inconsiderate! 

But having two clear nights on the trot, and a low enough horizon to get the moon this time of year, means that I could do a comparison of views 12hrs before and 12 hrs after full. 

New moon was late morning yesterday, the left hand image was 11pm on Wednesday evening and the right image last night the 7th at 11pm. There was a slight layer of high misty cloudy stuff last night. 

I quite liked the comparison, while not the best image scale - I do what I can with the equipment I have.

450D, ED80 at prime focus. 64 images stacked for the left image, 65 for the right. each sub was 1/2500s @ ISO800

Cheers

Ant 

I assume you guys have read the rules?

Don't be upset when posts start vanishing. 

Ant

Oh yeah, I'm loving that.

The church absolutely makes the shot...!!! 

30 minutes ago, jgs001 said:

Thanks Ant, yeah, the eye is a very flexible optical instrument.

I've just noticed something weird with the middle one.. no idea where that gradient has come from... I'm not seeing it in the original .tif... something weird in the conversion, upload and host I guess.

Yeah now you mention it... I had to look for it though.

I tried a stack of some Earthshine close ups (only 5), and a quarter of the resulting image (top left corner) is significantly brighter. So it would appear that we both have a few gremlins to find. 

Always a pleasure looking at your images mate, gives me something to aspire too

A combination of the 450D with the ED80 and 250 zoom.

This first one taken earlier in the evening then the other two - over exposed to capture the start of earth shine. Prime focus ED80, undriven mount (how I miss a driven mount), 5th Second. Single frome.

The next two are a stack of 40 and 64 frames. The first is the 250mm zoom (40 frames), I like the colour of this one.

64 frame stack with the ED80. Prime focus.

Hasn't it been a good few days for getting out and looking at stuff  

Ant

Managed to get out again... not sure quite whats going on. Thats about 5 or 6 sessions THIS WEEK ALONE.

That in itself must be some sort of record, at least for me  .

Took back out to the road that we went to the other evening, and set up in a little dirt area barely big enough for the car. 

Saw the horses and swans again, and of course a lovely crescent moon and Venus. The amazing sky of the previous night had gone, but it was still quite spectacular. I wonder if people really know what they are missing. Although on the way home I did pass three people standing on their doorstep pointing at the moon and venus (well in that direction anyway). 

Took lots of images, this was the best of the widefield shots. Taken with the 450D and 55-250 zoom @ 55mm, ISO 800. 1 second exposure taken on a static camera tripod. 

Thanks for looking, Ant

Nice to see how the contrast changes through the course of an evening. 

It always amazing me just how much better the eye is compared to a camera. 

That last one is very nice

Yes very nice

Is that a Single frame or a stack? Whichever its lovely and sharp. 

ant

I used to get exactly the same issue, but only occasionally. I  never really got to the bottom of it.

In the end I used to take three sets of flats. One at my normal ADU count (which from memory was around 20K (1/3rd full saturation)).

But because of this issue, I used to take another set at 15k, and another set at 25k. 

Then if the usual set went a bit Pete Tong, I'd use one of the others, which usually worked OK.

Also how many Flats are you using in your stack? If its an even number, remove one... I was always told that it needed to be an odd number for flats, darks and bias frames (never understood why).

Ant

Finished manually aligning the 67 (now 49 frames) for the sequence in photshop. I was pretty brutal with the image selection - had a LOT where the moon has "jumped" due to the mirror movement internally I think. 

But I am really happy with this! Well worth the effort.

Ant

Very nice John, significantly sharper than my images.

That's also pretty low down, you did really well to get the detail

ant

2 minutes ago, barkis said:

You did good getting that very young sliver of the moon.
Shot with your DSLR was it?
Ron.

Yes Ron, the old but reliable 450D. Daz's old camera. I used the 55-250 IS zoom. Zoomed right in of course. 

That view is directly over Peterborough and surrounding industrial areas, I suspect that had we not been in lockdown, I wouldn't have been able to see down that low. 

Weather permitting, I might try again tonight with the ED80.

Ant

Thank you all  
 

It was a lovely hour or so spent out actually. My 7 yr old came with me. We saw horses, swans, Venus and the Moon. The police even drove past, and i must admit that i thought that I was going to be quizzed on what I was doing. 

Here is another image, quite sharp this one. Pretty much out the camera, all these images were taken on auto (no flash obviously) Canon 450D with a 55-250 zoom.

Yes, I think I agree that the 4th one pips the others, but only just.... I'd love to have taken then all. 

Ant

Decided to risk leaving the house today... I haven't been out for a while and was expecting it to be like a scene from 28 days later. 

Wanted to see if I could spot the crescent moon, and it wasn't going to happen from my garden. Pulled over into a mud layby thing and tried to spot the moon in the glare. 

Finally spotted it at 20:32 and a few seconds, and managed to get a quick rough and ready shot. Then relaxed and went for the nicer shots as the moon dropped. 

I also managed to watch the moon through the murk until it was about degree and a little bit above the horizon. I'm hoping to put together a little animation as it sets, but the first attempt at that hasn't gone that well

Ant

8:32pm

8:45

and finally

21:35

Nice  

It was brighter than the heavens above estimate, so maybe your right

Unfortunately dew has already stopped play. I'm only using passive dew control, and i've lost already.

But I've had fun Tonight at 8:50 I spotted what looked to be a really bright satellite , I wondered if it might be the ISS.  to start with. 

Looking at heavens-above it seems to be Starlink 6 - the position and time are pretty much spot on. Heavens-above gives a magnitude estimate of 1, this seemed brighter, it also says its a placeholder - so I could be really wide of the mark. 

But this was still daylight, I was literally just holding the shutter down, releasing, repeating. This is 7 frames thrown into Startrails DE. Its not great, but its what I have

Ant

That is really smart. I like it a lot.

How did you keep dew away?

Ant

Should I be increasing the ISO to say 1600, and dropping the exposure to 30s.

That would be about 900 frames, I did wonder if the exposures were too long for meteor work.

Looks like some of you guys got lucky

Ant