Icesheet

I headed out for what I expected to be my last shot at the Milkyway before the nights get too light here. What I actually got was the most spectacular display of the Northern Lights I have witnessed. One of those nights that will live long in the memory! There's plenty more to follow but I couldn't wait to post one. Like a wee kid at Christmas here 😂

If it’s primarily for astrophotography and your willing to push a little further then you might consider the Askar FMA 180. Have a search on here for some good info on it.

Well, someone has to kick this off! Taken on the night 14th-15th March this is the foreground stack of an image of the aurora and Milkyway over Bjørnafjorden, Western Norway. The stack consists of 3x180 sec of exposure with a Samyang 14mm wide open at f2.8 on a Nikon D600. Didn't really intend to use this as a star trail image but it does have some charm!

Do you have a sketch of your imaging train? The only way to know is to try but I would expect 4mm out would be too much. There are plenty of posts around here that show even 1/10 of a mm can be critical. The size of your sensor would impact this too.

I even bumped into this curious bunch on the way home!

Really appreciate your comments Yes, it was just ambient lighting although it didn't seem there was any light at the time! No artificial light used at all. Actually, I could probably have been doing with an even longer exposure for the foreground. I had to raise it a bit in lightroom to bring out some detail in the grass. Here's a JPEG of the stacked foreground before lifting the exposure. I actually had more exposure of the sky but as you can see it washes out the detail and structure in the aurora hence only using one frame for sky. There is quite a bit of light pollution in my area but get to the right spot and point the right way and it you're all good.

Thank you for the kind words! Thank you all for your comments. Makes me appreciate the opportunity I have here. Hopefully, I can get more similar in the future 👍🏻

Thanks! Yeah, I’ve definitely not got an excuse in terms of possible locations.

Can you elaborate on this? You mean you don’t have a modification but are able to make the sensor more sensitive by doing this?

Thanks Adrian! Wasn’t sure if the foreground maybe distracted from the sky. Glad you like it! We don’t quite get it like Northern Norway here but does make its way down often enough.

Thanks!

Landscape astrophotography is something I’m interested in getting into more. There were some faint Aurora recently so I decided to give it a go. This is a foreground stack of 3x180sec on foreground and 1x30sec for sky, Nikon D600 and Samyang 14mm. A half critical eye will show my blending needs work and of course the sky is quite noisy since it’s only one frame at fairly high ISO. Hopefully it’s still semi pleasing to the eye 😊

I’ve had both and used both on a Nikon D600 but not at the same time unfortunately so can’t give you an objective comparison. The short answer is you probably can’t go wrong with either. Personally I have had a better time with the Askar. The stars have been much better in the corners than what I had with the Samyang. Although I may have just had a bad copy of the lens. The other factor that puts the Askar ahead of the Samyang for me is the versatility. It acts as an astrograph, guide scope and spotter and is good at them all. It does seem the Askar may have some blue bloat but easily solved with a filter. Of course the biggest advantage of the Samyang is you can image wide open at F2. There’s nothing else at that price that can do that. As I say you can’t go wrong. Just buy from somewhere with a good return policy 👍🏻

If you're going to stick to as wide as 14mm and want something for general photography too then I don't think you need a modded one. If you only plan to use it for nightscape photography and potentially with longer focal length lenses then I think you would get more benefit of a modded camera. Full frame can for sure be an advantage if you have the lenses that cover the sensor.

Thanks! I will give this a go when I get the chance 👍🏻

Show me where to sign up 😂

So the idea is you can load another OS on a different SD card and then it would be possible to switch between the two depending on your needs/ equipment?

Your images just make me want to sell my gear and get a RASA and 2600MC. If only it was as easy as that! I know that it takes a lot more than gear to produce what you do 👏🏻

It makes sense the closer to Polaris you are the less a guide star will move. How that plays into the calibration I don’t know. It does seem that the PHD2 ‘lite’ version the ASIair uses is a little erratic. I certainly have to fiddle more with settings and do more calibrations than when I was using the full PHD2 on my laptop. Also, I’ve had runaway guiding a few times but I think I worked that one out. It’s after I cross the meridian then I have to go into settings and flip my calibration then it starts guiding again. Just in case you come across that.

Hi, This isn’t actually my settings. Just a screen grab from the internet to show you where to look. Yeah I would have auto restore on unless you are imaging from different locations all the time. I only reset the calibration if I’m getting bad guiding that I can’t troubleshoot. Also, you mention your focus was as good as it’s been. As far as I’m aware it’s actually good practice not to have perfect focus. Just slightly out of focus is good as this makes it easier for the algorithm to track the star centroid. Probably something mathematical behind it but have a Google about it.

I’ve had problems with guiding calibration on the ASIair before. I managed to get a good calibration by changing the calibration step and max ra and Dec durations. Can’t remember if I increased or lowered it but you can give it a go. Worth a try anyway! Edit: Hadn’t noticed @Delboy_Hog has suggested this already

I would never have thought of this, great idea! Some good things to work on. Thanks folks

That makes sense and I haven't tried that yet. Will see how I get on with that. That looks a lot more like what I was expecting. Seems I maybe haven't been careful enough with the samples then. Will go back to this too. Thank you! That GAME script looks useful, I will try that when trying to add the Ha to the galaxies.

Thanks for clarification Wim, I suspected so. I was looking at buying an Astrodon filter on here. Looks like I’ll need to look out for an unmounted one.

Thanks Adrian! Yes, that’s the one I prefer too. Thanks. I’ll try that too then and see if I get anywhere. I followed a Light Vortex tutorial for adding the Ha and this seems along the same lines but they didn’t weight it so perhaps that will help. I tried the NBLRGB script and that was a complete mess. Probably done something wrong though.