mattjanes100

Afternoon all. After watching the Dragon launch yesterday afternoon, I thought I would finally try my hand at an ISS trail image. I knew I would have quite a good view of it in front of my flat with the moon in shot too. I tried a couple of settings and this was the best result I could come up with. 5 seconds exposure at ISO 200 if I recall correctly, f/5.6. I guess there will always be a challenge trying to expose enough to get a bright trail but without a super bright moon as I've managed. Any suggestions for future captures would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

That is excellent!

The Red Arrows memorial in Bournemouth provides a wonderful foreground. I've wanted to try and capture something here for a long time and tonight, finally got the chance. Here is the best single jpg from a series I've taken. I'm going to have a work through the RAW files and see if I can improve the detail but wanted to get something posted up here this evening. The memorial is for Flight Lieutenant Jon Egging, who sadly crashed his Arrow after a display in Bournemouth in 2011. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-19398268

Amazing detail, great work

Very nice

Impressive shots!

Good work!

Fair play getting out there!

Very entertaining, impressed by Schofield keeping his cool!

I happened to be on holiday in Orlando last week so was very excited at the prospect of being able to see a launch from Cape Canaveral in person. Unfortunately the original launch date of Wednesday 5th was pushed back to Friday 7th and eventually to Sunday 9th, with my return flight to the UK being on the evening of Saturday 8th - the bucket list has had to wait. Of course I still watched the launch online having developed quite an interest over the previous months. This morning I saw a post from ESA, an animation capturing the last visible moments of the orbiter on it's way to the Sun via Venus. Thought it was pretty cool and I'm sure members here will appreciate the work! https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2020/02/Asteroid_experts_catch_final_glimpse_of_Solar_Orbiter

Thanks Damian, really useful info

Good to see this in mainstream news!

Thanks, I will have a look at WINE.

For various reasons (primarily weather), I haven't been out for a session for quite a while. Over the course of the day in Bournemouth we had rain, sleet and wind so I wasn't holding out much hope for the evening. Fortunately, the clouds parted! I knew I wouldn't have long for a session as I had to drop my wife off and pick her up 90 minutes later, but having bought a DSLR in the new year and spent many rainy nights since poring over Covington's book, I was determined to get out and look at/photograph something.... The problem then was that I had set up the scope and camera but with no plan or specific target in mind I ended up trying to look at everything and then was moving back and forth between scope and camera without really taking any time to do either thing properly! First stop was of course M42, followed by M45. Didn't spend long here before targeting Sirius - no joy with the Pup. I tried for Neptune but then had started trying some snaps with the camera. Initial attempts at some long exposures with the kit lens provided some promising results of Orion and Taurus. I then tried to capture the Moon/Venus conjunction over Bournemouth but could not quite get the settings right for a good image unfortunately. By this time it was time to pack up and head back for pickup. This was a rewarding session in as much as it was just good to get out and be observing, but lesson learned that a session plan is definitely needed to avoid wasted time and a scattered approach.

I've recently acquired a DSLR so am starting to look at the next steps for image processing. As a Mac user it looks like my options are relatively limited, but Nebulosity seems to be a good one stop shop for pre-processing. I just wondered if there were any users here that could provide a bit of a review? I do love my Macbook so would be loathed to end up having to buy a Windows machine! Thanks in advance to all.