Legacy Astrophotography: IC 1396 in Cepheus

[Nightfly]

Cepheus is home to many bright and faint emission nebulae, the largest and brightest being IC1396.

Pentax 67 300mm f/4 SMC Takumar @ f/5.6 40 minutes exposure on Kodak E200 pushed +2 stops. Full frame, no crop. Scanned on an Epson V600 and processed in Photoshop and PixInsight.

Not bad for film and 1980's equipment, eh.

The Legacy Project is a planned sequence of photographs of the night sky. Over the last several years astrophotographers have switched to digital as the medium of choice. While there are many reasons to do this, film is still a great way to capture wide-field images of the Milky Way and the sky in general.

The project's mission is to continue film's "Legacy" as a medium for long exposure images of the night sky.

The sequence of photos started in October 2009 and will end at a point yet to be detemined.

Great care has been given to compose, expose, and process each image. Only the best combination of film, lenses and exposure times are used.

Each image is shot under the dark skies of my home in Maine.

My goal is to produce the finest images obtainable with film emulsions.

Legacy Astrophotography: IC1396 in Cepheus by Nightfly Photography, on Flickr

[Domis]

That is not a picture,more like a masterful piece of artwork! Congrats, and thanks for sharing a real gem.

[JohnnyD333]

Holy 40 minute exposure. Sorry, that always impresses me. Superb image!

[AndyUK]

Good grief.... This is stunning...! I find it difficult enough focusing a lens even with liveview... How on earth was it possible to focus with film?

[jsigone]

great stuff!! FOV is awesome on this target!

[MartinB]

Beautiful photo. Do you get reciprocity failure with that sort of exposure?

[Psychobilly]

Stunning

[Beyond_Vision]

Great work as usual Jim

Regards

Kevin

[ollypenrice]

Lovely stuff Jim. I'd ideally like your tiny pinpoint stars and my CCD nebulosity!! Ah well. You have a great project and this is a stunning image.

Olly

PS I too would like to know how you focus. Knife edge? However you did it you got it micron perfect...

[Coco]

Wonderful image.. More please!!

[Nightfly]

Thank you all for the positive feedback. I appreciate it.

Beautiful photo. Do you get reciprocity failure with that sort of exposure?

A common problem with film is reciprocity. Some films are bad, others very good. Kodak E200 is perhaps the best film ever for astrophotography. It is a Hydrogen-Alpha sponge! It continues to record well beyond 1 hour exposure and up to 2 hours and beyond.

Too bad it was discontinued.

[Nightfly]

Lovely stuff Jim. I'd ideally like your tiny pinpoint stars and my CCD nebulosity!! Ah well. You have a great project and this is a stunning image.

Olly

PS I too would like to know how you focus. Knife edge? However you did it you got it micron perfect...

Keep in mind that the film is 6x7 format (55mm x 70mm) so the enlargement on the monitor does not scratch the surface. Believe it or not, I set the lens (it is manual focus of course) at infinity, set the aperture and shoot. Focus is perhaps not as critical for film as for digital. The depth of field is greater as well as these lenses are mostly f/4 to begin with. This image was at f/5.6. Stopping down provided sharper images throughout the field and rids the vignetting of a wide open lens.

That being said, all the lenses I have for this system are sharp wide open at infinity.