Widefield Jupiter and Venus, and a star trails of the same image

[sanmatt]

Out with Melsky last night March 14th at Rushy Common, Witney, Oxon.

I haven't yet processed them in PS -purely because I don't know what I'm doing.

I left in the car lights and the planes because I rather like the effect. Though I may restack and remove the planes. The other 3 are single 30s exposures.

Still a noob here so I know they are suppposed to look a lot better than they do, but really I quite like them.

[alex1978]

those are stunning! This is a potentially stupid question, but how do you achieve the star trails? A very long exposure?

[mfrissen]

Nice shots! Which focal length and aperture? @alex1978 - yeah, that's the general idea, a longer exposure time

[sanmatt]

those are stunning! This is a potentially stupid question, but how do you achieve the star trails? A very long exposure?

Thank you Alex. I like them but technically they are quite shabby.

For the star trails I did a series of 30 second exposures. And then use startrails.exe which stacks them one on top of the other. And the resulting image is a trail. I think there were 120 images in total.

Ps, the only stupid question is that one that goes unasked

[sanmatt]

Nice shots! Which focal length and aperture? @alex1978 - yeah, that's the general idea, a longer exposure time

Thanks

The 1st/2nd one is IS1600, f3.5.

The 3rd was at ISO800, f3.5.

[alex1978]

Thank you Alex. I like them but technically they are quite shabby.

For the star trails I did a series of 30 second exposures. And then use startrails.exe which stacks them one on top of the other. And the resulting image is a trail. I think there were 120 images in total.

Ps, the only stupid question is that one that goes unasked

Brill! That answers that. Makes sense, I had the idea that it was one very long exposure but of course, with any light pollution, the whole image would eventually become too bright. Stacking - great! Thank you

[melsky]

Excellent, I think you've processed these very well and made some beautiful images, you should be delighted with them. Did you manage to get a look at Saturn later?

Mel

[sanmatt]

Thanks Mel yeah I like them, I like the orange glow it's a bit atmospheric! Is that wrong haha

None of them have been tweeked yet, they are as they are.

I have stacked then in DSS (finally, after Alexander switched off the plug TWICE), and the resulting imaging is scarily bad, I dont know what to do with it).

The scope was still outside so I did go out to look at Saturn but she was too far down behind the houses to be able to see.

[Rob L]

I like the trails, I keep meaning to have a go myself.

This is quite a good tutorial on DSS to get you started My Quick DeepSkyStacker Tutorial Flintstone Stargazing

[sanmatt]

Thanks Rob, I'll have a look at that

[bm1980]

Nice images, well done

Regards

Ben

[sanmatt]

Thank you Ben