stars Jupiter Sky & Star Shots

[mark117h]

Hi guys/everyone.

Well viewing has not been great over my area lately so i took to my camera to see if i could get some shots in of Jupiter with the stars around it, i shot these images with my NIKON D5300 and the standard kit lens of 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 DX, i was getting bored and have been wanting to try and do the milky way shots that you see everyday and look truly great, although i was not aiming for the milky way, what i was trying to use as my center point was Jupiter, i was quite amazed at how many stars i was picking up considering the great street light of heavensvile lol slap bang outside my window, anyway my shots are below if anybody is interested in taking a look and offering some advice.

Also forgot to mention that some of the shots was taken with my Tamron 70-200mm lens, but most was shot with the 55mm kit lens i got with the camera.

Cheers Mark.

[Bruce Leeroy]

Lovely wide field shots, I downloaded 1 image and had a play with it..I opened the image in Gimp (paint program) and stacked it ontop of itself a few times to bring out the faint and sometimes hidden stars. It gained some noise in the process. Your focus seemed spot on btw.

[orion25]

I also love wide, expansive shots of the sky. Nice shots, Mark and great work with the processing, Bruce. The moons of Jupiter really pop out! A motorized mount will allow you to take longer exposures and reveal more stars (and other celestial objects,too).  Here's one of my favorite shots of the Orion Nebula using a Nikon D50 with a 70-200mm zoom lens at max, piggybacked on a motorized EQ mount. A single 13 second exposure at f/5.6:

Keep shooting! 

Reggie

[mark117h]

Hi Bruce Leeroy & orion25,

I like what you did with gimp Bruce in bringing out more stars there mate, to be honest i was buzzing that much and by the time i had done it was getting on pretty late and getting cold so i had to leave it about 1 in the morning due to cold and our lass being freezing also i started to have the dreaded grey blanket cloud start to come over us so i just uploaded what i quickly scanned and converted to jpg so i could upload them i understand what you are saying with bringing out some more stars and detail i have a few of the programs that i have learned from here are the best for the job i have registax, sharpcap, starstax, and deepskystacker

And orion25 really loving the image of the Orion nebula, i have 3 lens's altogether and will definatly be trying out your recommendation of using the 200mm, i have my basic 18-55mm NIKON lens and my Tamron is a 18-200mm and my final lens is a Sigma 70-300mm, i love all 3 to be honest although i am still learning about lens's and Astrophotography in general although i must admit that i have always been fascinated with the stars and space and what could be out there in the big ole grand cosmos lol

Cheers and thank you for the tips guys hopefully being well tonight and weather as usual depending hopefully i will be able to try the 200mm out and see what i can do with it, i should be able to piggyback it on top of my Meade Polaris 130MD 5" telescope, hopefully once i have saved up enough money i will be able to get a nice 8-10 inch scope again cheers

Mark.