Image request - Plough widefield showing Polaris.

[ollypenrice]

Hi All,

An old friend, Dave Price, has written a book on paddleboarding and has asked me if I might have a widefield image of the Plough which included Polaris to show his readers how to find it. I don't have such an image and it isn't within the range of the kit I normally use but I'm sure someone has a good one. There is no money involved but there will be an image credit in the book. If you'd care to help perhaps you could PM me?

Cheers,

Olly

 

[happy-kat]

I looked through the little I had but almost Plough but no Polaris.

Hopefully this bump might help.

[tooth_dr]

It is going to be clear tonight, so I will do this for you Olly if you still need it.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

I have some shots of the Plough somewhere, I'll take a look when I get home. It tends to get lost in the starfield so they probably wouldn't be suitable. It probably needs an exposure of just a few seconds to really stand out.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Hi Olly, this is the kind of thing I have, a 30 second shot with a 14mm lens (corrected with a lens profile in PS). It doesn't exactly jump off the screen so I don't think it would be up to the job, but at least it splits Alcor and Mizar. 

The plate solving is a bit off kilter as this semi-fisheye lens produces quite a bit of distortion.

Probably my most successful 'constellation' shot is this one of the head of Draco, using a 50mm lens.

It was taken on a really hazy night, so hazy that the diffraction spikes from the lens diaphragm are almost invisible. I believe some people have managed a similar effect by using a fogging filter on the front of the lens, could work well on the Plough if someone wants to give it a try.

 

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Here's another showing the Plough in a different orientation.

On 03/04/2019 at 19:42, ollypenrice said:

...the Plough which included Polaris to show his readers how to find it...

If it's for navigational purposes the fact that the Plough can appear in different orientations might throw the non-astronomer off. Although if they are kayakers I'd have thought they would only have to worry about two directions, upstream and downstream.

[tooth_dr]

Here is one I took last night for you @ollypenrice using a Nikon D800E and a Tokina 28-70mm lens at 28mm F5.6 180s exposure.

 

 

[Knight of Clear Skies]

That looks good, the right field of view and the naked-eye stars are standing out well.