I was hoping to get some northern lights shots but I doubt it will happen, no clear skies for us and the moon is going to kill what little we might see in NY.

One of these days I will see them

Oops!  Wrong thread.

It's been ideal here, of course the moon is not cooperating but that is how it works.

I managed to find the paperwork for my fifteenth anniversary "prize" and apparently I've taken too long as it no longer seems to work. I could swear it had some crappy telescope on it.

Han93081 Loading Moon by FredMan, on Flickr

It counts

What type of white balance should I be using? Sunny, cloudy, auto, etc...

Some call me crazy, but my WB is always set on auto.  If it looks off I can always change it in post.

Not crazy at all.  I almost always rely on the auto WB of my Nikons.  My other cameras, not necessarily so.

I usually stick to auto, even with the pro work I do.   Digital has allowed me to be lazy with wb.  

Sometimes I set it in camera, but its rare

House Moon Track 16mm 4 min 20170909 by FredMan, on Flickr

And here's the same shot, but with this morning's sunrise.  Same camera location.

16mm, 4-minute intervals.

Sun Moon Track 16mm 4 min by FredMan, on Flickr

@fredman

I'm loving the transits you are doing

Thanks!!

From last Thurs/Fri ...

Awesome shot

Thank you.  The actual file is cleaner than the one being displayed by the Arf server.  Not sure why the Arf file has the additional compression, and subsequent artifacts, but it does.  Odd.

While I had the D800 clicking away on Washington, I set my GoPro up for this shot.  The fog put an early end to this particular time lapse, though.

When i upload through arfcommy images get wacked, mostly with color.

That fog adds a very nice atmosphere to the shot!

Andromeda galaxy from a few weeks back, quick test of doing a LRGB image with the newer camera and some software.   This is only about an hour of data, once the humidity at night finally drops I'll be shooting this again.


Attached File


finally have 4 clear nights in a row but the humidity has been 95% every night, my scopes fog up pretty quick so no imaging until it cools off a bit

Stopped for a few minutes on my drive back from a rock climbing trip to the New River Gorge.  Not the best photo, but it gives me a better idea of what I need next time: some moonlight, more time, and a wider lens to get Polaris in the photo.  I also should look at getting down to the rocks at the river, because the bridge I was on will vibrate a lot should the odd car come along during the night.

VERY nice.  Moonlight will kill that shot, though; washing out the stars.  Plenty of ambient light for the bridge.

The moon will give better lighting and definition in the gorge.  And as long as I can keep it out of the frame and off of the front element, a sufficient number of stars will still be visible in the image.

Quick edit of last nights images of the Heart Nebula aka the Penis Nebula

Attached File


I'm not happy with the stars, but I didn't have much time this morning to work on this

New edit

This is going to have to be a mosaic, I'm cutting off more than I want to

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[mysterious post] If my calculations are correct I hope to have a pretty interesting shot for you guys later tonight [/is mysterious]

ISS related?

Thats my bet

Well the iss just passed, wheres our pic?



It went near the moon here but not close enough for an interesting pic, I did get a shot of it going in and out of the clouds

Patience, patience, catchy monkey...

OK, maybe it's not as dramatic as I made it out to be, but here is a double transit of the ISS from a fixed location.  Consecutive orbits.

What made this tricky is the angular separation from my viewing location of the two orbits, and the field of view of my lens (Tamron 11-16, at 11mm).

This page gives fields of view for various focal lengths on various sensor sizes.  In my case, with 11mm and a DX-format sensor, I get a vertical field of view of 70.7 degrees and a horizontal FOV of 93.5 degrees.  To make this shot interesting I wanted a landscape layout to get more "width" to the frame.

Consulting my handy-dandy ISS Transit app on my phone I discovered that at 7:43 pm this evening, at my location, I would have an almost vertical transit (lasting about 10 minutes), with an inclination of 74 degrees, running southwest to northeast.  Then, the next orbit would be at an inclination of 14 degrees, running west-northwest to northwest, and lasting about 90 seconds.

The first stroke of luck was that the two orbits overlapped, from a directional standpoint.  The direction of the later orbit was a subset of the compass bearing of the earlier orbit.  Next, I would need a MINIMUM of 60 degrees of vertical FOV to capture them both in the same "frame".  Luckily, the Tamron at 11mm gives me almost 71 degrees of vertical FOV, so as long as I elevated my camera angle to the proper inclination (44 degrees as it turns out) it was physically possible to make this shot.

The final stroke of luck was that we had 100% clear skies tonight.  No clouds, no masking of the orbit!

This image represents about 30 13-second exposures, stacked, then processed with PS to darken the darks, brighten the brights, sharpen things up a bit, and (I'm a little hesitant to admit) removal of about 5 aircraft light trails.  I don't usually like to remove aircraft trails but in this case I wanted to showcase the ISS path and the aircraft trails were flat out distracting.  One of them was even almost the same path as the later (lower in the frame); that one fr sure had to go.

The important thing here, to me, is that I was able to capture two consecutive orbits without moving the camera position.  That's not just a function of the standard orbital precession; it's also very much a function of the orbital inclination from my position, which is a function of my latitude and longitude as the ISS passes overhead.  For this shot to work you need to have one orbit be almost vertically overhead, otherwise the next orbit will put the ISS over your visible horizon.  That, and having a lens FOV wider that the separation between the orbits,  got me where I wanted to be.

ISS Double Transit 20170927_Short by FredMan, on Flickr

Kinda counts, right?

Thats pretty damn cool!

Of course they count, and I hate you for it

Damn I want to see those so bad, sweet shots

Of course, while I was waiting for the second orbit I kept the intervalometer running, so here's the same image with about 90 minutes of star motion added in.

ISS Double Transit 20170927_Long-2 by FredMan, on Flickr

Detail of the heart nebula

Man, you guys are just killing it.

Ciraxis, you're really getting the hang of that LRGB system. That's just so far beyond where I'm at... 

I guess I'll enter the fray.

These were taken with a Rokinon 14mm and a 6D.

The first was a single shot. ISS transit across the Milky Way.



Next up was a two shot composite, stars shot on a Star Adventurer, and the foreground lit from the setting moon. Was amazed to see Andromeda in there.



Recently picked up a 24mm f/1.4 Samyang. 

I am ~so~ jonesin' for a GEM and some longer glass. I did just get a copy of BackyardEOS. Slowly putting a system together.

Need to get out and play more often.

The next fastest lens I've got is a 100mm f/2.8 Macro. We'll see if its up to the task.

Now to figure out where to point this stuff... 

I just want schedules / weather / and the damn moon to cooperate!

Shazam!!  Nice work!

Sun Spots 20170930 by FredMan, on Flickr

Tonight's transit.  Note the meteor visible right at the midpoint.

ISS Transit 20170930 by FredMan, on Flickr

ETA pulled out the 35mm prime for this one; just nailed the entire transit with the 35 FOV.

f/3.2, 420 seconds, ISO 100.

Moon 20171001 by FredMan, on Flickr

Holy crap, Fred.  That's an amazing shot. 

Thanks!  It was actually an experiment with Continuous High, 600mm, and tripod mounted.

There's a few ISS sun and moon transits coming up and once I get myself in the right place the only way I think I have a shot is to just focus and let 'er rip (transit times on the order of 0.25 to 1.5 seconds).

I have to say I'm amazed.  I expected it to be shaky as hell.  I did leave the VR on, maybe that's the key (VR is usually off when I'm tripodding it).

BOOM!  Headshot...

aurora2 by Brandon Johnson, on Flickr


aurora by Brandon Johnson, on Flickr

Nothing special about this moon shot, other than it was done handheld.

600mm, f/9, 1/250, ISO 1000

Just before sunset; post work killed any hint of blue sky.

Moon 20171003 by FredMan, on Flickr

Probably my favorite phase of the moon to shoot, very nice shot