Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Landscape & Nature Photography => Topic started by: Colorado_CJ on January 04, 2019, 09:41:22 am
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Hello everyone. This might fit here, it IS nature after all and a kinda landscape, from a LONG way away ;)
I took this on New Year's Day at 3 degrees, kinda cold and hazy, but it turned out well. This is my first Andromeda using my new guide setup. Quite a bit better than my last attempt.
This is 38 images at 300 seconds each and 400 ISO for a total of 3.2 hours.
Shot using:
Stellarvue SV80 Access
EQ6-R Pro Mount
Nikon D600 (unmodified)
ZWO ASI120MC-S Guide Camera
Astromania 60mm Guide Scope
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4809/46577223371_a38c15c042_o.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2dXSrMn)Andromeda Galaxy - New Years Day (https://flic.kr/p/2dXSrMn) by Andrew Marjama (https://www.flickr.com/photos/55229792@N03/), on Flickr
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Absolutely and utterly perfect.
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Fantastic. Hard to believe this image isn’t the product of some zillion-dollar telescope on a mountain in Chile. Could you explain a little more about how it was shot? Maybe a shot of the camera setup?
Congratulations and thanks for posting.
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Excellent! A great example of what you can do with modest spec'd but high quality equipment. Not to mention experience and developed technique.
-Dave-
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Absolutely and utterly perfect.
+1.
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Great, wonderful,... If I saw more of these images (like yours) ,... I don't really need to leave the earth's surface! Thanks for posting.
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Thanks everyone.
I am pretty new to astrophotography, I've only been in it a couple months, so I have a lot to learn still.
Here's is a shot of my setup. It is all run from my laptop and once set up, is automatic.
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4829/31537496777_c2cf523d7d_o.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/Q3RV3r)Astrophotography Setup (https://flic.kr/p/Q3RV3r) by Andrew Marjama (https://www.flickr.com/photos/55229792@N03/), on Flickr
That little red circular thing is a guide camera. That camera, along with a program called PHD2, guides the mount, correcting it every second so that the mount tracks with sub-pixel accuracy. Meaning I can image for as long as I want and a pinpoint star will not move more than .5 pixels or so during a whole 4 hour imaging session. It is hard to believe the amount of precision available today for very little money.
Once I find an object I'd like to shoot for the night, I use a program called Astro Photography Tool and Selarium (a free planetarium program), to point the telescope and to control the camera.
After a session, I have around 3-4 hours of separate images, usually of around 5 minute exposures. These separate exposures I have to "Stack" in a stacking program. There is a free stacking program called "Deep Sky Stacker, but I use a program called "Astro Pixel Processor". This stacking program first analyses each image and maps out the stars, it then registers each image and finally stacks each image, aligning each star and adjusting each image for rotation.
Stacking builds detail while taking away noise. The more images you stack, the deeper, clearer and more detailed a deep sky image gets.
For example, this is a single 300 second frame from the Andromeda image above. As you can see, there isn't a whole lot there. BUT, take 30-40 of these images, run them through the stacking program, and like magic, you get a very usable image.
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4806/46656225441_0f151f2ea8_b.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2e5Rmm2)Andromeda single 300 sec frame (https://flic.kr/p/2e5Rmm2) by Andrew Marjama (https://www.flickr.com/photos/55229792@N03/), on Flickr
And here is the image you get after stacking. This is before post processing the image in Photoshop
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4902/39691072613_dfa391d97b_b.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/23tn85a)Andromeda_1-1-19_190_min stacked (https://flic.kr/p/23tn85a) by Andrew Marjama (https://www.flickr.com/photos/55229792@N03/), on Flickr
So far this astrophotography has really been addicting! Seeing these images start to pop up on the screen, running them through the stacking program and processing them is a huge amount of fun. I am blown away that I am able to capture what I am capturing. I really didn't think it would be as easy as it is, and as fun.
Cloudy nights are now my nemesis ;D
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Astonishing. Computational Photography, servomechanisms, dedication and lots of hard work. Absolutely beautiful results.
Congratulations. And thanks for the detailed "behind the scenes" info and pix. I'm sure we all look forward to more from you.
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Thanks for the descriptions. The result is stunning, and I look forward to many more images from this setup.
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Wow!! Stunning is indeed the word! Great writeup on the gear and your technique as well!!
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I'm amazed that this image could be produced with equipment that costs this little. I would have thought that it might take 10's of thousands of dollars to get this quality. Really impressive.
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Blown away it would be an understatement. And the details you're providing with such generosity make my hands itchy... :)
Congratulations!!!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Very interesting and informative post. It stirred up my interest in deep sky astrophotography, but more likely of the armchair kind. It is possible to do remote astrophotography with excellent sky conditions (little light pollution) using an expensive telescope and not having to stay up at night or face cold temperatures. Just my kind of astrophotography. There are several sites that allow you to rent time on a telescope, reserve time, submit a plan of what you want to photograph, have the plan executed automatically and then download the data and process it yourself. For example:
https://www.itelescope.net/
Has anyone ever used one of these remote astrophotography services? I am thinking about trying it myself for fun.