My First Pics too!

cloud_cover · Post by **cloud_cover** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 5:05 pm

Never done Astrophotos before, but the stars in NZ were so gorgeous I just had to try

1. Milky Way and Trees
(Gary, this is the one you asked me to post

)
Taken close to midnight standing in the driveway of our farmstay.
D700 ISO 3200, Tamron lens @ 17mm, f2.8, Exp 62s
Copyrighted due to an agreement I made with the (farm) property owner.

2. Moon
Taken when I got back from NZ from my window
D700, ISO 400, 400mm at f/11, Exp 1/1000s

Qing Duo Duo Zhi Jiao!

Gary · Post by **Gary** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 5:24 pm

Very nice! Thanks for sharing.

bharat · Post by **bharat** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 5:39 pm

Wow! Looks nice, especially the moon picture is very clear.

Chris · Post by **Chris** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 5:39 pm

Nice pictures! To enhance the moon (bring out craters and stuff), use unsharp mask in photoshop.

The milkyway star trails are visible because your 30sec exposure is too long. You could have taken multiple 20sec exposures and then stacking them using DSS (Deep sky stacker). You can refer to Barry's post on the tutorial on how to use DSS, or visit his site here: www.asignobservatory.com

mch3898 · Post by **mch3898** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 5:48 pm

Wow, how nice if we can get this kind of sky in Singapore. Your framing of the milky way with the trees is artistic. Wide-field AP has that special appeal. Well done.

guangwei · Post by **guangwei** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 6:50 pm

very nice milky way picture, i love the farm, it reminds me of childhood fairytales

superiorstream · Post by **superiorstream** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 7:25 pm

Hi,cloud-cover
You mention you are in New Zealand?That place sky real nice but now its almost winter there and outside temp. should be 5 degree C or less at night(if south island may even be 0 C).Mount your camera on tripod and just shot--1/2 sec,1 sec,iso 3200,iso 1600 combinations etc.All will come out nice if the sky is clear and cloudless;but do wear glove and remember to protect even your ears.The cold wind freeze everything!!I shot there before at 5 C throughout the night and by morning my hand and ears are almost frozen--but really enjoy it!!!;especially when the photo shows up.

Clifford60 · Post by **Clifford60** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 8:50 pm

Very nice

cloud_cover · Post by **cloud_cover** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 11:48 pm

Thanks for all the comments and compliments

Superiorstream: These were taken in April, just never published or shared, until now

(Also never decided to learn astronomy properly until a few days ago!)
Chris: You're right, and I wished I knew about stacking when I went to NZ. I'm into photography but not astrophoto (and I don't really like HDR) so the only technique I knew about was long exposure and prayer ;) Figured with a 17mm it would take at least a min before star trails became evident, particularly if I didn't publish at 1:1 resolution
croys: You're right, that's mostly coma aberration and linear distortion although some trailing is visible. Using a Tamron 17-35mm f2.8-4, decent for daytime photos but not a particularly premium lens hence the distortion. Made worse by me using it wide open, in order to balance ISO and exposure time. Also costs 1/8th of the premium nikon lens.......
Unfortunately a few paces to the left was a telephone pole. Sigh! It was an experience in near absolute darkness trying to look through the viewfinder while waving a high powered LED torch around the FOV to see if any telephone wire reflections were present.