Star Photography

[gary71]

Sorry! I should have explained

[DannyScene]

gary71 said:

Sorry! I should have explained

I think its obvious to everyone mate I'm just quite slow

[STIfree]

Anyone tell me what the little cluster of stars are about an inch up and a inch an a half to the left of the Impreza on the picture? Seen it with my bare eyes on the night but thought it was a little cloud.

[DannyScene]

STIfree said:

Anyone tell me what the little cluster of stars are about an inch up and a inch an a half to the left of the Impreza on the picture? Seen it with my bare eyes on the night but thought it was a little cloud.

genesisfound3 by dannyscene, on Flickr

[Gemm]

Isn't the car a bit squashed??

[STIfree]

Gemm said:

Isn't the car a bit squashed??

Its a bit deformed as I was shooting at 8mm

[nellyleelephant]

STIfree said:

Anyone tell me what the little cluster of stars are about an inch up and a inch an a half to the left of the Impreza on the picture? Seen it with my bare eyes on the night but thought it was a little cloud.

Looks like the Pleiades (or Seven Sisters) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades

[Harry Flashman]

DannyScene said:

gary71 said:

North to South by Suggs, on Flickr

fking hell!

Echoed - an amazing piece of work! Mind sharing your technique for taking and then blending multiple images? It's something that I would like to try...

[DannyScene]

Harry Flashman said:

DannyScene said:

gary71 said:

North to South by Suggs, on Flickr

fking hell!

Echoed - an amazing piece of work! Mind sharing your technique for taking and then blending multiple images? It's something that I would like to try...

ooo +1 for that

I regularly see people saying 'stacked images' etc no idea how you go about it though

[gary71]

DannyScene said:

Harry Flashman said:

Echoed - an amazing piece of work! Mind sharing your technique for taking and then blending multiple images? It's something that I would like to try...

ooo +1 for that

I regularly see people saying 'stacked images' etc no idea how you go about it though

Thanks for the compliments!

I took all the shots at the same settings (f2.0 35mm ISO2500 20sec) on manual. Shot in RAW to enable as much freedom to muck around with them later as possible!

My tripod has a three way head so I ensured it was positioned so the camera could go from one horizon to the other (ending up upside down) moving it in one axis whilst keeping the milky way (roughly!) in the centre of the frame.

I use Lightroom so I picked one photo and adjusted it until the sky was actually black and it looked something like one would expect a milky way shot to look! White balance ended up at 3800K for reference. Then I syncronised settings on the rest of the set.

The composite part was done in Photoshop CS5 using the 'photomerge' function which is a complete cheat but gives some outstanding results! I asked it to blend 16 RAW files so it gave the elderly processor in my macbook something to do for about 40 minutes

I did try it manually first but gave up after an hour or so...

The result was a jagged edged picture that was distorted so some further straightening, bending and fiddling got it somewhere close and I used the wonderful 'content aware' fill function to add to the sides until I could get a decent crop out of it.

To give the Milky Way a little more 'pop' I created a second layer with just central area and overlayed it with the properties set to 'lighten' then selectively deleted it to bring out the details.

So really using the software is the way forward

[Harry Flashman]

Milky way over Sussex Observatory...


DSC_0766.jpg by baconrashers, on Flickr



DSC_0765.jpg by baconrashers, on Flickr


Perseid through observatory


DSC_0773.jpg by baconrashers, on Flickr

Edited by Harry Flashman on Friday 16th August 21:48

[DibblyDobbler]

Very nice Harry!

Not certain about the composition but you've captured the stars very well

[Harry Flashman]

Agreed DD - composition is way off, but this was my first attempt at shooting the Milky Way, so was all about the stars! Now getting technique there, won't make mistakes on the compo next time (hopefully)!

[the-photographer]

Lazy I know, but here is my attempt;

f1.4 ISO640 15 seconds, in other pictures, I didn't get any meteors just a few satellites.

[the-photographer]

gary71 said:

Echoed - an amazing piece of work! Mind sharing your technique for taking and then blending multiple images? It's something that I would like to try...

ooo +1 for that

I regularly see people saying 'stacked images' etc no idea how you go about it though

Does Microsoft ICE work with dark images?

[baz7175]

Harry Flashman said:

Agreed DD - composition is way off, but this was my first attempt at shooting the Milky Way, so was all about the stars! Now getting technique there, won't make mistakes on the compo next time (hopefully)!

I actually really, really like the first one, it has a real "other world" feel to it at such an angle

[nellyleelephant]

baz7175 said:

I actually really, really like the first one, it has a real "other world" feel to it at such an angle

Third one for me! Slightly off topic, but do you know what the telescope is?

[baz7175]

nellyleelephant said:

Third one for me! Slightly off topic, but do you know what the telescope is?

Straight off the observatory website (http://www.the-observatory.org/telescopes) -

Telescopes

The six green domes of The Observatory Science Centre, conveniently named Domes A - F, all house historic telescopes, three of which are open to the public during the day. On Open Evenings and Themed Evenings two of the telescopes closed to the public during the day are opened and weather permitting, will be available to look through (see below for further details).

Each dome houses a different telescope:

Dome A - The 30-inch Thompson Relector
Dome B - The 36-inch Yapp Reflector
Dome C - The Hewitt Camera
Dome D - The 13-inch Astrographic Refractor
Dome E - The 26-inch Thompson Refractor
Dome F - The Congo Scmidt and The Domes of Discovery Exhibition

[gary71]

the-photographer said:

gary71 said:

Echoed - an amazing piece of work! Mind sharing your technique for taking and then blending multiple images? It's something that I would like to try...

DannyScene said:

ooo +1 for that

I regularly see people saying 'stacked images' etc no idea how you go about it though

Does Microsoft ICE work with dark images?

Not heard of Microsoft ICE. For star trails I use Photoshop and add each image as a new layer with properties set to 'lighten' then flatten the image and paste in the next etc. I have recorded a little script that does it so I don't have to manually do it 300 times

[nellyleelephant]

baz7175 said:

Straight off the observatory website (http://www.the-observatory.org/telescopes) -

Thanks, next time I should be less lazy!

Interesting equipment, probably worth a visit!