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There hasn't been a single good night for me to get shots yet, and now the dumb moon is out. I guess I'm not missing very much from ISON, which is good but also somewhat sad.

Lucas wrote: I guess I'm not missing very much from ISON, which is good but also somewhat sad.

Well, you ought to have much better luck than me. If it even shows up faintly in a shot from LA, it should be much brighter in most of the rest of the country.

So here was a lucky shot. A very faint satellite crossed the frame in one of my M22 shots:

Well you need to do me a favor and get rid of this interminable overcast! It's driving me NUTS!

Look at south westish Wyoming here:



That's what I have. Just this monotone, dull grey throughout the day and at night it's no better.

Lucas wrote:Well you need to do me a favor and get rid of this interminable overcast! It's driving me NUTS!

I hear you - I'm fighting clouds here too. May give it another go tomorrow morning, now that I know better where I should be aiming.

Couple handy pages for finding the comet:

http://media.skyandtelescope.com/docume ... ateNov.pdf

http://www.mikesastrophotos.com/comets/ ... mber-2013/

Andromeda Galaxy shot last night. I thought the sky was going to be clearer than it turned out. But on the plus side, I'm getting better at shooting these shots through my 300; I was able to use all 14 exposures I shot to stack this one:



Faint satellite visible just above the cellphone tower:

I downloaded DeepSkyStacker last night, and did a new edit of my Andromeda Galaxy shots using it. It works great for aligning and stacking. Editing in it is a slow process - it's quicker to save the file and open it in PS. But I was able to show a bit more detail using DSS than I could using PS (that's probably a user limitation rather than a software limitation).

Anyway, I didn't realize how large the galaxy actually is - you can see the faint disc extending across much of the frame, top-to-bottom. My first clue to that was the two dark diagonal lines above the center - I thought they were a camera artifact at first. But they showed up in both my stacked images, using different frames. So I looked at photos of Andromeda, and they're actually a couple of dust "lanes" in the galactic disc that are faintly visible:

Incredible, Vik! I am resolved to go out tonight and just goof off. Nothing especially serious, but trying a few different things, as long as it stays clear like it is now.

I'm thinking I'll do:
-"short" exposures non-stacked.
-stacked exposures non-trail.
-stacked trails.

I am not going to try any deep-sky shots this time, though. I fully expect these "puttering about" shots to suck, but we'll see what happens.

My first Milky Way attempt. How do I edit this turd? I have it in RAW of course, and about 25 others that have a shot of being worth touching and are similar:

This one is a little better. Can you spot M31?

Man, I'm jealous. Great shots, especially the 2nd one!

With your clear skies, you shouldn't need to put in nearly as much editing time as I do ( ). Not much editing required at all, I'd say.

What focal length and exposure?

vikkyvik wrote:Man, I'm jealous. Great shots, especially the 2nd one!

With your clear skies, you shouldn't need to put in nearly as much editing time as I do ( ). Not much editing required at all, I'd say.

What focal length and exposure?

Vik, I just managed to find the Triangulum Galaxy when combing through this thing full-sized, too (link on deviantart).

Focal length for this was 18mm (using the standard 18-55), 31 seconds at ISO 3200 and f3.5. It's actually three RAW shots merged together. The editing was incredibly simple and I didn't have to do much other than a couple of curves and some noise reduction. I'd say that I could edit it again in about 4-5 minutes for all three, and once I get used to what I'm doing, it'll be easier.

Since I didn't know what I was doing, I just kind of messed around for a bit using your tips. Turns out that I didn't need to stack any of the shots. Sadly, last night was actually a lot more humid than usual, so the light pollution really stands out.

I think I could do better with a faster lens and a better camera (I only have a T1i since my 20D broke), but for now I'll just tinker.

I also got some HIDEOUS shots of Andromeda and another one.

Lucas wrote:. It's actually three RAW shots merged together.

Merged, as in a vertical panorama? Or overlaid somehow?

Lucas wrote:Vik, I just managed to find the Triangulum Galaxy when combing through this thing full-sized, too (link on deviantart).

Wouldn't surprise me - should be bright enough to pick up with your skies over there.

Do you have a link to the full-size image? Would be awesome to look through it.

Vertical panorama. I was sitting in my car and would reach out the window to move the tripod, since it was so cold that my remote release kept dying unless I stuffed it in my glove with a hand warmer. Seriously, my phone went from 80% charge to 20% in 5 minutes from the temperature.

Let me know if this link works, though the quality is a little worse after the upload:

http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/331/6/f/messier_31_by_halcyon1990-d6vuox3.jpg

Two people have asked me what that star/planet is at the bottom, so now I need to figure that out.

Lucas wrote:Two people have asked me what that star/planet is at the bottom, so now I need to figure that out.

That would be Vega. Surprisingly bright for how low on the horizon it is, but hey, it's a bright star (magnitude 0).

Can definitely see Triangulum pretty well, as well as a number of other deep-sky objects. Very cool!

I tried DeepSkyStacker on the shots of Andromeda that I took back in February. Obviously, I'm missing something (aside from a clear sky) with how to combine and edit these shots (way too much noise for my liking), but hey, I'll get there:



May go shoot some more tonight, if it's somewhat clear.

I will post my "shots" of Andromeda and the Orion Neb sometime later. They really don't qualify as pictures, as I was only experimenting to see if I really could aim at the right part of the sky with them. Maybe one day I'll get something a tenth as nice as yours!

What focal length are you using for your shots of Andromeda? Also, have you gotten a very clear shot of the Orion Neb? I would be interested in that.

Also, I can't even imagine what you'd be able to do with the sort of sky we have out here. There is so much less atmospheric particulate in the way, and far less light pollution.

Lucas wrote: Also, have you gotten a very clear shot of the Orion Neb? I would be interested in that.

Isn't the Orion Nebula that...heh...sorry...thingy hanging below the belt? ALmost like his sheath for a sword or something like that?

I know...the resident NAS astronomists are cringing at my post but...what can a fluffy do?

These pictures, coupled with just stargazing...makes man and his accomplishments seem awfully small and irrelevant. Why we aren't pushing to get off this rock and travel amongst the heavens is beyond me.

Oh you bad, GROSS Fluffy! YUCK YUCK YUCK!

And I sympathize. I guess this is why they gave us ST:TNG.

I'm thinking about buying a Nikon D5200 since I no longer have any lens investment with Canon. Not sure if I should do it...

GQfluffy wrote:Isn't the Orion Nebula that...heh...sorry...thingy hanging below the belt? ALmost like his sheath for a sword or something like that?

I know...the resident NAS astronomists are cringing at my post but...what can a fluffy do?

No cringing here, considering that's pretty much exactly what it is (bad puns notwithstanding).

Lucas wrote:What focal length are you using for your shots of Andromeda?

Pretty much all my shots of a single deep-sky object are with my 300. Then they're usually cropped in some beyond that.

Lucas wrote:Also, have you gotten a very clear shot of the Orion Neb? I would be interested in that.

Nothing spectacular, but not bad for equipment and location (I believe these are both single exposures - nothing fancy beyond careful levels adjustments):

Gorgeous, though. I just ordered a 60D...we'll see if I regret it. I'll leave the T1i for the family here. I guess the 60D should be a little step up.

Ok, so here were my proving shots. Have a chuckle, I know.

Lucas wrote:I just ordered a 60D...we'll see if I regret it.

Ahh, congrats! The 60D was one of the cameras I was looking at when I purchased my 50D. There were a couple things that were different about the 60D that I didn't quite like (aside from price). One was that they removed the micro-focus adjustment feature. Can't specifically remember what else. But I'm sure you'll do well with it. The electronic level ought to be useful for tripod shots (if your tripod doesn't have a level, which mine doesn't).

Lucas wrote:Ok, so here were my proving shots. Have a chuckle, I know.

You have larger versions of those? Or is that the full size?

Shots from last night. I've been wanting to do a star trail around the Pole Star with the cellphone tower. Finally did it last night. Pretty happy with it, except I wish I'd done it for longer than an hour:



And some Milky Way visible in between the Summer Triangle (stars Altair, Vega, and Deneb). 14 images stacked in DeepSkyStacker:

I actually like this edit of the Milky Way better (done through PS, rather than DSS). Not sure why DSS tends to remove all the color:

vikkyvik wrote:
Ahh, congrats! The 60D was one of the cameras I was looking at when I purchased my 50D. There were a couple things that were different about the 60D that I didn't quite like (aside from price). One was that they removed the micro-focus adjustment feature. Can't specifically remember what else. But I'm sure you'll do well with it. The electronic level ought to be useful for tripod shots (if your tripod doesn't have a level, which mine doesn't).

You have larger versions of those? Or is that the full size?

Shots from last night. I've been wanting to do a star trail around the Pole Star with the cellphone tower. Finally did it last night. Pretty happy with it, except I wish I'd done it for longer than an hour:

And some Milky Way visible in between the Summer Triangle (stars Altair, Vega, and Deneb). 14 images stacked in DeepSkyStacker:

When I was first looking at upgrading, I remember thinking the 60D wasn't much of an upgrade from the 50D, and I wanted a 7D instead. I got the 60D because 400-something for a brand new one was a good deal, and the T4i was about the same price. I'm worried about the apparently poopy "weather sealing" or lack thereof.

I do have a bigger shot, and I'm not sure why this one came out so small, but trust me, bigger is worse. I still have to process a few of them, so I'll try to do that soon.

What setting are you using for those star trails? Are you just doing a shot every 30 seconds and then stacking them, or are you letting them actually trail in each shot first? It seems like you'd need more patience for the trails. My problem is the cold. The batteries out here just die so fast. I kind of wish I had a cable release instead of a remote.

The black and white is actually kind of cool. I might have to experiment with color variations. My shots (as you saw) have been coming out kind of blue, whereas most are brown and/or purple. I think I'll have to learn what I'm doing in PS a little bit more to correct it.