Love astro but RARE with our weather that we get to try. When I do have decent weather I hit the backyard where we have a permanent pillar/mount set up. This time we drove to one of the best dark sky spots we have (still horrible per out west standards). Only this evening after posting up this shot did I learn how to stack multiple images in DeepSkyStacker WITH the Sony. I've used DSS with my Canon bodies for a while but DSS kept balking at the Sony .raw's. I've sinced learned that I have to pull the raw files into Bridge and convert to DNG-then DSS will stack them.
That said this is a single 30 second capture at ISO 12,800
Sony A7Rii + Astrotech AT65-
I feel so earth bound now... anyway, it is the end of the semester, and I have some time to get to know my three new lenses. Also, I'm starting to use Capture One as my raw converter. (and enjoying it very much!)
The third image was unexpected. I didn't have a long enough lens to reach the gulls, so I used the 85. What you are seeing is a very deep crop - probably 1/10th of the original pixels.
Hmm, I had the wrong first image posted, so I've edited it to show the correct one.
MedicineMan404 wrote:
Love astro but RARE with our weather that we get to try. When I do have decent weather I hit the backyard where we have a permanent pillar/mount set up. This time we drove to one of the best dark sky spots we have (still horrible per out west standards). Only this evening after posting up this shot did I learn how to stack multiple images in DeepSkyStacker WITH the Sony. I've used DSS with my Canon bodies for a while but DSS kept balking at the Sony .raw's. I've sinced learned that I have to pull the raw files into Bridge and convert to DNG-then DSS will stack them.
That said this is a single 30 second capture at ISO 12,800
Sony A7Rii + Astrotech AT65-
Love that image - I've had good success with DSS with my A7R by exporting to tifs, but couldn't get LR converted DNGs to process at all well. I'm finding that the low-light capabilities of the camera is such that stacking is less of an issue, particularly if I turn on the long exposure noise reduction.
John when you say stacking is less of an issue I'm at the point where I might take that further and say stacking is often unnecessary. Well not quite necessary for me. I'd never claim to be an astro photographer; it's just something we get to do every now and then.
Now that I can stack I'm anxious to see how much better (if) the stacked version will be against the single sub.
That is how much faith/belief I have in the Sony sensor.
I didn't try TIFFs from LR. I think I'll keep LR at the end of the post processing. For me it's now
1. raw off card
2. into Bridge-->.dng
3. dng into DSS
4. from DSS to PScc and all the astro processing (Carboni/etc.)
5. save as TIFF, then to LR for last minute polishing.
As I type all of that I think I will love singe image astro!
Thanks for the kind words.
Would you agree that with that Batis---as sharp as it is---and the cropability of the A7rii you indeed have a super lightweight super telephoto lens!!!
ManuelLaMantia wrote:
Werner, great realization... is it light painted with a torch?
Thank's Manuel,
it is made with an off camera flash, Nissin with radio trigger.
The flash is sitting at the right pole pointing upwards.
At full daylight (a torch for light painting would not work at full daylight), mixing flash and daylight to taste via aperture (if it is too bright i sometimes use a BW Vario ND filter).
MedicineMan404 wrote:
John when you say stacking is less of an issue I'm at the point where I might take that further and say stacking is often unnecessary. Well not quite necessary for me. I'd never claim to be an astro photographer; it's just something we get to do every now and then.
Now that I can stack I'm anxious to see how much better (if) the stacked version will be against the single sub.
That is how much faith/belief I have in the Sony sensor.
I didn't try TIFFs from LR. I think I'll keep LR at the end of the post processing. For me it's now
1. raw off card
2. into Bridge-->.dng
3. dng into DSS
4. from DSS to PScc and all the astro processing (Carboni/etc.)
5. save as TIFF, then to LR for last minute polishing.
As I type all of that I think I will love singe image astro!...Show more →
Thanks for that summary - I'd previously used the A7R for astro, and found stacking a pretty essential tool, but was recently out in the back-country with a clear sky on a new moon - the couple of frames I shot at ISO 3200 with a 21mm Ultron at F/5.6 on the A7RII blew me away - like you say, that new sensor has some impressive capabilities. I'll have to try Bridge and see how I go.
Photo taken June 30, 2015 in Magic Hour about 46 minutes before Sunset, Northeast Harbor, Mount Desert Island, near Acadia National Park, Maine. Image taken with my tripod mounted A7r and my Minolta CLE MC 40mm f2 M-Rokkor lens, ISO 100, lens set to probably f11 for 1/160 second. Processed in LR6.
BW's 
