Archive 2017 · Astro and Scenic

another_mikey
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Astro and Scenic

Been a while since I have posted, but decided I wanted to get some feedback on an image, so here it is.

Was down at some of the darkest skies in the continental USA in May for an astrophotography trip. The trip was great, with the weather cooperating nicely for the week we were there.

I realize this is the landscape forum, but just to give some context on why one would drive over 15 hours to get to such a desolate place as this, I am also including one of my astro images, showing what really dark skies can do for contrast and colors. Many others with better shots than this one, but you get the idea:

Rho Ophiuci Cloud Complex (from a stack of images shot with cooled CMOS astro camera)
http://www.thinairphotography.com/img/s3/v44/p2376839301-6.jpg

The reason for posting though is this sunset 'close-up' shot I took one of the last nights we were there, as we prepared to stay up all night imaging. I borrowed a 70-200 f/4 L from a friend (I was afraid to run back inside to mount my 70-300 f/4-5.6 L IS and miss the light) and I remembered how much I liked the IS version of this lens when I owned it previously. The high dynamic range of the scene had me missing the blurry foreground foliage during the rush of framing and shooting the fleeting light, but after looking at versions with it completely cropped out I decided I liked the framing it gave to the bottom of the scene. Critiques though as always very welcome.

Late Day Desert Display
http://www.thinairphotography.com/img/s6/v149/p2448095454-6.jpg

ML

Aug 09, 2017 at 07:34 PM

psharvic
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Astro and Scenic

Neat shots, Mike. Love to see the best ones.

Aug 09, 2017 at 08:54 PM

junglialoh
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Astro and Scenic

wonderful images for two different contrast world each of which display its own beauty in spectacular scale

Aug 10, 2017 at 05:30 AM

xterra07
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Astro and Scenic

Astro shot looks great. Can you give more details about gear, technique, processing?

Aug 10, 2017 at 12:17 PM

another_mikey
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Astro and Scenic

xterra07,

Astro image was taken with a dedicated astro camera, the first one I have started using after imaging with a modified DSLR prior to that. The dedicated camera brings the advantages of setpoint cooling (to reduce noise) and a monochrome sensor, which paradoxically gives better results for color images when used with filters, than a typical Bayer filtered one shot color sensor. Many dedicated astro cameras still use CCD sensors, but this one is one of the first to use a CMOS sensor.

Beyond that, the critical item is an accurate and reliable tracking mount. Finally, the telescope here is my Canon L zoom, which has some issues with coma (stars are very demanding even for high end camera lenses) but in general did a decent job on this image.

Further gear details here (you must scroll the caption):
Image on my Zenfolio site

Details perhaps easier to discern here (click on image brings up larger version):
Image on Astrobin site

Hope that helps. Feel free to drop me a PM if you want to chat more, and thanks for your interest!

ML

Aug 15, 2017 at 10:04 AM


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