Astrophotography

[TheRealChrisBrown]

Some people use a Bahtinov Mask (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahtinov_mask) to achieve focus with telescopes. They make a mask that can fit 65-100mm lens, I wonder if it would work on camera lens?

There is also an app called BackyardEOS, or BackyardNikon which can help with focus and deep space imaging, might be the best route. People say that the masks are sensitive, so if you get great focus then move the camera you could have to re focus everything again.

 

[Walter White]

Some people use a Bahtinov Mask (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahtinov_mask) to achieve focus with telescopes. They make a mask that can fit 65-100mm lens, I wonder if it would work on camera lens?

There is also an app called BackyardEOS, or BackyardNikon which can help with focus and deep space imaging, might be the best route. People say that the masks are sensitive, so if you get great focus then move the camera you could have to re focus everything again.

Yep they sure do. Lonelyspeck.com sales them and they work great from what I have heard. The down side is that all of them I have seen for DSLRs slide into the square filter mounts that dont work on the 14mm lens I have. In fact you cant use any rear mount gels or filters with that lens due to its design unless you rig something custom.

 

[Walter White]

I have the Orion 10 inch Dobsonian that I take out quite a bit. I have a super laser collimator for mirror alignment if you ever want to get together we could spend some time collimating it. I took it to Moab last spring and the views were unreal, it was actually harder to spot things because there were so many visible stars!

Moab would be awesome wish the wife was into camping

 

[reef dummy]

I have the Orion 10 inch Dobsonian that I take out quite a bit. I have a super laser collimator for mirror alignment if you ever want to get together we could spend some time collimating it. I took it to Moab last spring and the views were unreal, it was actually harder to spot things because there were so many visible stars!

Absolutely lets get together!! I need someone with experience to show me the ropes with this thing and the laser alignment would be awesome. Dinner and drinks on me!! What area do you live in?

 

[TheRealChrisBrown]

I am up in Loveland, so it might be a bit of a trek from Aurora....but if we get a warmer night with clear skies we could totally meet up somewhere! I got a set of Bob's Knobs alignment screws for the secondary mirror and it made a world of difference. Got rid of the hex wrenches, make adjusting easier and more precise. They were like $22 and totally worth it! http://www.bobsknobs.com/Newt/Newt.html

 

[reef dummy]

I am up in Loveland, so it might be a bit of a trek from Aurora....but if we get a warmer night with clear skies we could totally meet up somewhere! I got a set of Bob's Knobs alignment screws for the secondary mirror and it made a world of difference. Got rid of the hex wrenches, make adjusting easier and more precise. They were like $22 and totally worth it! http://www.bobsknobs.com/Newt/Newt.html

had no idea there was such a thing. Thanks for the advice. Yea we'll get together when it warms up maybe head to the mountains sometime.

 

[Walter White]

My wife is friends with a surgeon that owns an old abandoned railroad turnabout called the round house in Como about 90 minutes away. Its a super cool old building in a very isolated area with very low light pollution. She says he would probably allow a small group to go up there. We could try to plan it around the next new moon or later this spring/summer.

I have been wanting to shoot some pictures up there for awhile there is also an old abandoned cemetery up there. Obviously not cool for telescopes but I imagine some star pictures with an old creepy cemetery in the foreground would be cool. Here are some pics of the place.

 

[reef dummy]

If there's not much light at night it looks like a great spot,

 

[Walter White]

If there's not much light at night it looks like a great spot,

hows this for low light pollution? Not sure you can do much better in these parts. Elevation is about 9800ft

 

[reef dummy]

I think a family overnight camping trip is in our future! Love that area, sluice for gold in FairPlay during the day and stargaze at night.

 

[SynDen]

I'd be down for some of that this spring/summer. Camping, stars and fish friends sounds like a great way to spend a night

 

[Miah2bzy]

I'd be down for some of that this spring/summer. Camping, stars and fish friends sounds like a great way to spend a night

There's some great spots in WY just north of the border for star gazing, we went one time during a meteor shower and could see individual star colors without a lense, clusters and different things with binoculars due to so far for. City lights.

 

[SynDen]

Ya used to drive up the poudre canyon toward WY to do just that

 

[Walter White]

Here are a few pics I got of an oil rig I saw while driving out to DIA to pick up my wife from the airport. Its pretty much out in the middle of an empty cornfield . Lots of light pollution despite the fairly remote area and the moon was bright. I wanted to try the 14mm 2.8 I bought for astro in less than ideal conditions just to see what I would get. I took a whole series of this rig and was pretty happy with most of what I got but these were some of my favorites. Shot at ISO:1600, 25 seconds at f2.8

The first two pics I left the white balance temp and color tint pretty balanced. the last two I tweaked the color temp and tint quite a bit for a different look.

This last one the rig started up and scared the crap out of me so I tried a couple with it in motion.

 

[SynDen]

Have seen that rig before Your pics make it look pretty sweet though and its looks to be a bronco fan lol.

Love the way the moon turned out in these shots, and quite a bit of stars in the sky despite the light poluttion.

 

[Walter White]

Haha I thought the same thing. I didn't even realize what color it was until I took the first pics. It was still pretty dark in that field. I couldn't even see the buttons on my camera despite the moon light.

This lens gets crazy flare any time you have a light source at the edges of the frame. Really kind of annoying in most cases but it kind of worked for a cool effect in the third pic.

 

[TheRealChrisBrown]

If I can only get down to f3.5, do I have a shot at pictures like this?

 

[cremer9]

How dark of a filter would it take to see the moon do you think ?I know on the long exposure the moon can be as bright as the sun

 

[Walter White]

If I can only get down to f3.5, do I have a shot at pictures like this?

Ideally you want as wide open of an aperture as possible. 2.8 or lower but you can still get good pics at f4 all the way up to f8 but to go that high you really need an extremely high low light sensitivity camera like a Sony A7s.

Whether or not you have a chance with f3.5 will depend on some other factors.
What is the widest your lens will go?
Does your camera have a full frame or a cropped sensor?
What camera body do you have?

If you can tell me those things I can show you how to calculate the exposure time and this will tell us what kind of shot you can get with that lens.

 

[Walter White]

How dark of a filter would it take to see the moon do you think ?I know on the long exposure the moon can be as bright as the sun

Hmm you mean so the moon looks normal and not like a ball of fire? What kind of filter do you mean like a Nuetral Density (ND )filter?

If this is what you mean that is a good question. I have not tried that. Im no expert of course but I think if you are just shooting the moon you dont need a filter at all, but you do want a powerful telephoto lens.

If you mean getting the moon to look normal while still getting the stars and everything else to look bright im not sure a filter would work for that as the moon would look normal but everything else would pretty much be black. The only way I personally would know how to do it is by taking two seperate exposures then using a layermask in photoshop to paint in the moon from the shorer exposure. Perhaps SynDen might know better.