So, it's my first new thread here :D We had relatively clear skies last night so I grabbed my bag and headed out into the countryside to see what I could see.
These are my 3rd and 5th/6th attempts ever at a night sky so be gentle. Please do post your own awesome ones taken on m4/3 to provide inspiration.
Both taken on my Oly 50mm adapted lens wide open at 1.8 ISO 100. First is a single 4 minute exposure and the second is two 4 minute exposures merged in photoshop (just ask if you want to know the process).
'Polaris' - Just down and left of centre. I may also have knocked the camera resulting in the L-shaped stars. P1000856 by AndyBeetz, on Flickr
'Altair' - the brightest blue trail 1/4 up in the centre according to google sky map anyway P1000858 by AndyBeetz, on Flickr
One thing that surprised me straight off was the different colours of the stars. When I look at them directly or see non-trailed pictures that finer point doesn't come across very well.
Hi abeetz, great star trail pictures.
I'm from Spain and this is my second post in this forum, where I learn every day a lot of things about m4/3 system and photography. I'm glad to share my newbie experience with astrophotography, as I posted in another thread.
I made an equatorial "hand-motorized" mount and took some pictures of milky way. This is the mount:
I used a Panasonic GF1 whith Lumix 20mm 1.7 lens, and remote shutter. Pictures were taken at ISO400, f2.2 and 254" exposure, getting a centered histogram. Then adjusted levels and curves with PS.
A couple I've done so far. I'm yet to learn the characteristics of this camera on the back of my scope. It has a tendency to lean towards CA even though my Takahashi scope's optics don't introduce colour of their own. I think that focusing is absolutely critical - and even a Bahtinov mask needs to be used carefully.
chris you're showing off - the gradient/colours on the m8/20 shot looks a little off-was it under moonlight?, was the MW shot done under light pollution?
Abeetz - in you're second shot of the star trails - if you focus closer on the foreground tree & thus de-focus the stars the trails will be thicker & colour will be accentuated
Are you stacking images or just taking one 250 second image? You can stack a lot of 1 minute exposures and stack them with a program like nebulosity. I used to take astrophotos with a 4" William Optics achro and an Orion Starshoot and the much larger sensor of you 4/3 sure makes a difference! Good work!
chris you're showing off - the gradient/colours on the m8/20 shot looks a little off-was it under moonlight?, was the MW shot done under light pollution?
Showing off? LOL - Just providing a few snaps as requested. Yes, M8/M20 was shot under terrible conditions. I'm not concerned, it was only a quick test. I'll be able to do this properly next new moon.
Are you stacking images or just taking one 250 second image? You can stack a lot of 1 minute exposures and stack them with a program like nebulosity. I used to take astrophotos with a 4" William Optics achro and an Orion Starshoot and the much larger sensor of you 4/3 sure makes a difference! Good work!
Nope - just a single sub - didn't have time for any more that night. 1 minute sub exposures at ISO200 don't result in enough exposure. I usually want a mix of images taken at 5, 10, 20, 40, 60 seconds and then at least 4 or 5 minutes on objects such as M8. I stack and average these because otherwise you don't see the extended tendrils on the periphery and at the same time blow out the core. I use PixInsight if I stack images at all - or even the mean stacking algorithm in Photoshop's SmartObject feature which is also fantastic. Thanks for the kind words too :) I'm going to do a proper run weekend after next if the weather behaves.
52Thanks
Astrophotography m4/3 - what have you got?
resulting in the L-shaped stars.
