20 plus 40 is 60 ...

Took the new Camera out for a blatt tonight, to the satellite farm just out of WW.  Liking it so far, have to keep away from the stupidly High ISOs tho ...

More on this as it develops .. meanwhile, 2 shots up on teh Flickr

Half a Century ...

As I sit here editing tonights images, midnight rolls over and we have been a space-faring species for 50 years.  What a thought.  What a stunning, sobering and amazing thought ...

Yuri Gagarin flew only one space mission. On April 12, 1961 he became the first human to orbit Earth. Gagarin's spacecraft, Vostok 1, circled Earth at a speed of 27,400 kilometers per hour. The flight lasted 108 minutes. At the highest point, Gagarin was about 327 kilometers above Earth.

Colonel Yuri Gagarin died on March 27, 1968 when the MiG-15 he was piloting crashed near Moscow. At the time of his death, Yuri Gagarin was in training for a second space mission.

So tonight I went on out to try some tests on stacking, with limited success.  Shooting at 400 ISO, I seem to lose a lot of detail, so much so that a 97-image stack isn't bringing up any of the milky way around Crux (my target for tonight).  However 800 ISO is giving some promising results, still a little noisier than I would like, but a step in the right direction - 13 images.

I found a nice place to shoot however, nice and dark, although the moon was washing out my shots like crazy business, it's looking like I might be back on moon shots for a while now.

So that's it for the 50th anniversary.  I don't really have the right words to express just how cool I think that is, I know that humans are out of space for now, until it gets commercial anyways, but still, as Yuri lifted off 50 years ago, our species took a step towards its maturity, a step away from the cradle of humanity.

The Stars, Kiwiana and gfkBill strikes a pose

What an awesome night last night.  Leigh/Pakiri was DARK! Not to mention Auckland on the horizon, and all-round awesome views!  1200mm team was out in force .. IE Bill and I went a-shooting.  And without further ado, here's what we got :)

In the first one, Bill strikes a pose as the Milky Way revolves behind him, and in the second the LMC hovers over Rangitoto and the rest of the landscape.

 

Then there's the Southern Cross over the Punga trees - I mean what could be more Kiwi?!? And finally, my fav shot of the night, I love the combination of the man made and the Milky Way.  There were of course some more, which you will see as soon as I do some more post on them.  Speaking of Post .. 3200ISO shots are very nice, but getting the noise out of them isn't.

HUGE thanks to gfkBill for the night.  Check his Flickr stream for his pics as they come up!

The plan? The plan is victory!

Just come back from the moonrise on Martins Bay .. and yes, the plan was victory!  usual focus issues, star trail issues and almost losing my glasses, not to mention the tide chasing me up the beach ... but DAMN it was worth it ....

Here's a taster, more to come!

Check out Antares!

w00t!  Watch this space!

Landing at Scotts

Further in the quest to shoot awesome star shots ... and good looking photos in general

Scorpions

About to go out and try to get some long exposures of Scorpio.  Results as they come to hand :D