Back to Basics

Well, Canon Photo5 is over for another year, at least as far as my images are concerned. If you're interested, you can see how my shots look, click here, to see me being punched in the face (my powder entry), and browse my other entries if you have a mind to. So now the wait for November 9 begins, which is when the Judges announce their decision and open the briefs for voting.

In location news, Bill and myself went out yesterday, searching for somewhere dark, and high. Upshot is we think we found somewhere. The top of Conical Peak Road is at this stage, looking very good for our new favorite photo and observation spot. Also we're hoping that our attempts to attract like-minded people to join us up there is successful.

Also, I have discovered a new photo site for uploading of cool things.  Wander on over to Pixoto and take a look at things there.  My stuff can usually be found int he Astronomy section :D

Vanilla Skies

I been shooting! See?

Scorpions

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

Long Exposure ...

ok, before the clouds closed right in tonight :(  I had some small success! :)

Here's the best results .. after some Photoshopping of course.

I started here:

Which was me, forgetting I had left the camera set to 3200 ISO! One of those happy mistakes!  Look at all them stars!!  Everything is yellow due to the sodium streetlamps of course - next time I do this, it's backyard for me!  206 seconds (3:26) at f/4.0, ISO 3200.  Then I moved onto this:

Which actually caught a bit of the milky way there! (top left cnr)  This one is 219s (3:39) at f/4.0 and ISO 400.  So then of course battery went flat, so went inside for charging, came back out and just as it was clouding over, got these:

123s (2:03) at f4/5, ISO 400

163s (2:43) at f4/5, ISO 400

So I have so far stabilised the mount, and got a minute of metronome clicking (60bpm) for my mp3 player, so I have a stable mount and WAY more accurate timing .. however I do end up outside for hours, in the cold, listening to clicks :)

According to the met service, we are facing rain until thursday next week :(  But I live in hope!

All in all a good night!  :)

Clear Skies tonight

Have recharged the camera battery 2x so far, and have trusty Ixus on car doing timelapse of milky way as we speak.  Lenses keep fogging up - I think it's lack of dew shield on camera.

But so clear, so beautiful.  Milky way is very visible, Coal Sack stands out well, now if I could only get everything working right .. grrrrrrrr

Will post anything good I get.

AAaaaaaand it's a bust on the long exposures :(  Lenses fog up fast and my mount is just too wobbly - re-engineer tomorrow methinks, for stability, especially around the screw mounting.  Never give up :)

Timelapse is still going, so won't know how that looks for a little while .. hope it's good.

Here's the best of the shots.

82 seconds at f 4.0, 75mm lens. When I am using the 75mm (18mm fogged up FAST) I have to turn the mounting 17 degrees every 3.5 seconds, so yeah .. I'm not too unhappy with this one, some wobbling and trailing ...

Ok, timelapse came out pretty naff ... I have to learn that the tiny CCD in the IXUS is not going to do the biz for high-iso stuffs ... *sigh* oh well, bed, then more ideas tomorrow ...

dSLRtrails .. the first go

Here's the first results from using the SLR for some startrails, on bulb setting, with new remote ...

Started off at 12 minutes ...

Then bit the bullet and went to 97 minutes .. during which, my flatmate came home in her car ... so this one is quite heavily treated in PS to pull out the details ...

Just for the comparison ....

Here's another shot of the moon, this time taken with the 20D using Bill's long lens (300mm Zoom) it's for comparison to the other moon shots I posted this morning.

So that makes it 1/4 the focal length of the telescope .. even though that is kinda generous, because I use the IXUS 3x optical for the scope, and don't have the knowledge of optics to work out what that does to the focal length.

This hiatus has really shown me that I need some things to take this hobby further ... Scotch Mount for a start, then motor, then the rest ... there's even a very nice new point and shoot out from Canon that looks like to be perfect for the afocal stuff.

So the equation goes like this.  I love the stars. I want to take pics of them and all manner of other celestial things. For this I need Gear. For Gear I need Money. For Money I need a Job.  For Job I need a Showreel.  For Showreel I need time.

*sigh*

Stars Over Snells Beach

Stars Over Snells Beach
Originally uploaded by chickinthepark1

Went out to test the 20D tonight, was an awesomely clear night but I had power problems with the camera, which kinda sucked. The laptop worked fine, but I only got 25 shots in before the camera died. So this is the best of those.

30second exposure, Apeture f/3.5, ISO 400