Post Your Comet Pictures
- Thread starter East Wind Photography
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East Wind Photography said:
Thanks for that.
I'll be shooting tethered and / or chimping on the rear LCD...but remind me...what's that rule of thumb again for star trails and focal length v shutter speed...?
One thing I've been meaning to try out, and was going to try out tonight with Andromeda regardless, was using stacking to do some deep-ish sky stuff without a tracking mount for the tripod. The idea is to go ahead and shoot up to 25,600 ISO if need be to get the non-trailed exposure, but shoot a whole hell of a lot of frames, align them in Photoshop, and use the average blend mode to get rid of the noise. And then track the object manually. So, yes, I'll be cropping a fair amount around the edges because I'm not going to be perfect at tracking, but that's okay. I might even make use of that, and leave the edges ragged for artistic effect....
Cheers,
b&
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People, you have posted lovely pictures! It is so light polluted here! I cant get a shot so close to the horizon... Well, may be the next comet... and by that time Canon should have the f8 focus fix for five-D3 (absolutely arbitrary alliteration).
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You can focus on the cresent moon or jupiter using live view...either AF or manually and then swtch the lens to manual focus and dont touch it.
rpt said:People, you have posted lovely pictures! It is so light polluted here! I cant get a shot so close to the horizon... Well, may be the next comet... and by that time Canon should have the f8 focus fix for five-D3 (absolutely arbitrary alliteration).
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East Wind Photography said:
Gaffer's tape is awesome for preventing focussing shifts from "oops" types of causes. Just be sure that focus doesn't shift as you tape down the ring!
b&
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May be I'll give it a shot tomorrow. Worst case I'll get just the crescent moon...East Wind Photography said:You can focus on the cresent moon or jupiter using live view...either AF or manually and then swtch the lens to manual focus and dont touch it.
rpt said:People, you have posted lovely pictures! It is so light polluted here! I cant get a shot so close to the horizon... Well, may be the next comet... and by that time Canon should have the f8 focus fix for five-D3 (absolutely arbitrary alliteration).
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Should be better tonight. Sun sets one minute latter but the comet is 5 minutes higher, so even if its hazy like last night should get a couple of shots. It will be a little over 4 degs south of the moon so plan ahead.
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The following link will send you to the stardate.org website viewing guide for the comet along with a diagram of it's location in the sky over the next several days: http://stardate.org/mediacenter/March2013_CometPanstarrs
In Austin, Texas it started to come into view at about 8:20 PM CST Monday. It is my understanding that tonight it should be a little higher and appear several minutes later. If you have older eyes like me, I would recommend using binoculars to help find it. I kept looking just above the horizon, but it was actually higher than I expected. I was fortunate to have an astronomy buff with me who had watched it the night before and who brought out his star viewing rig to observe it. I must say, I am pretty good at finding things when someone has me look through their binoculars which are mounted on a tripod and locked on to the object.
Good luck.
In Austin, Texas it started to come into view at about 8:20 PM CST Monday. It is my understanding that tonight it should be a little higher and appear several minutes later. If you have older eyes like me, I would recommend using binoculars to help find it. I kept looking just above the horizon, but it was actually higher than I expected. I was fortunate to have an astronomy buff with me who had watched it the night before and who brought out his star viewing rig to observe it. I must say, I am pretty good at finding things when someone has me look through their binoculars which are mounted on a tripod and locked on to the object.
Good luck.
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Got some good shots this evening. The vacating storm system left some very clear air and I was able to follow the comet down to the horizon. Still, the sky could have been darker but made the best of it.
I will post the pics a bit later after some post processing.
I will post the pics a bit later after some post processing.
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Clear air tonight. Used my 5DIII
#1 - 300mm f/2.8L shot at F4 ISO400 2 seconds
#2 - 300mm + 1.4xiii f/4 ISO1000 2 seconds
#3 - 300mm + 1.4xiii f/4 ISO1600 2 seconds
#4 - Too enticing not to get this one too
#1 - 300mm f/2.8L shot at F4 ISO400 2 seconds
#2 - 300mm + 1.4xiii f/4 ISO1000 2 seconds
#3 - 300mm + 1.4xiii f/4 ISO1600 2 seconds
#4 - Too enticing not to get this one too
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No worries. Though it will fade some in the coming weeks it will also be higher in the sky and have a darker background. It will be a binocular object through most of April so still possible to photograph. What was special tonight was it's proximity to the moon which I was hoping would have been a bit closer. 300mm was about the most you could go with a full frame camera and still get both in the frame.
Rest up your knee and shoot when you are up for it.
Rest up your knee and shoot when you are up for it.
emag said:
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East Wind, I like your first and second ones best. Also very good earthshine on the moon. Hopefully I can get a few shots, probably with my 135, or 85.
Here's one I shot of the Orion Nebula about a year ago. There's star trailing, but you can still see it. 10 seconds with 400 f/5.6L and crop camera (roughly 600mm equivalent), ISO 800. It was still very under-exposed...so got a lot of banding and chrominance noise when I lifted it in post, but I tried to take some of the noise out.
Here's one I shot of the Orion Nebula about a year ago. There's star trailing, but you can still see it. 10 seconds with 400 f/5.6L and crop camera (roughly 600mm equivalent), ISO 800. It was still very under-exposed...so got a lot of banding and chrominance noise when I lifted it in post, but I tried to take some of the noise out.
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