Big Dipper with M8

[carylwithay]

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I used a 12mm voightlander lens for a 3 min exposure on the M8. I have added glare to the big dipper so you can easily see it. The handle seems to point to a bright star. Does anyone know what it is? I had thought it was the North star but that is on the other side of th bowl.

Caryl

[carylwithay]

Here is a 90 sec exposure that has the North star on the right. I have flarred the dipper and the North Star for emphesis but that bright star on the left is as it was. Anyone know what it is?

Caryl

[petewayne]

Nice images.......the bright star if you follow the curve of the handle of the Dipper to the left is Arcturus, the main star of Bootes the Shepherd.......keep the curve going and you come to Spica, the main star of Virgo. The Pole Star (Polaris) can be found by extending a line from the two right hand stars of the bowl of the dipper upwards until you come to a star which whilst not very bright, is the brightest in the area and the Little Dipper extends away from it.

[carylwithay]

Thank you so much Pete. I intend to study the stars more now that i am having fun shooting them

Caryl

[vdb]

I like them both Caryl, fun shot.

[carylwithay]

Thank you virgil. It is my latest passion.

Caryl

[zamri]

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Nice one of the Ursa Major ( Big Dipper).

Is that a single frame shot? What is the ISO?

[carylwithay]

Yes it is a single frame. the ISO was 360.

Caryl

[zamri]

Yes it is a single frame. the ISO was 360.

Caryl

 

Try to shot few frames and stack it together. What is the aperture of ur lens?

[carylwithay]

I used F/11. I do not know how to stack photos without one covering the other. Wish I did.

Caryl

[zamri]

I used F/11. I do not know how to stack photos without one covering the other. Wish I did.

Caryl

 

Maybe you can google to astrophotography. There's a freeware for stacking image.

Normally in astrophotography, usually shot in a numbers of frames then stack it together using a stacking sofware like Registax or Deep Sky Stacker. These 2 are commonly use and is free to download. For the aperture normally set at f3.5. The more data(refer to the stars) you can collect the more better.

 

Here some link which you can refer to:Focal Lengths and Deep Sky Astrophotography Photo Gallery by Samir Kharusi at pbase.com

[LLT]

Woow! I didn't know the M8 was capable of long exposures! Fabulous.

[SJP]

Caryl, nice pictures!!

 

Why did you use f/11? I would think that wide open should work fine as well, just set the lens to infinite & forget about it.

 

Of course if you use longer exposure times then you get arcs instead of points which can also be attractive.

 

I posted some results here and here that you might like to see. Note to myself: next time use 640 or 320 i.s.o. 1250.

 

Anyway I am quite happy with what the M8 can do for this sort of stuff.

 

@Zamri, stacking of images sound like a fun experiment. Thanks for the link.

[carylwithay]

I used F/11 because I was getting too much light. It looked like daytime so I cut the light using F/11. I am still experimenting.

I like what you did. If you use a highr ISO, won't you get lots of noise? That is why I did not go that high. I tried this with my Nikon D300 also and on that camera I can use a high ISO without noise.

Caryl

Caryl

[SJP]

The exaples show that you can eliminate most of the ISO 1250 noise by messing with the brighness & contrast. It is still there if you look closely. ISO 640 should be easier to postprocess, but the nights are not very dark anymore this time of year in NL.

[zamri]

I used F/11 because I was getting too much light. It looked like daytime so I cut the light using F/11. I am still experimenting.

I like what you did. If you use a highr ISO, won't you get lots of noise? That is why I did not go that high. I tried this with my Nikon D300 also and on that camera I can use a high ISO without noise.

Caryl

Caryl

 

Hi Caryl, actually there's a way of tackling this, but it take such a long process. That's why its adviseable to capture afew nos.of frame. The idea is gather more data as you can then from there all the shots will be stack together. The noise level will be remove by capturing a few dark frame with the same ISO and exposure used. Dark frame actually by covering your lens, the idea is to gather the noise level. I'm still on try and error on astrophotography. Right now I'm more into Deep Sky, capturing nebulae, galaxies and some of terrestrial objects.

 

Have fun!!!