Photos [P] First attempt at astrophotography

I've been wanting to give this a crack for some time but whenever we've had a clear enough night I've either been out somewhere without my camera, too busy (probably processing photos) or just too darn knackered.

Last night I gave myself a kick up the arse and actually got the tripod and camera, and went walking across the field at the back of my house to shoot the stars. And this is what I came up with...


#1 Birds Eye Chicken Dippers


#3 Ursa Ursa (lines for identification)


#2 Plane Dipper


#4 Rotary Space



Number four's the shot I've been wanting to try for ages and I'm fairly pleased with how it came out. The 'framing' is obviously pretty poor but this was more an excursion to try new things and experiment. And in that sense, I think it was successful.

Locating Polaris TTL with a wide-angle mounted proved impossible, however, so I got a little inventive and mounted a long lens with which to locate it in the viewfinder. Then, when the tripod was set and sturdy and being careful not to budge it, I swapped off the long lens for my wide-angle, spread her wide, and fired away.

I think a bigger, brighter, VF like those found on the 5D and 1 series bodies would be great in this kind of situation. We can dream, right?


More info on shot setup, and technical details, are all on my Flickr page.

 

hahahaha, i love those tags you set on the last one

 

Ah, love that number four! I'd love to try that myself sometime, but it looks like I only have bulb exposure and I don't really like the idea of standing next to a tripod for three hours with my finger on the button :/

I did have some fun with 30sec exposures and that fun 'new message' glow on my Wii though. I'll have to get some posted up here.

 

uh, cable release? i have one, you can lock the shutter down.

 

I might give this a try some time, when it's not so windy

 

What kind of light pollution do you get where you are? Even though I live in the country, there is still quite a bit of light pollution from the town in the valley below - it causes quite a lot of orange glow on any long exposure night shots I've done.
Maybe I just need to get off my arse and drive a little...

 

Well that would require me spending money, wouldn't it? Mind you, it only looks like $17 shipped from fleabay, but I'm like that. Maybe I'll just buy a 2.5mm jack and wire one up myself... it's probably just some push-to-make connection

Of course, I had no idea that the wired shutter releases could lock in, too. I've got one of the IR wireless ones, and AFAIK that won't even work with bulb mode, and there's certainly no lock either. But thanks for the tip Of course, that still doesn't change the fact that I don't have a proper wide-angle, just the kit lens, thought it might work well enough.

I'm assuming that the night shots are giving off WAY less light than stuff a bit closer to home. I was doing 30s shots that I think were stopped all the way down to f22, and they were still getting borderline-overexposed. I think I'll post them up later tonight.

Anyways, hate to steal the thread like this. I just feel so... inspired to try something new, I guess. Weird coincidence that I was playing around with my first long-exposure stuff around the same time though, even if it's just indoor stuff.

 

how bout a title change #3: Sperm

All seriousness though, very nice pics, 2: Plane dipper is my fave, the 3 lines make it look really really pretty

 

Thanks for the comments.

The area in which I live is kinda rural but there is a fair amount of light pollution. The M3's < 4 miles away and the M25 only 10 miles. Guildford's about 12 miles which gives off lots and there's MOD land all around which can have some massive lights at times. Fortunatey they weren't on last night (were tonight) else these would never have happened.

These shots all have quite a strong orange glow - more so towards the bottom which explains the gradient in the pics - but even when I was out last night the sky has an orange tint to the naked eye.


I'm fortunate in that I'm heading to South Africa next month so I'm hoping to try this kind of shot again in a location literally hundreds of miles from anywhere.

 

the whole movement of stars, is that down to the earts rotation? It may sound silly but I don't get it lol

looks awesome though. Did you do any work on PS on them or are they stock?

 

PS just for contrast and remove orange colour casts, but apart from that, they're stock.

 

um, yeah. spin quickly around on the spot - you see everything becoming a blur? now imagine your eyes are you looking up from the planet earth, your head being planet earth spinning, and everything around you being stars.

 

I was just wondering Fod, no need to be sarcastic

 

uh... i wasn;t being sarcastic? i was trying to explain it.

last time i try and be helpful....

 

I love the star trails shot! I always enjoy seeing those, and taking them


That star that appears to be the only one remaining still is the pole star, or north star. It's called such because it's the star that is almost exactly in line with the earth's axis.. in other words it's exactly above the north pole. So, when the earth rotates, it rotates around the north pole (it's axis) so that star appears not to move. Imagine a vinyl record on a turntable.. the spindle in teh middle appears not to be moving, or spinning... it IS obviously, it just appears not to because it's spinning in the same place. The earth's the same... the poles are the "Spindles" it spins upon. Get it?


I love star shots that show that.



I did that one ages ago.

and I've posted this one a couple of times before on here.


Now you've got the technique sorted out, try different compositions, or include foregraound objects to make it more interesting. Or even try doing like I did in the last shot, and drop the sky into a shot done elsewhere.

 

Love that first shot with the tree. Must've been a bloomin' still night for it to come out so crisp with such a long exposure!

Yeah, that's the plan. Now I've had a successful trial, I want to try some better shots incorporating the star trails element. Got a few ideas, so stay tuned.

 

It was. One of those crisp, winter nights with no wind at all. It was minus 8C or something like that. I just set up a Nikon FM2 (mechanical so no batteries to fail) locked off the shutter, and sat in the car for 30 minutes.

 

I was wondering how long you'd have to leave the shutter open for , really give a nice effect though, more of these kinda pics are a must, they don't appear often enough.

 

At least you had the luxury of a car. I just had to stand in a field for 30 minutes singing to myself.