Amateur astronomy: Space is pretty awesome

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TomR: Apr 1, 2003; I both own and operate a pirate ship.

I just tried Deep Sky Stacker and got this:

Pretty good, but I only have a photography tripod. I used a Canon 70-200mm 2.8L with an XSi. It was 24 shots at 4 seconds each. I did that to avoid the star trails. What kind of motorized head would I need to track the stars and hold my camera with lens, it is about 4 or 5lbs or so all together. Something that locates cool stuff to take pictures of would be good, I'm new to this and really don't know anything about space.

# ¿ Nov 20, 2009 00:51

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 05:14

TomR: Apr 1, 2003; I both own and operate a pirate ship.

Thanks Jekub.

I'm looking at this thing: http://www.telescope.com/control/product/~category_id=mounts_and_tripods/~pcategory=accessories/~product_id=15203

I'm really only going to put my camera on it. I don't want to spend more than $400 or so.

# ¿ Nov 21, 2009 14:01

TomR: Apr 1, 2003; I both own and operate a pirate ship.

The moon shots come out so clear.

Here is one I did the other day:

200mm lens with a 2x teleconverter. It's not near as sharp as the stacked photos.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2009 02:04

TomR: Apr 1, 2003; I both own and operate a pirate ship.

I have found that I can take pictures of stars okay with my photography stuff. I am still trying to read up on what gear I should get.

Here are some pictures from tonight.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2009 03:46

TomR: Apr 1, 2003; I both own and operate a pirate ship.

Hello Astronomy Thread.

I did a test of my wide angle lens on the sky last night.

Click to see millions of stars. The edges have a lot of chromatic aberrations.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2010 00:55

TomR: Apr 1, 2003; I both own and operate a pirate ship.

Here is a HD video of the Moon I made last night.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tom_rintjema/4635583042/

Edit:
And a photo!

I got a new lens that's very good. This picture is worth looking at in detail.

TomR fucked around with this message at 14:31 on May 24, 2010

# ¿ May 24, 2010 14:20

TomR: Apr 1, 2003; I both own and operate a pirate ship.

Have another Moon photo Astronomy Thread!

December Moon by Tom Rintjema, on Flickr

I meant to get the eclipse, but it got way too cloudy out.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2010 01:32

TomR: Apr 1, 2003; I both own and operate a pirate ship.

El Grillo posted:

Hey folks, I'm getting some cool space posters printed for my brother as a gift. Specifically, loving huge cool space posters (180 x 60cm):

(the original is 10630x3543 res)

I think I'm going to get it printed on a quality matt paper as it just won't show up on a glossy. But realistically I need to brighten it up as well. The problem with this is obviously that (a)it can start to look washed-out and (b)increasing brightness/constrast/saturation increased the noise/film grain dramatically.

I have very little experience editing night photos like this and everything I try seems to make it worse, even after doing various de-noising things. Does anyone have any tips for image adjustment?

e: for reference this is what the (ridiculously helpful) dudes at posterjack came up with, the grain/noise just pops when you up the brightness etc.: