PHOTOS PLEASE

[andyman]

[lvlshot]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8190/8149681904_680cdb1f5b_o.jpg[/lvlshot]

did the moon first and got the best focus i could, then moved to jupiter so it would be in focus. the best images came out with a lower iso, low enough to barely see it, and then give a small boost of exposure in Ps.
This is with the 25mm eyepiece, i tried with the 9mm and finding it was hopeless. For comparison, i have a hard time finding the moon with the 9mm piece!

[Doombrain]

You should be able to pick the eye up at that detail

[seremtan]

nice shot shame the spot is facing away from earth during the night

[Tsakali]

interesting, so it has the same 24 hour rotation as us? if not, surely there will be nights where it could show up at night... or maybe a diff. season.

[seremtan]

i think the spot was identified centuries ago, so its orbit isn't synchronised with ours in any way

[Whiskey 7]

Thought it rotated

Jupiter rotation movie, taken by Voyager 1 in 1979, over a period of approximately 15 hours. This equates to one and a half Jovian days.

Category
Education
License
Standard YouTube License

of some interest

andyman: You were using a telescope weren't you?

[obsidian]

Yes, he's using a telescope of some sort and a DSLR camera. It's been mentioned previously and if you look back many pictures he had a photo of it strapped to a stool to take pictures of the moon (though I think he has since upgraded the stool).

[Whiskey 7]

Yes, he's using a telescope of some sort and a DSLR camera. It's been mentioned previously and if you look back many pictures he had a photo of it strapped to a stool to take pictures of the moon (though I think he has since upgraded the stool).

Yes I do remember that but I didn't believe that would take this picture... It is such a small spot in a big sky.
Again andyman, love the effort

I recall as a youth, my first telescope and seeing the rings of Saturn and these belts on Jupiter.
It has to be about 45 years ago

Here is the "stool strap device" you mention obsidian, just for the followers here ... about out page 173........
That sounds evil or sexual

[lvlshot]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5202/5728409772_2f9d095e02_b.jpg[/lvlshot]

[andyman]

current setup... added 5 more pounds (the plates) to help counterbalance since it was a mess before that. set up at ~27.9 degrees elevation for tampa, and i point the eq mount in the direction of my best guess for polaris since i can't see it from the balcony. it is a shitty mount though... everything makes it vibrate even a little... trucks going by, peoples shitty dubstep shit fuck music blaring through their cheapass stock car stereos, sometimes the pulse in my thumb if i hold the camera remote too tightly. really need a wireless remote. I want to make a remote controlled focuser too but i'm not really sure how that will be done. focusing by touching and turning the knob is super difficult because of all the shake.
really, i just want to win some raffle and get a $10k setups for free lol

[Tsakali]

lol poor people

[Captain]

lol poor people

[Whiskey 7]

andyman, two thoughts?

Get out of town (literally) and pick a quiet (vibration) spot. I remember on the Haley's Comet visit I made the effort to drive out of the light at least.

I understated the focus issue but exposure, what time span are we talking in the Moon & Jupiter shots? Is it possible to use the self timer for long exposures.

Here is a night sky (probably my first effort) and I am a complete amateur here.

Love them stars

[lvlshot]http://i.imgur.com/bNnPj.jpg[/lvlshot]

f/5
exposure time 30 seconds
ISO 6400

[tnf]

This image was my second ever attempt at shooting the Milky Way - out in the middle of nowhere, at least 3.5 hours from the nearest city lights right along the Canadian border.

Happened to catch a small shooting star from the tail end of the Perseides shower when I took this.
I'm a complete amateur with this type of shooting - all I knew to try was shooting wide open (with this lens that was F4 - I was using the Canon 17-40 F4L lens), going with 20-30 seconds of exposure
- any longer and star movement becomes a significant issue - but I think shooting at around 17mm helps reduce the perceived impact of this, and to crank up the ISO - this was ISO 6400.

To illuminate the small church, I held a speedlite in my hand and manually set it off while pointing it at the building during the long exposure.

Nothing compared to the true masters of this type of work but for a second effort I was happy enough.

[Tsakali]

nice!

[tnf]

[lvlshot]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8190/8149681904_680cdb1f5b_o.jpg[/lvlshot]

did the moon first and got the best focus i could, then moved to jupiter so it would be in focus. the best images came out with a lower iso, low enough to barely see it, and then give a small boost of exposure in Ps.
This is with the 25mm eyepiece, i tried with the 9mm and finding it was hopeless. For comparison, i have a hard time finding the moon with the 9mm piece!

That is awesome.

With a 400mm on my 1.3x crop 1D Mark IV (520mm) I can get jupiter to look like a tiny round ball and if you crop in enough you can just barely seen a line or two across it - but we're talking maybe a pixel or two wide line - its ridiculously small.

When are you going to try shooting a galaxy? Does your scope do motorized tracking where you could set your camera to BULB, focus on Andromeda, and let it go for a long time?

[tnf]

Here's a shot from a wedding this summer. Weddings pay well, but I've learned quickly why some photographers hate them - they can be really creatively stifling.

[Whiskey 7]

........ to catch a small shooting star from the tail end of the Perseides shower ....

Just noticed a trail (probably a satellite) in the bottom left of mine I hasn't noticed before..

and illuminating the small church (hand held a speedlite).. I did the same but waived a hang held torch (flashlight) about... Looking for that picture..

Here it is and still the amateur.

[lvlshot]http://i.imgur.com/RHL9i.jpg[/lvlshot]

Yes: some cloud in mine :/

[andyman]

The mount is completely manual, no money for motorized right now. I'd love to go to a dark area but they are farrrr away. I live in a white zone but a friend of mine lives in a yellow area and it's much noticeably darker there. One of these days I'll get up there for a night so long as it isn't cloudy. Next week is a 3 day weekend, maybe then and the moon should be out of the picture too. Have to see what happens... maybe just use the telescope for viewing

http://www.jshine.net/astronomy/dark_sky/

When we used to go camping in the rocky mountains I could see absolutely everything with no scopes at all... galaxies, satellites, everything. Some day I'll go back there... no time soon though. A trip like that I'd have to bring a slew of equipment that I don't even have just to make it worthwhile

For example, this is what the sky looks like where i live... it's like muddy water
https://vimeo.com/23428369

[seremtan]

[lvlshot]http://i.imgur.com/bNnPj.jpg[/lvlshot]

god i miss this view. haven't seen a night sky like this since new zealand

southern england = light pollution central

[Captain]

Here's a shot from a wedding this summer. Weddings pay well, but I've learned quickly why some photographers hate them - they can be really creatively stifling.

EVERYONE IS FAT

[tnf]

Here's a shot from a wedding this summer. Weddings pay well, but I've learned quickly why some photographers hate them - they can be really creatively stifling.

EVERYONE IS FAT

It's America.

[obsidian]

tnf, how did you get the lighting on the people like that? It looks like you have a spotlight hanging right above each couple, yet everyone is clearly in the middle of a field.

[tnf]

tnf, how did you get the lighting on the people like that? It looks like you have a spotlight hanging right above each couple, yet everyone is clearly in the middle of a field.

Flash composite technique I use - it can be really cool in a variety of settings. Camera on a tripod (or just stabilized if you don't have one). Set exposure like I would for any other off-camera shot getting my sky/ambient exposure set right.
Then I have an assistant stand next to each couple and hold a speedlite or an alienbee with a grid on it next to the first couple - the distance and angle she holds it at depends on the light and the look I want - I usually use bare flash or small modifiers to keep the light a bit hard/edgier looking for this. In this case, she held the flash about 2 feet or so above and just to the side of a couple. I'd shoot, then she'd move to the next couple while the others hold relatively still - they don't have to be absolutelly still if there is a bit of room between them, but if you are using a large group with lots of overlapping people, its tricky. Assistant lights each couple, I shoot 7 or so exposures, however many couples there are basically, and I usually shoot one more with no flash and assistant totally out of the frame just in case I need foreground or background elements for cloning/layering that she was in the way of.

Then I just use layer masks and create one final image with each couple lit up.

Here's another - cropped my watermark out of the bottom - so the actual shot doesn't have such a tight crop along their feet. This one was quite rushed due to the wedding schedule, so there are several little details I wasn't happy with and the lighting wasn't quite what I wanted.

[obsidian]

Oh, it's a composite, I see. Cool effect, thanks.

I had thought that maybe you called Goof's gray buddies and have them hovering above each couple with their tractor beams on.

[Eraser]

Weddings pay well, but I've learned quickly why some photographers hate them - they can be really creatively stifling.

With emphasis on "can" there, right? Because that pic you posted is probably one of the most creative wedding pics I've ever seen.

By the way, did you recolor the dresses? They're a distinctly different color in the 2nd pic. Or is that a different wedding where they happened to have matching outfits as well?