Posts: Curve_in | Ugly Hedgehog

Big Dipper, Old Faithful and a Meteor

Europa wrote:

Cool photo Kervin. Maybe a touch out of focus.
👍👍👍

Out of focus for sure! I was so tired that I'm glad I got any shot that night.

Oct 14, 2019 09:29:35 #

Big Dipper, Old Faithful and a Meteor

We took a trip to Yellowstone a few weeks ago. I planned the trip around a new moon, but it was cloudy or snowing every night except for or arrival night. After being awake for a full day of airports and driving, I only got two okay shots. This one is my favorite.

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Sep 24, 2019 19:14:46 #

lwhitlow wrote:

Thank you very much! I will look it up. I will be posting the one I just finished. I used 30 minutes and only one came out because of the dew on the lens, and that one had dew on the edges, so had to crop it. There was a security light on, so I know that also affected the outcome. I have even though about using an umbrella in some way to try and keep the dew off the lens, but haven't figured out a way - lol.

I'm thinking you should try for one good image first. The security lights will be an issue. Find a place in the shadows that keeps the camera in the dark. That should help.
There was some discussion of latency. That is the speed the the camera writes the images to the card. Since I do like doing star trails, I choose the fastest card and I choose to write a single raw file.

Sep 24, 2019 15:17:39 #

tomad wrote:

Great shot. How long of a time period did it take to make the 160 photos in that shot?

160 / 2 = 80 minutes

Sep 24, 2019 15:16:59 #

alberio wrote:

The first one looks like a meteor, but the object in the second one by Polaris looks like an Iridium flare. Bright in middle and fading on both ends. Just my two cents worth. Good job on both.

Thanks! The bright in the middle object is a meteor. In the startrail individual photos, one image has the streak going from left to right and the next has it in finishing the trail.

Sep 24, 2019 06:56:41 #

lwhitlow wrote:

I am just learning to do star trails. How many exposures did you have? Just curious:-) I love your photos. When I was doing 30 second exposures, I had a lot of dashes in my photo after stacking with PS. I am trying to get better where I don't have the dashes. Want the nice trails like you have in your photo. Thank you for sharing.

There are 160 images in the star trail. When I looked at your star trail, I think your camera is off too long between shots. That's why you have dots rather than lines. When I started, it took me a while to figure out how to the camera to take one picture after another with minimal time between. If you search my username in this section of the forum, you can read my write-up.

Sep 24, 2019 05:53:42 #

Ballard wrote:

Great shots Kervin. I really impressed with how clean the shots are particularly the star tail, most cameras will introduce noise on long exposures. Did you create and subtract out the noise with some dark frames? What type of camera and ISO did you use to get these.

Thanks! I shot these with a Nikon D750 with a Sigma 24mm f/1.8. 30 second exposures, f/2.8, iso 200. I processed the RAW files with a program named darktable. I combined the jpg files with GIMP.

I can hardly wait to get in a very dark place! Here's the reading from where I shot these:

Brightness
2.46 mcd/m2

Artif. bright.
2290 μcd/m2

Here's where I'll be next week:

Brightness
0.172 mcd/m2

Artif. bright.
0.449 μcd/m2

Sep 24, 2019 05:32:57 #

SonnyE wrote:

Very Good Kervin! br Yep, I'd say that's a meteor ... (show quote)

Thanks! Great info on the satellites, I thought they were planes too.

Sep 23, 2019 14:20:38 #

I was doing a test shoot in my backyard for star trails. After I combined the images, I saw an odd streak and it turned out to be a meteor!

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Sep 21, 2019 19:58:48 #

FiddleMaker wrote:

I clearly have dust on my D750 sensor but have not cleaned the sensor as yet....

I made two changes when I cleaned my for the first time D750. The first was to use a very bright light to look for spots of dust on the sensor. The second was to use some sort of magnification. Now it's very easy to get a clean sensor.

Sep 21, 2019 17:11:15 #

FiddleMaker wrote:

Wow !!! this is quite a photo. Excellent.
I am seeing a dark spot in the sky and just above the tree on the left side. Could this be some dust on your sensor ?

Thanks! When I sold my D7000, I didn't see a reason to keep any aps-c sensor swabs. I have since obtained some a cleaned the sensor on the D80.

Sep 21, 2019 10:02:57 #

roadsideron wrote:

Did you white balance before you took the shot?

I have been shooting in RAW and checking the histogram. I use darktable (a linux program) to import the files and apply the adjusted white balance, red/blue channel swap and up the saturation to the batch.

Sep 20, 2019 16:03:19 #

Near the James River in Richmond Virginia
Nikon D80 with a 590 nm filter

This is from my second outing with the camera. The first time, I had more yellows, but I think the bright pink and dark blue makes for a better image.

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Sep 13, 2019 17:59:58 #

Nikon D80 infrared conversion

JohnSwanda wrote:

You might try doing a custom white balance on sunlit green grass. Then the captures won't be so red, and the channel swap will work better. This is with Lifepixel's enhanced color filter (665) and WB on green grass, plus some extra saturation.

That's a great photo! I can hardly wait from some bright sunlight to add more color!

Sep 13, 2019 15:15:11 #

Nikon D80 infrared conversion

I picked up a lens on Craigslist that happened to be attached to a very high shutter count D80. I decided to try some infrared photography so I ordered a Super Color Infrared (590nm) filter.
The disassembly was straight forward along with the filter swap. The tiny ribbon cable reattachment was a different story. There's nothing like the feeling of putting everything back together and the camera doesn't power up! I needed more light and my readers to get the cables clamped correctly.
I still working on exposure and focus points, but these are my fist few images on a misty, rainy day.

Next, the filter goes in.

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Auto white balance

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Black and White conversion

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Red Blue channel swap

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