pfrancke Loc: cold Maine

Sonny, thank you for sharing that name. I will read up on him. Sounds like a fascinating story that one should know!

pfrancke Loc: cold Maine

Hi Craig, Thank you for the detailed description. I have also since noticed the tutorial on how to get nicer looking images when the sky is polluted with light. The healing/blurring thing.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Yes, that is a very correct observation. I get less satisfaction at looking at something a big telescope has captured and more satisfaction looking at something I have done.

But to but this in better perspective, the camera you are using has the ability to see things that the professionals in the early telescope days could not capture. The sensitivity of the digital camera is phenomenal. And I think what efforts they went to, to cool the film and then to push it during processing to get results that weren't as good as digital gives you today by just selecting a higher ISO.

I wonder what Sony's next low light monster, the A7Sii will do next? The current model can do 406K ISO. What happens when Sony incorporates BSI sensor technology into the next generation A7S camera?

It might be possible to identify your star in your image. Can you remember in what direction you pointed your camera during that stacking exercise? And what Focal Length was the lens and was it a crop or full sensor? And if you can identify about what elevation you were aiming? For example: 10PM on such and such date, shooting at about 100 degrees from true north going clockwise from North, and at an angle of 45 degrees from the horizon. And from what area of the country?

Bloke Loc: Waynesboro, Pennsylvania

I remember looking through my first telescope... What they mockingly call a "department-store scope". This was something like 45 years ago... It had an aperture of maybe 2 inches at most, and powers of 15x, 30x and 45x. The tripod was total crap, and wobbled all over the place.
Looking through my bedroom window, I looked at Saturn, and I was mesmerized! The image was *far* worse than anything I have ever seen posted on here, and of course, nowhere near as good as stuff printed constantly in Astronomy magazine. The thing was, though, it was *real*... I was actually seeing the rings myself, in real life, and I don't think I ever got over that sensation!
I was also able to make out Jupiter's 4 main moons.

I think those 2 sights were what captured my lifelong attention. We have equipment readily available now which most people would have killed for back then, of course, but I don't think it is the standard of the equipment which matters. I think there is a deep atavistic connection to 'the universe out there', and to this day, it blows my mind!

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

Science collided with Creation.

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

Absolutely.
That was one enormous hurtle for me to ponder long and hard.
Jumping into yet another facet of Photography, and the time and patience it requires to actually image that which cannot be seen unaided, was a major stumbling block for me.

But, to see the universe live, :shock:
and to draw in the unfathomable to capture it in our choice of camera's... Or more importantly, to share our findings with others... Here, have a look.... ;)

It's like being at a Performance VS: Being on your couch listening to your speakers.

Going somewhere VS: Seeing it on TV. Sure the view is probably better on TV, or your computer screen.
But you will miss feeling the mists of Niagra Falls if you don't go there. You cannot drink from an Alpine Stream in your recliner.

To me, it was where I connected. A leap of Faith to see all the Universe has to offer, right from my own back yard. Or out and about.
And, I think it is worth losing sleep over. ;)

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

Thanks Sonny got it and am totally baffled, I guess I need to work with the Original file???
But it won't process RAW files so what's the solution. 'Save As' JPEG or shoot JPEG.
And how do you make stars round in the program???
Craig

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

StarTools will work with TIFF files and that is what I do. The JPG lose too much information.

This is a program that demands all the processing power you can give it. My PC is 3.6GHz with 8 cores and it wants even more.

There is a lot this program can do and it makes sense to watch tutorials on the internet. I am still just crawling when it comes to what this program can do. And I am only working on stars so far. It can do nebula and galaxies too. But until I am comfortable with stars, those will have to wait.

Focus Magic will also work with star trails but is limited to star trails of about 20 pixels. I tried doing a two step approach, and saved after 20 pixels, and then reopened to try some more. The results looked terrible so gave up on that idea.

I am also letting DSS compress 4 pixels to 1 and it does wonders for the noise. My 24M pixel image becomes 6M pixel, but the stars don't seem to suffer for it.

There is a more expensive SW package to work on stars, forget what its called, I don't have it, but it was more expensive than I wanted to go.

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

Thanks Jim H. Some how I'll figure which button works to come up with round stars.
So far I've just made big messes out of it.
I'll save my Exports in TIFF and work with that.
Craig

Albuqshutterbug Loc: Albuquerque NM

Where you trying to get the dragonfly in the shot or just an errant bonus? Nice shots.

I always ask people what the big brown sticks with green stuff on them are. High desert here looks pretty much like this.
Only when you get into populated areas or mountains does the color change.

pfrancke Loc: cold Maine

Yeah, the things we can do today are just amazing. We can't just sit on our butts, got to keep active and taking advantage of the things we can.

pfrancke Loc: cold Maine

Ah man, that new avatar rocks!!!!

pfrancke Loc: cold Maine

LOL -- truthfully, I like a little dash in the stars. They move like hell! And it shows.

pfrancke Loc: cold Maine

I like your reasoning. Much truth here.

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

That was actually just dumb luck.

It was odd to see the dragon flies out there. Unexpected.