JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

I used my IR Modified Sony A55 tonight with a Tamron 24-70 and shot at 24mm @f2.8. ISO 1600 and the exposure time was 67 sec.

The camera is modified to be full spectrum, and I was going to put an IR filter on it, but somehow I managed to misplace the several 72mm filters I had, so I settled for a Red filter and then converted to Black and White. The Moon was out in full force, but it is not so strong in Red and this shot shows how it is still possible to capture faint stars even under a very bright moon. I was definitely not seeing the Milky Way with my own eyes with the Moon near by.

I was aimed at the Constellation Cygnus which was about 90 degrees away from the Moon. With a 67 sec exposure, the histogram was only at 50% indicating that the moon was not overwhelming the image. This image has only been tweaked in Lightroom.

Milky Way near Cygnus

(Download)

pfrancke Loc: cold Maine

amazing and beautiful

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

Wonderful shot Jim H. I really like the B&W.
Craig

northcoast42 Loc: Puget Sound, Washington

Nice shot Jim. How were you tracking?

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

Beautiful, Jim!

I know someone you could ask about those filters....
Ask this guy if he borrowed them: http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-332826-1.html

Stir, stir, stir.... :twisted:

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Yes, I saw that. I can't believe we have such deep thinkers as that!

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

I was not using tracking. But in shooting at 24mm, I can go for a long time before it would veer off track enough to see.

But what I was really after with that shot was shooting the MilkyWay in spite of the moon hanging there in the sky. If I had gone in and gotten my lens hood, I could have pushed it even closer to the moon. But using the red filter, the moon was not impacting my ability to take that shot. And if I had used an IR filter on the camera, I'm sure I could have gotten real close to the moon.

Basically, most sources of light pollution, including street lights, and even the moon, don't pollute so much in the IR spectrum.

And a recent trip up to Lick Observatory confirmed that. They told me that they only use IR now with that location sitting right above San Jose. Parts of San Jose use those special Yellow lights to cut back on light pollution, but lately, I see that some of those have been replaced with regular lights. I think that IR photography is the reason.