DISCUSSION THREAD - September+October 2022 - "UNEARTHLY PERSPECTIVE"



viccarlton said:
Doubt I’ll be entering this month’s competition, I haven’t got a scooby what the topic means/relates to 🤷‍♂️
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I would say anything that doesn't look regular, maybe a spooky cave, something ugly, something that it looks like it came from outer space perhaps. A very loose brief this month, have fun with it.


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We did ghostly/spooky about 12 years ago. Not spavin had a very good entry!


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@tonyfromalnwick

I can see two possible things, but I won't say yet! See what others say/see.

A very early entry!
 
gluepot said:
@DaveH that's a great pic, do you have some specialist kit?
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Yes and no. The camera is just a Canon 700D, but goes on the back of a 90mm telescope (Celestron NexStar SLT 90). I made my own solar filter for the telescope with some special solar film:

Baader AstroSolar Safety Film ND 5.0 | First Light Optics

First Light Optics - Suppliers of Astronomy telescopes, binoculars and accessories from Skywatcher, Celestron, Meade, William Optics, Atik, Imaging Source, Starlight Xpress, ADM, Moonlite, Catseye, Hutech and others.
www.firstlightoptics.com
an old cornflake box and some masking tape. A quick google for 'diy solar filter' will show a few options, but you could make a camera lens one too. With some of the left over film, I made some 'letter box' filters, which was an A4 sheet of card folded in half, a small letter box cut out of it and then put a bit of film in between the two folded halves before sticking it down. That makes a handy screen you can shield your face with but look through the film to see the sun with the naked eye.

So standard camera, special but rather cheap solar filter and a telescope. That particular telescope is around £300, which is around (or much less) than some people will pay for a lens. For solar shots like that, a 500mm or 600mm lens would likely give you a similar result (with solar filter, never point the camera without or you will burn your sensor to bits in a split second). There is a great astronomy program called Stellarium, which will show you what the sky should look like from anywhere on earth at any time. That has an ocular view where you can put in details of cameras, lenses and telescopes and it will simulate what you should be able to see through it. So if anyone has a longish lens and wants to have the sun in full frame. Throw the details in that (there are a number of guides if you google) and see how well it frames the sun. As the sun appears in the sky to be the same size as the moon, the same kit can be used for lunar shots.

As you can enter two entries, I might put up a Jupiter shot I took a few weeks ago. That is a bit more specialist. Rather than a single shoot DSLR camera, I have an astronomy high frame rate camera which I used to take a 90 second video. You then use 'stacking' software which takes the most clear bits from each frame and puts them together into a single image.
 
DaveH said:
Yes and no. The camera is just a Canon 700D, but goes on the back of a 90mm telescope (Celestron NexStar SLT 90). I made my own solar filter for the telescope with some special solar film:

Baader AstroSolar Safety Film ND 5.0 | First Light Optics

First Light Optics - Suppliers of Astronomy telescopes, binoculars and accessories from Skywatcher, Celestron, Meade, William Optics, Atik, Imaging Source, Starlight Xpress, ADM, Moonlite, Catseye, Hutech and others.
www.firstlightoptics.com
an old cornflake box and some masking tape. A quick google for 'diy solar filter' will show a few options, but you could make a camera lens one too. With some of the left over film, I made some 'letter box' filters, which was an A4 sheet of card folded in half, a small letter box cut out of it and then put a bit of film in between the two folded halves before sticking it down. That makes a handy screen you can shield your face with but look through the film to see the sun with the naked eye.

So standard camera, special but rather cheap solar filter and a telescope. That particular telescope is around £300, which is around (or much less) than some people will pay for a lens. For solar shots like that, a 500mm or 600mm lens would likely give you a similar result (with solar filter, never point the camera without or you will burn your sensor to bits in a split second). There is a great astronomy program called Stellarium, which will show you what the sky should look like from anywhere on earth at any time. That has an ocular view where you can put in details of cameras, lenses and telescopes and it will simulate what you should be able to see through it. So if anyone has a longish lens and wants to have the sun in full frame. Throw the details in that (there are a number of guides if you google) and see how well it frames the sun. As the sun appears in the sky to be the same size as the moon, the same kit can be used for lunar shots.

As you can enter two entries, I might put up a Jupiter shot I took a few weeks ago. That is a bit more specialist. Rather than a single shoot DSLR camera, I have an astronomy high frame rate camera which I used to take a 90 second video. You then use 'stacking' software which takes the most clear bits from each frame and puts them together into a single image.
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That's very interesting, thanks.
 
Gerrin. Sussed how to post via gallery. :cool:
Added another of the kelpies.
“…When thowes dissolve the snawy hoord
An’ float the jinglin’ icy boord
Then, water-kelpies haunt the foord
By your direction
And ‘nighted trav’llers are allur’d
To their destruction…”

Burns, address to the deil'
 
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DaveH said:
Contrails of a plane which just flew past the sun, during the partial solar eclipse on the 25th October.
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2 seconds sooner, I'd have got the plane too.

The dark patches are wispy cloud and the black blob under the contrails to the right of the image is a sunspot.
Second entry:
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What’s your set up for the second photo Dave? What setting did you use, did you use a tracker, how many darks did you take, etc?

I’m determined to get to grips with my tracker this winter but it’s bloody frustrating getting it aligned to the pole star. Slightest touch to the camera and I lose alignment, think I might be doing something wrong or not have a stable enough tripod
 
Cow said:
What’s your set up for the second photo Dave? What setting did you use, did you use a tracker, how many darks did you take, etc?

I’m determined to get to grips with my tracker this winter but it’s bloody frustrating getting it aligned to the pole star. Slightest touch to the camera and I lose alignment, think I might be doing something wrong or not have a stable enough tripod
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What sort of tracker have you got?

The second one for me was done with a telescope on an altz mount (Celestron NexStar SLT 90), and a ZWO ASI120MC camera. Rather than a conventional DSLR (the first one was the same telescope but a Canon EOS 700D and a single snap, but with a solar filter), this is essentially a glorified web cam. I took a video of about 90 seconds, then ran that through AutoStakkert to stack the individual frames into the one image. I didn't use any darks or flats for that.

I do have a SkyWatcher Star Adventurer tracking mount for wider field shots and have had some reasonable results with that. That does hold alignment pretty well.
 
DaveH said:
What sort of tracker have you got?

The second one for me was done with a telescope on an altz mount (Celestron NexStar SLT 90), and a ZWO ASI120MC camera. Rather than a conventional DSLR (the first one was the same telescope but a Canon EOS 700D and a single snap, but with a solar filter), this is essentially a glorified web cam. I took a video of about 90 seconds, then ran that through AutoStakkert to stack the individual frames into the one image. I didn't use any darks or flats for that.

I do have a SkyWatcher Star Adventurer tracking mount for wider field shots and have had some reasonable results with that. That does hold alignment pretty well.
Click to expand...
I’ve got the same tracker as you, Star Adventurer, and the same dslr! One thing I don’t think I’ve got is the right weights for it, what do you use?

Once you’ve got the pole star aligned do you not find as soon as you left go of the controls it knocks it out of alignment?

I’ve never heard of that method before, taking a video and letting the software do the work, makes sense when you say it.

I’ll have a Google of your telescope, we’re in the market for one soon-ish so just starting out with research.
 

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