Recent content by kiwiapple

Thank you! Yes, it's an astromod version that I bought on eBay from someone in Germany a few years ago. And yes, I use an Optolong L-Pro filter.

I have decided that this season I'm going to try to focus on just a few targets and really collect a lot of subs on them, rather than going for quantity over quality of different targets. My second narrowband target of the year is this old favourite of mine, the wonderful Tarantula Nebula, which...

The forecast was for clear skies yesterday so I got my tripod set up in advance so that I could hit the ground running when darkness fell. Unfortunately it started out quite cloudy and I was all set to give up my plan, but at around 8:45pm it seemed to clear up enough to make my effort...

Thank you for the nice comment, and it's nice for me to be on the other side of the "I couldn't shoot this once-in-a-lifetime event because of the clouds" problem. As for the new house, I am not a glutton for punishment, so no, the new house won't be a new lodge, but we will have space for three...

Last night I went to our new place (still unfinished) to take advantage of darker skies to shoot the comet C/2025 R3 Panstarrs one more time. It’s a bit higher than a few days ago but it’s still close enough to Orion to make for a nice tableau. I used my astro-mod Canon 600D, Rokinon 135 f/2 and...

When I was photographing the comet the other day I realised it had the potential to make a nice conjunction with the Orion Nebula and Rigel on Saturday night. The weather forecast kept changing, going from 10% cloudy to 90% cloudy in just 48 hours. Sure enough, as dusk settled in things were not...

A friend led me to realise that I could capture the comet with the tail in a better orientation if I removed the equatorial wedge from my Seestar and shot in alt-az mode, so I gave that a try last night. Much happier with the framing, but I had a hard time getting rid of star traces in my...

Oy oy oy, what a time I have had with this comet! I only realised it was visible a few nights ago, but it's in a tricky spot for me, with a combination of trees and power lines in the way. But last night I got about 20 minutes of 10-second shots of the thing with my Seestar S50 that I was *sure*...

Yeah, there are gradients for sure, probably (possibly) due to ambient light, moonlight etc. I don’t think I’ve noticed such bad gradients when using this lens on moonless nights.

The nights are just starting to get long enough to where it's worth trying to set up a shot in my New Zealand backyard. Last night I had the chance to shoot the Orion Nebula with my astro-modified Canon 600D and Rokinon 135mm lens on a Benro Polaris mount, so I took it. Only shot 100 frames, and...

Thanks!!

I was as shocked as anyone that we had clear skies for last night's eclipse, since I cannot remember the last time we had a clear night since around November. But clear it was, and I had a great view of the eclipse from my front porch. I managed to see it from when the Earth's shadow first...

Every year, people come from all over NZ (and elsewhere) to photograph the sunflower fields that surround Oamaru. This year, to mark the 20th anniversary (I think) of their planting, the company behind them decided to hold an open day and let people come and experience the flowers in 360-degree...

That's outstanding!!

Thanks, and yeah, I also was not much of a birder but the new gear makes it quite appealing. I did have an issue that maybe you can advise me on--with the Spot focus method selected I found the autofocus couldn't find focus. I had to get close to focus manually first and then try the AF again...