First Andromeda - Single Exposure

[Colorado CJ]

Not sure if this fits here, but I didn't see a night or astrophotography forum

I bought another camera, a Pentax K-1

I've been wanting another Pentax camera for a long time, namely for the Astrotrac feature .

Anyway, I got the camera on Friday and Friday night I took a couple of shots of the night sky in my backyard. Having never used this feature, I way overexposed the shot. I also was just shooting in my backyard, in a neighborhood, so there was a lot of light pollution.

Here's what I got with a 1 minute shot using an old Takumar 200mm F3.5 lens.

First Andromeda - Unedited by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr


And after cleaning it up as best I could, here is the edited shot. You can see the dust lanes and M110 as well

First Andromeda - Single Exposure by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr


I am going to try to get to some darker skies this next week, learn how to take better exposures and take a series of photos and stack them. This camera is REALLY going to get me some great night time shots. I've been using a D600 and Samyang 14mm f2.8 lens for Milky Way shots for years. I can't wait to see what the Astrotrac feature brings to my photography.

 

[Kyle Jones]

Very cool! What is the astrotrack feature?

 

[AlanLichty]

You found the right place for this. The forum description reads Landscape, Seascapes, Skyscapes, Starscapes and Astrophotography

You just shot this in your backyard at 200mm ? I would not have thought that this could be possible but maybe with your altitude.

 

[Colorado CJ]

The image sensor moves along with the sky, so instead of elongated stars/nebula, etc.. you get sharp pinpoint stars, for up to 5 minute shutter speeds (depending on lens).

 

[Colorado CJ]

You found the right place for this. The forum description reads Landscape, Seascapes, Skyscapes, Starscapes and Astrophotography

You just shot this in your backyard at 200mm ? I would not have thought that this could be possible but maybe with your altitude.

Yeah, a 60 second exposure at 1600 ISO with an old Takumar 200mm f3.5 preset. I just turned on the GPS, used the Mobile Observatory app on my phone to point the camera in the right direction, and pressed the shutter.

I am pleasantly surprised with what I got for how little I had to do. I've wanted a tracking platform, or an equatorial telescope for a while. They are a lot harder to set up than this camera is. It was literally less than 5 minutes from heading out to the back yard.

I live in Loveland, Colorado. It isn't a huge city, but there is plenty of light pollution. I CAN"T WAIT to get this camera to some of the dark sky sites I regularly camp in. I can see some awesome Milky Way photos coming from this camera.

Here's a recent (last year) Milky Way shot taken with my D600 with a 25 second exposure. This was with the camera just on I tripod at 4000 ISO. This new camera will be able to take a much longer exposure, so I can set my ISO lower and get a very clean, detailed Milky Way shot compared to what I got here.

Milky Way Over Medicine Bow by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr

 

[JimFox]

That is really cool Andrew! I like what you got here and look forward to seeing more.

I had done some research on it a year or so ago, because I do shoot so much at night I had toyed with getting the K-1 and a single lens just to use for shooting the stars since the sensor can rotate and track with the stars.

In the end I didn’t get it, in my research I hD found that 60 to 90 seconds was the longest it could track without getting some weird star distortions in the corners. Now those can be cropped out, so I think there is still value in the K-1, but for me I decided to instead buy the Sigma 14mm f1.8 which allows so much more light into a photo that I am happy with that.

But with that said, I do still think about the K-1 once in a while...

 

[Mike Lewis]

Having shot lots of astro images with gear lots more complicated than yours, I have to say you are getting some nice results there! M31 is a very fun target of course. I can trace my progress in astroimaging just through my images of it over the years.

You are right though, there is no substitute for dark skies. I belong to a group of 4 astroimagers (also living in CO, down in the Longmont/Boulder area myself) and we usually take a dark skies trip once a year if we can manage it. We have gone to one of 3 locations (Northern NM, Southern NM, or Southern AZ) and always pick the week of the new moon. Pretty amazing what you see down there.

I pretty much split my activities between astroimaging and scenic imaging. Both are very rewarding and fun. But watch out, if you truly get into imaging DSOs (deep sky objects like M31 for instance) the astrophotography hobby makes normal photography look cheap

Nice images! Lok forward to more. And I didn't know astro stuff was OK to post here. So good to know!

ML

 

[Bart Carrig]

Very nice. I really enjoyed the thread (as well as the glimpse of Hulk Hogan at the end of the video) : )

I want to start doing some star photography, so I'll be tracking some of your posts; and I've seen some pretty cool night stars from a number of people at the forum.

Bart

 

[Colorado CJ]

Thanks everyone!

Here's another from tonight, same suburban skies. This is 8, 20 second shots at 3200 ISO using the K-1 and a Soviet Tair 3 300mm F4.5 lens.

I have no idea what I am doing with the stacking program, or what dark frames, light frames or biased frames are. I just pushed my way through the program, then adjusted it in Photoshop. It is going to be a fun hobby, but I can see already that I have A LOT to learn.

I also have to see how to best use the Astrotracer feature as I am getting some trailing at 20 seconds with a 300mm lens.

Andromeda 8 Stacked by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr

 

[JimFox]

That one looks pretty nice too Andrew. Yeah, there is some star movement, but I am sure you will figure that out. One of the fun things I have always enjoyed about shooting at night is just how fun it is with all of the choices. It's almost like we are back in chemistry class mixing a bunch of chemicals together like mad scientists as we tried to create something.

 

[Colorado CJ]

Here's my first real go at stacking, with dark frames, light frames and flats.

It didn't turn out right (strange halo effect and weird colors), but I was able to fix it somewhat. The stacking program has HUGE amounts of variables, so I am sure I am not getting the best out of the images.

This is 30 images stacked, each image shot for 30 seconds at 800 ISO. Just shot in my backyard with l bright half moon, so not the best circumstances. It is also HEAVILY cropped, so it isn't as clear as it could be.

Adromeda - 30 Stacked by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr

 

[JimFox]

That's looking pretty good Andrew! It may not be perfect, but I would say it sure is looking very good. Whatever issues you saw, you must have corrected pretty well, because nothing jumps out at me as needing to be corrected.

 

[Colorado CJ]

Thanks Jim. I've found a few things I was doing wrong after some reading, so tonight I tried it again.

It turns out I was calibrating my camera sensors wrong. So after calibrating it the right way, I am able to get 50+ seconds with a 300mm lens.

Here is an 8 shot stack taken with 50 second exposures. I am going to have to take a lot more exposures after seeing how good just 8 looks!

Here is the cropped photo.

Andromeda - 8 Exposures - 50 sec each by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr



And here is the uncropped photo so show how much cropping is involved at 300 mm with a full frame camera.

adromeda 8 Stacked 50 seconds each uncropped by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr

 

[JimFox]

Oh man that's really awesome Andrew! Love the detail in it.

I am glad you got the tracking figured out, this is going to be very fun for you.

If you want to, and are able to. If you can write up a little article on how you did calibrate the camera for tracking, that would be a cool resource to have here.

 

[Brian]

Your pics are awesome. I'm afraid you guys may end up causing me to spend a ton of money.

Hey Colorado CJ. Have I seen that username on Advrider? I swear I've seen it somewhere before.

 

[Colorado CJ]

Your pics are awesome. I'm afraid you guys may end up causing me to spend a ton of money.

Hey Colorado CJ. Have I seen that username on Advrider? I swear I've seen it somewhere before.

Yeah, I am a member there. I ride all over Colorado and the South West, with trips to Minnesota occasionally. Right now I have a DL650, DR650 and a Cagiva Gran Canyon (Ducati 990 engine).

I don't post a huge amount over there, but I sure read a lot of the ride reports! What's your handle over there?

 

[Brian]

Yeah, I am a member there. I ride all over Colorado and the South West, with trips to Minnesota occasionally. Right now I have a DL650, DR650 and a Cagiva Gran Canyon (Ducati 990 engine).

I don't post a huge amount over there, but I sure read a lot of the ride reports! What's your handle over there?

I thought your screen name looked familiar. I have absolutely no idea why. I had a 1190r but had to sell it this summer since I wasn't able to work for a couple of months. That's an expensive toy to have sitting in the garage making payments on and not working. I'm toying with Getting a KLR this summer. Seems like a bullet proof bike. I still have a KTM 350 to kick around the back yard on. If you're ever in Elbert County, let me know. My screen name is Colowyo over there.

Your astro shots are really cool. It's got me looking at trackers now.