Be Excellent To Each Other

It's mostly just me that won't shut up about it, but since we're no allowed to stick stuff like that in B&B any more I'll start a new topic



To kick off, here's the largest true-colour photograph of the night sky ever created

shouldn't this be in B and B?

What are the big swirly red bits?

That's where I'd have stuck it

Yon red bits are nebulae & iirc it's ionized hydrogen that makes them glow red

Thanks Wullie thats frickin awesome, i am glad it didn't just get stacked into B&B myself as i rarely check it out as it fills up so quickly.

Thanks just showed the kids & they were " WOW !! "

That's fucking gorgeous.

Needs to shoot at a lower ISO, very noisy.

I'm glad you didn't, or I'd have missed it.

Space, eh? Pimp pimp pimp.

Wullie, that's ace as tits.

It is an awesome picture. The planets get smaller as you zoom in on them, though (and the moon is super-imposed).

One day I hope to go somewhere dark and just lay there and look...

Photos and composites from various satellite photos.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ugordan/with/2683261096/


Big MESSENGER Mercury color mosaic by ugordan, on Flickr

Amateur ? What are the professionals being paid to do if not this?!

The professionals usually have long term projects that they're working on and as telescope/computing time is booked ages in advance, they can't just faff around taking pretty pictures of whatever takes their fancy. Amateurs, on the other hand, have no such constraints and can spend their observing time looking at whatever they like. Many of the most important astronomical discoveries have been made by amateurs.

Does this fit into here?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/26 ... suspended/

Basically, SETI are stopping their S

C'mon billionaire philanthropists - one of you must still have childlike wonder?!

Kind of... but Ionized Hydrogen glows a kind of washed-out green colour to the naked eye.
However, photographic film doesn't pick up the green frequencies very well, and so they come out on film looking red/blue.

Geeez I spent 4 hours reading up on space engines after looking at that page. Trying to see when we could go exploring.

Seem we could have a nuclear engine running tomorrow if we were daring enough. They would only take 4 months to get to Jupiter or something and 9 days to Mars. Only 4 years to the closest star I think too. Alas they might kill 1 in 10 living humans if used in orbit. But hey we get to see some more stars.

I'm pretty sure I can see the Milky Way when I go out for a night time walk (usually taking dog out) and get down to the end of the road where the streetlights are much further apart. It's very faint, and and first I wasn't sure if it was wispy clouds - but it's always in the same place and the more I look the less it seems like cloud. I must try and get a long-ish exposure picture one night.

The stars out here are wonderful, being away from the big city. I'd love to go somewhere truly isolated and just watch the sky.

If you point the camera towards Sagittarius you'll get the Great Rift in your picture which looks acebest. Also, shortish stacked exposures with something like deepskystacker are much more betterer than long exposures unless you want star trails (you don't if you're trying to get the Milky Way to look good).

As for checking what you're looking at Stellarium is brilliant & free, but even with a netbook it's a pain in the hoop to carry around especially since the screen will kill your night vision & it'll get all damp with dew & that. The better option is a planisphere like this one but for upsidedownland.

Crikey, Deepskystacker looks complicated. I'm an absolute novice, I enjoy looking at the stars in the sky but have little idea what I'm actually looking at - I'll have to get some books (and actually read them).

Someone else recommended Stellarium and it is indeed excellent.

dss is straightforward enough just to stack a few photos, it's like making an auto panorama in tattiechop. Select a the photos you need & leave it a couple of minutes until it does it's thing. I don't think I've ever fiddled with the settings.

Best night-sky pictures of 2011.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... 5-17-00:01

This

Jesus, don't show Decca.

Genuine LOL

So, with my mid-level-consumer DSLR and an 18-55 lens, is there any meaningful night sky photography I can do?

Yeah, just get it on a tripod and point it skyward on a clear night and leave the shutter open for a good while. You'll be surprised at what you can see.

Yeah, with a tripod.

I has a Gorillapod. That might have to do for Experimentation V1.0, and I know it won't be ideal from a stability point of view. And I'll probably use the timer rather than buy a remote shutter release, although the remote cable for my GF1 was about £3 so maybe not.

I got my remote shutter release for about £5. Don't get the £20 Nikon branded one.

It'll be fine, although IIRC shutter has a 30 second maximum in timer mode. IR remotes are only a few pounds unless you buy an official Nikon one, though:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wireless-Remote ... 183&sr=8-1

with that you can press once to open the shutter and again to close it after as long as you like.

I went to the National Space Photography awards gallery at the Greenwich Observatory a few month back, and a surprising amount of astonishing pictures were shot with very low-end kit and no scopes.

Oh, right, I didn't think about bulb mode being limited to not using the self-timer. Good point, that.

Also, I need to wait a few months and/or go out at 2am, of course. Probably the latter

Yeah and as with any kind of stargazing it helps to go somewhere with dark skies. No idea how it is where you are but from my back garden the orange glow from the streetlights is just horrendous.

What they all said. Tripod, timer & a lens cloth to get rid of dew. Also it's better to stack pictures for both star trails & objects than to do massively long exposures so 30s on the timer mode will be fine. I tend to stick it on the interval timer these days anyway.

My only camera's one of these http://www.ricoh.com/r_dc/gr/gr_digital2/ & that's what I done did the Milky Way pictures with & stuff

At my house it's not great, but I'm at the edge of the urban area in Wales -- I'm only a few miles from the southmost tip of the Brecon Beacons, for example. This is why I'm thinking I should try this out.

I keep meaning to try the stacking thing. Since I'm lazy, Mac software required

Nepune is completing it's first year since we discovered it on Tuesday. It has an orbital period of 164.79 years

Heh

The week is dragging a bit.

They started off really good, but then went a bit rubbish. Still better than most 90's indie stuff.

Ok, was determined to give this a try.

Started about midnight:


Now I can take exposures of longer than 30 seconds. First attempt:


Woo, star trails!


Stil way too bright, and too cloudy for good results though. Just wanted to try it out..

Universe Sandbox is on the Steam sale for under 4 quid today. Quite good if you want to see what happens when you put an extra star into the solar system or collide two galaxies etc etc.

I have no idea how to use editing software for even the simplest of tasks, or how to 'stack' pictures. Does anyone know of a really idiot proof guide?

@Kalmar, bloody Scottish summers, eh? Are you controlling your camera from a pc or have you hacked together a remote?Not really, Deep Sky Stacker is best for general space pikturs & Startrails is Ronseal. Both are remarkably straightforward despite DSS looking terrifying.

If you get stuck gies a shout & I'll jump round.

PS. Have you still got my copy of Lightroom?

Both! The little veroboard thing in the pic has a remote button on it, and plugs into the serial port for software timer control - that's what I was testing last night really. It has a long cable so I can leave the laptop plugged in, in the house.


Will try to do some stacking, and will be back to you for questions

Some ridiculously amazing space pics in The Guardian today



http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/galle ... -shortlist

The ol' Perseid meteor shower over the next couple of days might make for some interesting shots. Last year we were camping and even though we weren't out in the real sticks, it was awesome to watch.