Painting with Light

[Deckyon]

While out doing some astronomy observation this weekend, I contracted the help of one of my friends to "paint a telescope" with light. We tried many different techniques to find one that brought out the scope, yet also allowed the stars to show up. We first settled on using red flashlights. The one problem we did not think about is that the scope was black. Only after the first few shots did we realize that we would need a bit of whit light to help out.

http://www.sturm.org/albums/album15/PaintLight1.jpg

You will notice there are 2 different light sources in this first one. The red was not bright enough to light the black scope. I used a white LED light to light up the scope. I left the white light on for 3 seconds in the middle of the 15 second exposure. This way, the stars would still shine through. The red light was left on for the full 15 seconds.

Below are the camera settings:

Canon PowerShot G3
Aperture: 3.0
Shutter : 15 sec
Auto Whitebalance
Manual Focus - 10 feet

Well, I hope you all like this. This is my first try using the "paint with light" technique. I will definatly be trying more of these as it was a lot of fun. Let me know what you think...

[paul162brown]

I think the shot is great! The shot of the scope with the stars in the background is superb and many digital photographers would maybe have cheated in layering different images in Photoshop to achieve this. I also think the red light works really well. Perhaps you should contact the manufacturer of the scope as I think it makes a great product shot.

[sdommin]

Very nice, Brad. But why did you first decide to use red lights (other than the fact you were already using them to keep your night vision)?

[Deckyon]

The night vision was the reason. Finally, after most people getting packed up, we started with the white light. I lke the combo...

[Deckyon]

The only thing I used Photoshop for was to resize the image to 640x480.

Thanks for the compliments, I appreciate them.

[satnitefever]

Damn that is something new !
Nice !!!!

The photo seems to have quite abit of noise..

In my life I have never been to a place with so many stars, where did you take this?

[Deckyon]

Thanks. Can't really help the noise. I could probably use photoshop to clean the noise, but I kind of like a little. The shot was taken about 20 miles NW of Corydon, IN. It is a nice dark-sky area. We have built an observatory up there on about 40 acres.