Milkyway nightscapes

gaabnz wrote in post #17961777
I just used mine for the first time last week on my 24mm 1.4 Samyang.

I only used it in the garden at home, but it makes focusing so easy. If you can get it for you lens, you will love it.

Just make sure you remember to take the filter off when you shoot ! My first shot I left in on and was very concerned at the resulting image hahaha. Once its off, its great :P

it would be for the samyang 24 I bought it so good to know it works well

xpfloyd wrote in post #17961910
it would be for the samyang 24 I bought it so good to know it works well

This place does my pocket no good

Any kind of photography nowadays is expensive. Wait til you get your feet wet good if you get into astrophotography.

Celestron wrote in post #17961948
Any kind of photography nowadays is expensive. Wait til you get your feet wet good if you get into astrophotography.

Yep, The Star Adventurer, 200L, a gitzo tripod and a modded 550D have just dipped my toe into astro

Just got back from a 4 day trip to Goblin Valley, Utah, some of the darkest night skies in the country. Altogether I took almost 1,700 shots including the timelapse photos, going to take me a LONNNGGG time to edit them all, but I got through 3 of them. Click on them to read the description for each shot and the settings, too exhausted to type it all out again, lol. I think I average about 4-6 hours of sleep each day and ended up hiking probably 20 miles. I went through 5 batteries for my cameras, I'm actually impressed they lasted as long as they did. Got super lucky with the clouds, while I did battle them for about an hour each night I was able to do most my foreground shots during that time and then image the sky when they cleared. Also, I had absolutely no idea that Comet LINEAR is visible right now so that was a really cool treat to see on top of everything else.

Description:
https://flic.kr/p/FSmy​bo

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png' | Redirected to error image by FLICKR

Gaabnz, how much easier is it to focus with that filter? Like night and day, OMG...or just a little better? I sometimes send pix to my phone or tablet for checking focus, and I'll always be carrying one or both of them anyway for those long night outings.

I reckon its night and day.

You just move focus until the centre line drops down the centre of the X and its done.

Have a look here to see how easy it is. http://www.lonelyspeck​.com/sharpstar/

gaabnz wrote in post #17962256
I reckon its night and day.

You just move focus until the centre line drops down the centre of the X and its done.

Have a look here to see how easy it is. http://www.lonelyspeck​.com/sharpstar/

Good to know. I'm not completely sold on it but it looks really easy to use.

Eric that last shot is outstanding, really get a sense of space with you? in the shot. I've read about some places that are pretty uptight about late night hiking/visits, Sedona I think had some rules. Do most people camp as close as they can get and hike in?

pdxbenedetti wrote in post #17962214
Just got back from a 4 day trip to Goblin Valley, Utah, some of the darkest night skies in the country. Altogether I took almost 1,700 shots including the timelapse photos, going to take me a LONNNGGG time to edit them all, but I got through 3 of them. Click on them to read the description for each shot and the settings, too exhausted to type it all out again, lol. I think I average about 4-6 hours of sleep each day and ended up hiking probably 20 miles. I went through 5 batteries for my cameras, I'm actually impressed they lasted as long as they did. Got super lucky with the clouds, while I did battle them for about an hour each night I was able to do most my foreground shots during that time and then image the sky when they cleared. Also, I had absolutely no idea that Comet LINEAR is visible right now so that was a really cool treat to see on top of everything else.

Description:
https://flic.kr/p/FSmy​bo

Description:
https://flic.kr/p/FUJG​Xz

Description:
https://flic.kr/p/F6xy​jP

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png' | Redirected to error image by FLICKR

Now....time for some much needed sleep.

WOW! This is amazing!

rezcar wrote in post #17962280
Eric that last shot is outstanding, really get a sense of space with you? in the shot. I've read about some places that are pretty uptight about late night hiking/visits, Sedona I think had some rules. Do most people camp as close as they can get and hike in?

Thanks, ya the cave space is truly incredible, I can't imagine how long the process of erosion from water and wind took to carve the whole thing, thousands if not millions of years. So the area the cave is in is BLM land, you basically just pull down a road and camp wherever available, no cost or anything. The shots with the hoodoo goblins is in the park itself which has usage fees, $13 a day, that you pay when you enter. There were some funky rules about entering after 10 pm and how you're supposed to pay at certain times, they were all super confusing and I just blew them off, put my money in the envelope and stuffed it in the slot. Nobody was really around at night, only one other person showed up while I was there and he looked like he did the same thing.

Goblin Valley is a state park so it's a little different than places like Arches, Bryce, Zion, or the other national parks. Zion is the only park I've been to where I had to get a special permit, the other places you can just drive right in after dark and nobody checks anything. Zion has access restrictions up the canyon starting in Spring when it gets really busy, nobody is allowed to drive up the canyon unless you are staying at the lodge, BUT you can get what's called a white pass to drive up at night, you just have to be out by 6 am. That info is literally not published anywhere, I got the impression that's something the park doesn't want most people to know. I kinda got the "wink wink, nod nod" treatment when I asked about night access, the pass doesn't cost anything, but it was sort of a "keep this on the down-low" agreement when you sign up for it at the station.

2loose wrote in post #17962318
WOW! This is amazing!

Thanks, I have a TON more pictures to edit, I'll definitely be posting more over the coming weeks.

Thanks Eric! Saw on your flickr that was a panorama. Great work!

pdxbenedetti wrote in post #17962342
Thanks, ya the cave space is truly incredible, I can't imagine how long the process of erosion from water and wind took to carve the whole thing, thousands if not millions of years. So the area the cave is in is BLM land, you basically just pull down a road and camp wherever available, no cost or anything. The shots with the hoodoo goblins is in the park itself which has usage fees, $13 a day, that you pay when you enter. There were some funky rules about entering after 10 pm and how you're supposed to pay at certain times, they were all super confusing and I just blew them off, put my money in the envelope and stuffed it in the slot. Nobody was really around at night, only one other person showed up while I was there and he looked like he did the same thing.

Goblin Valley is a state park so it's a little different than places like Arches, Bryce, Zion, or the other national parks. Zion is the only park I've been to where I had to get a special permit, the other places you can just drive right in after dark and nobody checks anything. Zion has access restrictions up the canyon starting in Spring when it gets really busy, nobody is allowed to drive up the canyon unless you are staying at the lodge, BUT you can get what's called a white pass to drive up at night, you just have to be out by 6 am. That info is literally not published anywhere, I got the impression that's something the park doesn't want most people to know. I kinda got the "wink wink, nod nod" treatment when I asked about night access, the pass doesn't cost anything, but it was sort of a "keep this on the down-low" agreement when you sign up for it at the station.

Thanks, I have a TON more pictures to edit, I'll definitely be posting more over the coming weeks.

Fantastic work all the way around! Your efforts certainly paid off. The skytracker seems complicated to set up and use. Is it?

ptcanon3ti wrote in post #17962535
Fantastic work all the way around! Your efforts certainly paid off. The skytracker seems complicated to set up and use. Is it?

At first it's a little cumbersome, definitely adds to the time you have to dedicate to each shot (and weight you have to carry), you have to set it up and polar align it (requiring an app to tell you exactly where Polaris is since it also moves around a point) and it's fairly easy to knock it out of alignment so you have to repeat the process. But once you get used to it the process becomes pretty easy, it takes me only a couple minutes to do everything now. This was the first time doing a blind alignment and shot, nice to see that you can still use it to get fairly long exposures with only a rough (and probably very inaccurate) alignment with a wide angle lens. With a longer lens you probably wouldn't get very good results, next time I'll have to try my 50mm lens and see how long I can image on a blind alignment with that.

What did you use as your light source , that last image looks like daytime inside ? Is that last image a composite , the inside almost looks like a painting . Nice capture of the comet .