Our Beautiful Universe - Photos and Videos

[PhysicoRaj]

How To Easily Focus On The Stars (Astro Pills)
- in which he among other things describes how to make a cheap focusing aid (for lenses with shorter focal lengths) from a frying pan splatter screen . He also provides some focusing tips if you don't have or get your Bahtinov masks to work for you.

That's a cool idea sticking the screen on an existing Bahtinov, turns any star into a Gamma Ray Burst

 

[DennisN]

Here are two great instruction videos I've found recently.

They are particularly useful for those who use cameras without trackers for astrophotography, but there is other interesting info in them too. He is a very calm and good presenter, in my opinion.

Among many other things he shows how to calculate maximum exposure time (shutter speed) for various focal lengths in order to not get star trails (both the "NPF rule" and "rule of 500"). For NPF calculation for many different cameras and focal lengths there is a French page here, and the app PhotoPills can also do it. He also describes calibration frames (bias, dark and flat frames).

He also does some post-processing editing tricks in I did not know about at 1:14:13 and onwards.

They are long videos since they show the entire process, from start to finish, which I think is good.

Orion Nebula WITHOUT a Star Tracker or Telescope, Start to Finish, DSLR Astrophotography (Nebula Photos)
Another video: ANDROMEDA GALAXY with only a Camera, Lens, & Tripod (Nebula Photos)

 

[Devin-M]

I was able to more than double my resolution compared to the last video with a few tricks...

.

My camera is a Nikon D800 with a 36 megapixel full frame sensor, but it only shoots video full frame in 1080p (doesn't crop the image), which means you lose 4/5ths of the native resolution before the video is even saved to the memory card.

I got around this by shooting 7 shots in RAW mode (equivalent to 8k), aligning them and then importing to iMovie, and playing them in a loop at 15 frames per second. This still gives the appearance of video from the random noise & atmospheric wobble. Once in imovie I did some digital zooms and there you have it. I think I lost half my resolution when fully zoomed in because imovie doesn't support 8k so everything was essentially downscaled to 4k by imovie prior to the digital zooms and prior to uploading to youtube.

 

[Devin-M]

Re-process of a couple of milky-way photos (shot with a 14mm lens on a full frame camera sensor with equatorial mount)...

(looks best on a 4k television... most computer monitors won't show 4k video without downscaling)

 

[Devin-M]

I caught 3 frames @ 1800mm f/12 1/1000th sec 3200iso in RAW format during an ISS flyover last night. It was over Redding, California, USA at about 6:46p local time on 11/19/21. I converted just the green channel of the individual frames to a short video.

I'm not sure if I'm seeing any actual details or if it's all artifacts...

 

[Devin-M]

I caught 3 frames @ 1800mm f/12 1/1000th sec 3200iso in RAW format during an ISS flyover last night. It was over Redding, California, USA at about 6:46p local time on 11/19/21. I converted just the green channel of the individual frames to a short video.

I'm not sure if I'm seeing any actual details or if it's all artifacts...

Using some noise reduction and histogram stretching techniques in Adobe Lightroom I was able to obtain these color versions (0.463 arcsec/pixel):

 

[Devin-M]

Jupiter:

 

[Devin-M]

Saturn:

 

[bruha]

Hello,
its interesting images, its quite similar to my results. Which gear you use for these..?
thank you and lot of succes

 

[DennisN]

Some new fun and pretty affordable gear (homemade and second hand):Home-built Star Focusing Aid

I got inspired by the page I posted before about building a star focusing aid from some kind of perforated screen.

At home I had a couple of very thin perforated plastic screens which are for ventilation holes in computers and other electronic equipment (you put them in front of holes to protect the equipment from some dust and other things getting in). I'm pretty sure such screens can be easily found online (I think I got mine from AliExpress a couple of years ago).

I cut out two quadratic pieces of cardboard (120 x 120 mm) and then cut out quadratic holes (60 x 60 mm) in each of them, put them on top of each other and merged them with duct tape. I used two pieces of cardboard to make the frame more solid. Why quadratic and not circular? Well, it was easier to cut quadratic pieces and the shape really doesn't matter.

Then I put a cut-out plastic perforated screen in front of the 60 x 60 mm hole and secured it with duct tape.

It's not pretty, but it seems to work. I've tried it with a 400 mm tele lens on remote lights and it produces dotted diffraction spikes as a focusing aid. It will be put to test in the field on real stars.

I will also drill a couple of holes in the frame, put in and secure some small rods in the holes and connect a rubber band or something to the rods, so the focusing aid can be put in front of on any lens (up to ca 120 mm in diameter, though the perforated screen is smaller of course). Thanks to the material used, the focusing aid also got extremely lightweight.

Here's the "one size fits all" focusing aid:

(only the highest quality cardboard and duct tape were used to produce this premium product )


Fast Lenses

Here's a lens I won yesterday on a Swedish auction site (for $173) which I'm really excited to test.

Samyang 12mm f/2.0

It's a Samyang 12mm f/2.0 ultrawide (ca 95-99 degrees field of view, IIRC) and also pretty fast lens, which is said to be great for low light photography and thus wide photography of the night sky. The same lens is also marketed under the brand "Rokinon".

I am very excited to test this lens at dark sites in the near future.

Two reviews of the lens:

• Rokinon 12mm f/2.0 NCS CS Review (Lonely Speck)
• Rokinon (Samyang) 12mm f/2 Review (ShotKit)

Another lens I've been looking for is the Canon nFD 50mm f1.4, which is a pretty fast 50mm, also good for low light conditions. I found one in excellent condition on Ebay from Japan for $90 (+$21 shipping), which I ordered yesterday.

Canon nFD 50mm f/1.4

Teleconverter

I also won this teleconverter recently on a Swedish online auction, and I got it dirt cheap. I payed $1 for it (+$6 shipping). It's a 2x teleconverter for Canon FD lenses, which doubles the focal length.

Canon FD Teleconverter (2X CFE TELEPLUS MC6)

 

[ondrejbruha]

Photo from the Bohemian Higlands with the milky way core.

- Sony A7 + Tamron 24/2.8 + Sky Watcher Star Adventurer mount
- Foreground is panorama from 3 images, sky is panorama from 3 images (each stacked from 9 expositions).
- Edited in: Photoshop, PixInsight and PTGui

 

[Devin-M]

Looks like the moon, but actually an overexposed crescent of Venus...

Hello,
its interesting images, its quite similar to my results. Which gear you use for these..?
thank you and lot of succes

Thanks... it's a Meade Maksutov-Cassegrain LX85 1800mm focal 150mm (6") aperture f/12 w/ Nikon D800 on a Star Adventurer Pro 2i (overloaded 2-3x past the weight limit I should add)... I'm getting 0.463 arcsec/pixel with that combination and I've been running the numbers on Astrometry.net and Stellarium and I think it must actually be closer to 2180mm f/14.5, for some reason...

 

[Keith_McClary]

perforated plastic screens which are for ventilation holes

What pitch (holes per cm) is good? Would window screen work? I learned:

Standard screens have a mesh size of 18 by 16, meaning there are 18 squares per inch from the top left corner to the top right corner (also referred to as warp) and 16 squares per inch from the top left corner to the bottom left corner (also referred to as fill).

(I can't find that meaning of "fill" in my Oxford.)

 

[DennisN]

What pitch (holes per cm) is good? Would window screen work?

I don't know, maybe . I just did it with the perforated plastic sceens I had, i.e. trial and error.
But since you asked I just measured the holes on my screen and they are about 0.9 mm in diameter (ca 9-10 holes per cm).

The holes in the splatter screen the other guy used (on this page) looks a bit larger to my eyes.
I guess they are about 1-1.5 mm in diameter.

 

[Devin-M]

the Moon (11/19/21):

2180mm f/14.5 Maksutov-Cassegrain w/ Nikon D800, 1/1250th sec, 400iso, 50% crops, single shot, raw mode, edited Adobe Lightroom & Photoshop

 

[DennisN]

the Moon (11/19/21):

Very cool! It looks like you took them from orbit. Which mission are you on?

 

[Devin-M]

Phantom Galaxy - Distance: 32 million light years

22x 3.5 min (1.28 hrs) @ 6400iso 2180mm f/14.5

 

[collinsmark]

Phantom Galaxy - Distance: 32 million light years

Nice. The Phantom Galaxy (Messier 74) is a difficult target (very low "surface brightness" for a Messier object). -- I'm presently working on that target too, but I still have several more nights of data to take. Image to come in the nearish future.

 

[Devin-M]

Nice. The Phantom Galaxy (Messier 74) is a difficult target (very low "surface brightness" for a Messier object). -- I'm presently working on that target too, but I still have several more nights of data to take. Image to come in the nearish future.

Thanks. I think my biggest challenge last night was the wind. I think only 1 out of 22 of my 3.5 minute sub-frames wasn’t affected. 8 of them were so bad the software couldn’t align them but I went ahead and stacked the other 16 even though they were pretty bad and I think that’s mostly the reason it came out so blurry. I think the Star Adventurer 2i Pro is “the little tracker that could” when conditions are perfect but its very susceptible to wind and can take up to 2 minutes to stop wobbling once it starts.

 

[Devin-M]

This is what the 3.5 minute subframes (x22) looked like from the wind:

 

[DennisN]

Wow, what a photo!

"A Moon Dressed Like Saturn"
(Image Credit & Copyright: Francisco Sojuel)
Source: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200316.html

 

[JohnPi]

You know guys, I'm really amazed what way humanity has done to reach that development level we have now. Sputnik-1 was the first satellite in space. It spent 3 months in space, completed over 1400 Earth's orbits and traveled 70+ million km! I'll just attach a small documentary video, you should definitely see it!

 

[Devin-M]

 

[DennisN]

View attachment 293229

I see Orion and the Pleiades (at least I've learned something from being out in the cold nights. A couple of years ago I would not recognize the Pleiades ).
Are you shooting the Orion nebula?

 

[DennisN]

I've been annoyed at the consistently bad weather lately, particularly since I'm very keen and excited to try my new gear. As consolation I did a parody clip to let off some steam.

I know this meme has been done to death, but the astro/stargazing community all over the world is in desperate need of a parody. At least I had fun doing it.

Here it is, premiering on PF:

 

[Devin-M]

Are you shooting the Orion nebula?

Orion Nebula:

These were with 30 second (x120) exposures at 1600iso, 2180mm f/14.5 on a Nikon D800 full frame dslr under moonless bortle 6 skies, no filters. View in WorldWideTelescope

 

[bruha]

Excelent image of O.nebulae, especially last one.!:)

 

[bruha]

 

[bruha]

and Hitler clip is super as well.. (it seems that this part of movie is generally used for parody maker --I see
two more parody clip with this already..

 

[DennisN]

and Hitler clip is super as well..

I'm glad you enjoyed it. I had fun doing it. It's been cloudy here for weeks now, and I was tired of seeing the grey skies.

(it seems that this part of movie is generally used for parody maker --I see
two more parody clip with this already..

Oh yes, there have been many, many parodies done over the years using that scene.
Before I did mine, I searched for an astro parody of that scene, but it seems it had not been done before.

 

[Devin-M]

Flame Nebula (NGC 2024):

This one is noisier than the last one mostly because I only did 10 minutes of exposures (10x1min) instead of an hour, and also it's a much dimmer nebula than the last one so I was shooting 1 minute exposures instead of 30 seconds, and I was shooting at 4x the ISO sensitivity... 6400iso instead of 1600iso and I was shooting from a light polluted area (moonless bortle 6) - the other one was shot from the same location. This was on a 2180mm focal f/14.5 telescope as was the other.

view in WorldWideTelescope

 

[PhysicoRaj]

Is anybody shooting the comet C2021/A1 (Leonard)? It has entered telescope magnitude range and is performing better than estimates.

My skies are completely cursed, was waiting for this one since a long time

 

[DennisN]

It's been cloudy here for weeks now, and I was tired of seeing the grey skies.

Finally I had a breakthrough...

A detail of Grey's Nebula (NGC #808080) in the constellation Greyhound. Since the amount of noise was so low there was no need to stack images. And the color reproduction is natural, no edits have been done.

Detail of Grey's Nebula (NGC #808080) (ISO 200, 1/160s exposure)

The gear and the sky:

 

[PhysicoRaj]

Finally I had a breakthrough...

Well done. Seems like a reflection nebula, hard to conclude from spectroscopy. I read somewhere that experts have theorized that the major constituents could be molecular Nitrogen, Oxygen and water vapor.

 

[bruha]