As usual my sense of timing seems to be impeccable, I decided experiment with image stacking for deep space imagery when the monsoons are about to start. Ever since I made the decision, it's either been raining or completely overcast. I even had some difficulty in trying to do solar photography.
Luck turned my side when I went on a trip to one of the national parks in SL, Wilpattu. The bungalow we stayed in was right in the middle of the jungle with absolutely no light pollution. My brother was the first to spot that the Milky Way was clearly visible overhead. He was trying to experiment with a set of long exposure shots while I was trying to get a series of comparatively shorter exposure shots for stacking.
The image above (Milky Way across Cygnus) was stacked on Deep Sky Stacker using 20 images each with 10sec exposure. The stacking was done with 10 dark frames and 10 bias. The image below captures Milky Way across Scorpius. I shot that pretty much aiming from the hip and I was pretty glad that it managed to keep the entirety of Scorpius inside the frame.
In case you cannot make it, the red star along the center horizontal line to the right half of the photo (about 25% from the right edge) is Antares.
They are not bad for a first shoot. But something I figured was that photographic lenses are not really ideal for astrophotography. I was trying out the above using a 18-55 Canon IS lens and realised that at the focal point, stars are still an ellipse, which means that there is a collimation error. This probably doesn't come much in to play when larger objects are photographed (but certainly would have an effect on the sharpness of the picture) but is absolutely disastrous when it comes to astrophotography. It would be impossible to shoot something like the M31 (Andromeda) or M42 (Orion Nebula). It might fair ok with open clusters, but I guess we'd have to wait and see.
Btw, the one of the long exposure shots by my bro is shown below. The area in the photograph is the same as in the photo Milky Way across Cygnus, but is actually a single frame of 30sec exposure.
P:S:
I got the motor drive for the Celestron Astromaster. I guess for that too, I'd have to wait and see till the skies clear up.
Luck turned my side when I went on a trip to one of the national parks in SL, Wilpattu. The bungalow we stayed in was right in the middle of the jungle with absolutely no light pollution. My brother was the first to spot that the Milky Way was clearly visible overhead. He was trying to experiment with a set of long exposure shots while I was trying to get a series of comparatively shorter exposure shots for stacking.
 |
| Milky Way across Cygnus (20 frames of 10sec exposure) |
The image above (Milky Way across Cygnus) was stacked on Deep Sky Stacker using 20 images each with 10sec exposure. The stacking was done with 10 dark frames and 10 bias. The image below captures Milky Way across Scorpius. I shot that pretty much aiming from the hip and I was pretty glad that it managed to keep the entirety of Scorpius inside the frame.
 | ||
| Milky Way across Scorpius (10frames of 10sec exp) |
They are not bad for a first shoot. But something I figured was that photographic lenses are not really ideal for astrophotography. I was trying out the above using a 18-55 Canon IS lens and realised that at the focal point, stars are still an ellipse, which means that there is a collimation error. This probably doesn't come much in to play when larger objects are photographed (but certainly would have an effect on the sharpness of the picture) but is absolutely disastrous when it comes to astrophotography. It would be impossible to shoot something like the M31 (Andromeda) or M42 (Orion Nebula). It might fair ok with open clusters, but I guess we'd have to wait and see.
Btw, the one of the long exposure shots by my bro is shown below. The area in the photograph is the same as in the photo Milky Way across Cygnus, but is actually a single frame of 30sec exposure.
 |
| Milky Way across Cygnus (single frame of 30sec exposure) |
P:S:
I got the motor drive for the Celestron Astromaster. I guess for that too, I'd have to wait and see till the skies clear up.
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