Misc Astrophotography (Shoot the ISS, etc) besides moon shots...

Iridium Flare on my 48th bday; 85mm/4 image stack

Background story:
Yesterday was my 48th birthday, and while my wife was at gymnastics with my 6 yr old son I just came home from soccer practice with my 8 yr old daughter and 4 yr old son.
I checked Heavens-above.com for anything "neat" happening later in the evening.
Well, 15 minutes later @ 8:06pm there was gonna be a -8mag Iridium flare! It's on my "Top 10 in 2010 to shoot" list
So, I quickly got the gear, went outside, set-up @ 45 deg up and 10 deg North (where the flare was going to appear), and took shots.

This was only my 2nd Iridium flare, and my 1st capture.
My 2 kids at home saw it as well, we all were amazed at how bright a -8mag is, like a torch lighting up in the sky. Way cool to see, my wife and son just missed it.

Quick prep;
Taking test shots for background brightness, etc, again I used Jupiter to focus (those moons pinpoint absolute infinity, can barely make them out in 10x live mode @ 85mm).
Settings were ISO800, f5.6, 85mm on my 15-85, 6 sec each exposure.

I started the continuous capture @ 8:03:02pm, and took 40 light frames, 14 dark frames, and 10 bias frames.
The flare hit at 8:06:46pm, Heavens-above predictions were spot on this event!
(I'll have to record my capture into their database.)
The flare lasted about 21 seconds or so, each frame being 6 seconds and 1 second gap between frames.

While not dead centered, I captured 95% or so.
Setting altitude is relatively easy with a carpenters triangle, however for the 10 deg Azimuth I did my best at finding true north (Polaris), set my ballhead to zero/360 via tripod legs rotation, then rotated the ballhead to 10 degrees.
I was slightly off but for not having my compass outside pretty close for eyeballing.

Next time I'll use the 50mm prime instead of shooting at 85mm to capture more surrounding sky in the image.
result via DSS:


Once the flare subsided I continued to watch the satellite for another 10-15 seconds, my thoughts still aglow from watching the flare event.

I wanted to re-take M31 with less exposure time to solve the halo issue, 10/5 was 4 sec, my choices were 3.2 or 2.5 sec on the T1i, I choose 2.5 sec

New images taken Oct 7th 4:30am-ish
Single un-processed image with EXIF data



Here are 367 light frames 2.5 sec exposure each (15min 57sec total exposure), ISO800, 50mm prime @ f1.4; + 54 dark frames + 30 Bias frames. DSS processed, output into Apple Aperture 3.
Compared to 10/5 images appears slightly crisper and not overexposed.


Crop of M31 is kinda cool, can I barely make out actual arm swirls?


Is this a "bonus" galaxy? It's a crop of top LH 1/3 of main photo, what DSO is this? (I'm told it's M33 - the pinwheel galaxy.)

defboob, never gets old looking at the Milky way, I like how you frame it agaisnt the ridegline. When your timelapse is done post a link to that as well.

defboob said:

thanks! Here's the timelapse: http://vimeo.com/15760886

Click to expand...

Very nice timelapse stuff on your site, I can see you put time and effort into it.

Aug 13, 2010 Perseid meteor's - captured 4 (finally got around)

On Aug 13, 2010 at home in Howell, Mi, set-up the T1i on tripod + 15-85 lens at 15mm, shot many 20 sec exposures at ISO800 between 2:30am and 4:30am peak period.
(Some light pollution, did not chase meteors even though I saw "better" ones elsewhere in the sky, kept tripod facing Perseus direction)

This was in my "to do list" to process for 2 months, finally got around to working on it last weekend....

Identified 4 Perseid meteor's, here are 3 stacked and 1 lone frame for 4th.
At first I tried all 100's of frames into DSS, seemed the various clouds/etc gave it issues, so then I stacked just the 3 frames with the meteors in it and that worked,
(except I'm getting some field rotation "false stars" at top RH and bottom LH)

Captured these 3 at 2:42am , 2:57am (both bottom RH), and 3:10am (top LH), M31 is top RH for reference.
Used DSS + darks + Bias frames, this is cropped


Captured this 4th one at 4:31am. Single frame, clouds/twilight was coming so played with levels best I could to get this, that's M31 on LH mid area for ref, this is also cropped.


Here is the whole sky chart for 8-13-10 @ 2:30am
(gotta love heavens-above for this handy chart for your location)

Orion/M42 via T1i/DSS @ 85mm

Taken Oct 19, 2010 5:30am - 5:56am EDT, 256 (5) sec exposures (21.3 min total exposure time) @ ISO800, 33 darks, 25 bias, shot via T1i + Canon 15-85 Lens @ 85mm, f5.6 on tripod.
Full output:


Crop1


Crop2 of M42 1024 pix wide with 85mm lens (slight star movement seen here in tight crop)
Sweet, no purple fringing here! Very clear as well.


Finally, another bonus nebula I see here? What is the name of this?
(faintly seen Bottom LH)

Oct 20, 2010 Iridium 56 -6mag + bonus flare

Taken yesterday, checked heavens-above for flares, saw this
20 Oct 06:36:22 -6 38° 180° (S ) 5.4 km (W) -8 Iridium 56

Had the 50mm f1.4 prime lens on, set the 38 degree from horizon, due south.

These are with T1i + 50mm prime f1.4 lens, 10 sec exposures @ ISO800, f2.2, 6 images stacked in DSS.

Result, Iridium 56 is to the left, I got a "bonus flare" via another satellite on the RH which was about 40 seconds trailing.

Honestly, it was really cool looking at the direction and seeing the flare, -6 mag is pretty bright.


This is just left of Orion looking due south.
Next time I'll do wide field @ 15mm, 30 second to capture the complete flare w/o gaps....

Iridium Satellite #42, taken 10-21-2010, caught -3mag flare due North


Here's the ISS taken 10-26-2010 (4) 25 sec exposures @ 15mm, moving West>East (this is south view), missed the first 2 in the trees/clouds, got it fading into the Earth shadow.

For me, watching the ISS never gets old - there are people living above all of us!

Light clouds on Oct 29 and still hint of dusk made for some neat skies.

Date Mag Starts Max. altitude Ends
Time Alt. Az. Time Alt. Az. Time Alt. Az.
29 Oct -3.5 19:37:40 10 WSW 19:40:36 74 NNW 19:42:11 24 NE

Rising from WSW corner, (4) 25 sec exposures stacked:


Setting into earth shadow NE, (3) 25 sec exposures stacked

color over B&W for the star trails on these shots IMO.



Moon via Earthshine last week:
11/2 (these were shot with 15-85 lens @ 85mm, ISO800, f5.6, just varied shutter speed, all are 800x800 crop, posted @ 800 pix)
Moon "proper" exposure


11/2 Earthshine #1 @ 1 sec


11/2 Earthshine #2 @ 1.3 sec


11/3 Earthshine

11/3 (these were shot with 55-250 lens @ 250mm, ISO800, f5.6, just varied shutter speed, all are 1326x1326 crop posted @ 1024)
Moon "proper" exposure


11/3 Earthshine #1 @ 1 sec


11/3 Earthshine #2 @ 1.6 sec

FYI - Read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetshine

I was attempting to capture images similar as these
Google Earthshine images

Mine was done with a tripod, not a tracking device so not as sharp as some others when in 1 sec or 1.6 sec exposure some sharpness is lost at 250mm/higher.

Lots of PP can be done to combine the "correct" exposure with the "Earthshine" exposure, that is next on my task list.

Geminid meteor shower

Here are 4 so far from tonight's Geminid meteor shower.

1:15am - 2am
My 1st time using Noels tools + CS5 to remove light pollution, learning on the fly.

These are all 25 sec exposures @ 15mm, ISO1600, T1i, no cropping.
In time sequence:

#1 1:19am


#2 1:34 am (small one located at rule 1/3's top/LH)


#3 1:37 am


#4 1:59 am



I liked #1 the best, so here is a crop of it
#1-cropped:

winter star trails shot 12-15-2010

xStep said:

Nice star trails shot. Unfortunately the EXIF data is practically empty. What was the time, ISO, and aperture for the shot.

The brownness to the color reminds me of using Konika film, way back in the early 90's.

Click to expand...

Thx xStep, EXIF data is missing because it's 90 images stacked using the star trails program found here, http://www.startrails.de/html/software.html

My original intention for this was 2 fold: Capture Metorities and star trails.
For the winter star trails scene I wanted to include the xmas lights also.
I went inside, gave a very short burst of the outside xmas lights (just flip switch on/off), well I did that but then went uptairs to process some images and flipped the loft light on for 2-3 minutes before I realized my error......that's why the light is shining thru the upper windows....mistake not planned.

Upon my scanning the downloaded individual frames I saw a plane decided to crowd the exact same frame as the xmas lights were on, just bad luck....anyway here is that stacked image fwiw.
I made a 2nd startrails that is shorter in duration using a portion of the images captured, but unfortunately it does not have the xmas lights like I desired. Need another clear night to try again.



EXIF for each image:
Shot on tripod with Canon T1i + Canon 15-85 lens wide open(f3.5) @ 15mm, ISO1600, 25 sec each.
I normally shoot star trails@ ISO800 in the summer warmer temps, but was trying to capture Meteorites primarily so upped the ISO a little, and the cold keeps sensor noise in check.
Unfortunately light pollution became apparent, as you see.

One of these days I'll spend $125 for one of these filters, works with EF lens but not EF-S
http://www.optcorp.com/product.aspx?pid=11392

The Astronomik CLS is a budget filter for visual observation, Black & White photography and CCD photographs of nebulae, galaxies and star clusters with astronomical instruments of any size.

The Astronomik CLS blocks the light of the spectral lines of mercury and sodium-vapor lamps and lets the largest part of the visible light and H-alpha emissions pass.
All the important emission lines, as well as the spectral region that the very well dark adapted eye can see, can pass through the filter.
The Astronomik Visual CLS Light Pollution Filter is good for use under both dark and urban skies for reducing light pollution made by mercury-vapor lamps.
For film photography and modified DLSR use, the CLS filter gives good performance and near perfect color balance.
While this filter does perform well with webcam and video equipment under light polluted skies, it is not suitable for planetary use.

Click to expand...

I finally stacked the 5 meteorite images into 1, kinda cool how you can see them coming from the radiant point

South/North star trails from this weekend (Fri/Sat 2-4-2011)

Finally we got some clear night skies, took these Friday night (South shot) & Saturday morning (North shot).
Each is multiple 20 sec exposures stacked, taken with T1i + 15-85 lens @ 15mm, f3.5, ISO800.

North star trails (55min total exposure):


South star trails (45 min total exposure):


Here is final image of South exposures, with Orion's belt and nebula visible dead center top center of image:



Q on making video with these:
Lately using the star trails software it has not been able to make videos, the application starts then gives an error.
These images are RAW captured, converted to TIFF files for that program.
Any other free software to use?
I have a iMac and use OSX, but also run VMWare in a partition so I can use WinXP and its software as well on same computer, I'd prefer Mac side if its out there.