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Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus and Ceres on 1 October 2020. by RegularAlien in astrophotography
[–]RegularAlien[S] 0 points1 point2 points 9 days ago (0 children)
That's a good tip, I don't know any such stores, I'll have to look for one. I think I already have a good design, but kind of you to offer! Do you attach yours to a camera lens or a telescope, and how? Mine is made from a dip sauce lid and it snaps right on. :D
The camera has a good sensor and it's light weight, but I think I have outgrown it and it isn't optimal for astro. I am looking at D5600 and D750 models as my next step. Perhaps later I will move to a mirrorless. How about you?
I feel you. Camera battery lasts for 2-3 hours, so I have four spares.
It was during this planetary photo shoot when I realised I need a Bahtinov mask. I recently made one for the 135mm lens and did some tests. Seems to make a difference. I'll do some more testing once the skies clear and post the results here. :)
Nikon D3500. The reason I have to use an app is that this camera model is incompatible with (other) intervalometers. I also have to connect through the micro usb port since the camera does not have wifi.
However, this has been a blessing in disguise, since having a larger screen helps with focusing. The app does not seem to use much battery at all. My phone battery lasts through the night with no problems. The app also works with tablets, and I have recently switched to a tablet because it allows me to use my phone and take flats in the field.
[–]RegularAlien[S] 3 points4 points5 points 9 days ago* (0 children)
6 planets and 1 dwarf planet all photographed during one night. I spent 10 hours by the lake doing this. It was my first time seeing the last three planets. I also tried to image Pluto, but it was too dim to be seen through the noise.
Also visible are Saturn’s moon Titan and Jupiter’s moons (from bottom-left to top-right): Callisto, Io and Ganymede.
Each photo was tracked. The photos were stacked using Astro Pixel Processor (APP) to create each individual image. I used GIMP to make the final collage.
Frames: Lights: Mercury 6, Mars 11, Jupiter & Saturn (in the same frame) 24, Neptune 20, Uranus 21 and Ceres 20. I used 20 dark and bias frames to calibrate each of the images. No flats unfortunately.
Edits: I used APP to stretch the data and to remove light pollution for each stack. I also did noise reduction to Mercury, Uranus, Neptunus and Ceres in Darktable using the denoise tool, and applied a slight curves adjustment. Each photo was cropped for the collage.
Gear: Samyang 135mm lens on a Nikon body which was controlled using the Camera Connect and Control app on my phone. Tracked with a MoveShootMove rotator.
More of my work for those interested: https://www.instagram.com/teemukoskimaki/
---Edit: Taken in Canberra, Australia.
---Edit 2: I used a 20s exposure time, f4 aperture, and ISO 400.
Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus and Ceres on 1 October 2020. (i.redd.it)
submitted 9 days ago by RegularAlien to r/astrophotography
“awaiting the first biological experiments to be performed in the vicinity of the Venus clouds” – Harold Morowitz & Carl Sagan, 1967. [1712x1152] [OC] by RegularAlien in QuotesPorn
[–]RegularAlien[S] 29 points30 points31 points 1 month ago (0 children)
Here's what Harold Morowitz and Carl Sagan thought about hypothetical life in Venus in 1967:
"A macroscopic organism living in the clouds of Venus must be regulated to live at an essentially fixed altitude. If it is carried, for example by convective downdraughts to the lower atmosphere, it will encounter uncomfortably high temperatures, and if it is carried to the cloud tops it will encounter very little moisture and very low temperatures. We therefore imagine an isopycnic organism constructed as a float bladder. Because the atmosphere is primarily carbon dioxide and nitrogen, a float bladder filled with hydrogen would be very effective. Molecular hydrogen can be produced from water by photosynthesis, as is known in purple bacteria"
"the gasbags have a minimum diameter of about 4 cm, about the size of a pingpong ball. Much larger organisms would also be possible. If the skin were a unit membrane thick (about 75 Å), the organism could conceivably be as small as 75µ in diameter; but this is clearly a lower limit – it is unlikely that the requisite metabolic processes could be contained within a unit membrane."
"The postulated photosynthetic organism would reside just below the Venus clouds, or in the lower cloud deck. Water would be collected either as rain or by contact with the droplets, and minerals blown up from the surface would be captured on the sticky underside of the organism, and ingested by pinocytosis. The mineral requirements would be modest, and the ash content would be a very small fraction of the dry weight."
"Life at the Venus clouds can be envisaged which operates entirely on known terrestrial principles. The conditions in the lower clouds of Venus resemble those on Earth more than any other extraterrestrial environment now known. It is possible that life arose under more moderate conditions on the surface of Venus in its early history; for example, the planet may then have been appreciably less degassed than it is today, with an atmospheric greenhouse much less effective than the contemporary one. Outgassing advanced, surface temperatures rose, and the surface became more inclement. Organisms may have then emigrated to the clouds, and may there be awaiting the first biological experiments to be performed in the vicinity of the Venus clouds."
MOROWITZ, H., SAGAN, C. Life in the Clouds of Venus?. Nature 215, 1259–1260 (1967). https://doi.org/10.1038/2151259a0
“awaiting the first biological experiments to be performed in the vicinity of the Venus clouds” – Harold Morowitz & Carl Sagan, 1967. [1712x1152] [OC] (i.redd.it)
submitted 1 month ago by RegularAlien to r/QuotesPorn
Jupiter and the Galilean moons. by RegularAlien in astrophotography
[–]RegularAlien[S] 1 point2 points3 points 2 months ago (0 children)
Taken 18 August 2020 in Canberra, Australia [Bortle 7].
135mm, f2, 1/2s, ISO 800. [Focal Length, Aperture, Shutter speed, Sensitivity].
Frames: 1, unguided.
Lens: Samyang 135mm F2.0 ED UMC II (Nikon AE).
Edits in Lightroom:
Exposure, contrast and temperature adjustments. Reduced textures and clarity and performed noise and color noise reductions. Removed chromatic aberration and enabled lens corrections. Cropped.
On 7 January 1610, the moons of Jupiter changed the way humanity perceived the universe. Galileo observed one of the "stars" disappear and a few days later realised they were moons, not stars. And they were orbiting Jupiter, not the Earth or the Sun. Proof that we were not the centre of everything.
Jupiter has 79 known moons. In this photo we can observe the four largest, called the Galilean moons. Their names are (in order from top to bottom): Callisto, Ganymede, Io, and Europa. These individual names were not given by Galileo, but by another person, Simon Marius, who discovered the moons independently from Galileo around the same time. Galileo published first.
The lens Galileo used to make his observations is housed at The Museo Galileo in Florence. I visited the museum in 2015. Knowing the historical significance of Galileo’s findings, seeing the lens in person was a deeply moving experience for me.
And so was taking this photo. This was the first time I saw the moons of Jupiter. I didn’t plan for it, I just tested my new lens by pointing it at Jupiter, which was just visible between the clouds.
For these reasons, this simple photo will forever be one of my personal favourites.
For those interested in following a beginner and seeing them gradually improve, you can find more of my astrophotography at: https://www.instagram.com/teemukoskimaki/
Jupiter and the Galilean moons. (i.redd.it)
submitted 2 months ago by RegularAlien to r/astrophotography
Blep panda by RegularAlien in aww
[–]RegularAlien[S] 1 point2 points3 points 6 months ago (0 children)
Red Panda (Ailurus fulgens. Endangered). I photographed this sleepy thing at The National Zoo & Aquarium in Canberra, Australia. Fun fact, Red Pandas are actually more closely related to raccoons than pandas! Earth has awwsome biodiversity. :)
Blep pandaOC (i.redd.it)
submitted 6 months ago by RegularAlien to r/aww
Milky way, Jupiter, Mars & Saturn by RegularAlien in astrophotography
[–]RegularAlien[S] 0 points1 point2 points 7 months ago (0 children)
Aperture (f) has to do with the lens, not the camera. YouTube has great videos that you can learn from. Search for dslr basics, for example.
I do have a screw-on UV filter on just as a screen protection... Honestly it didn't even cross my mind that it could also affect the result. I've been thinking of getting a light-pollution clip-in filter as well. That might help. Thanks for the fringing tips!
And happy cake day! :)
[–]RegularAlien[S] 4 points5 points6 points 7 months ago (0 children)
Sure thing. Here is an annotated version.
[–]RegularAlien[S] 5 points6 points7 points 7 months ago (0 children)
A great compliment for the community! :)
Thank you, I appreciate that!
[–]RegularAlien[S] 2 points3 points4 points 7 months ago (0 children)
That's also my favourite thing to do. :)
So true. Look at those countless numbers of other suns...
Simply witnessing them is enough to create a sense of awe. Often I also like to think about the implications of this vastness from the human perspective: The center of the Milky way, seen in the upper part of the image, is about 26,000 light years (8 kpc) away from us. With our fastest spacecraft, it would take around 450,000,000 years to get to the center.
Thank you for the compliment!
Thanks! I'll have to try this out. Although the lack of tracking equipment makes me more dependent on smaller f numbers.
[–]RegularAlien[S] 14 points15 points16 points 7 months ago (0 children)
The conditions were perfect, so I decided to wake up at 2am to cycle half an hour away from the city to see if I could capture a piece of the universe. I’m glad I overcame my fears, doubts and tiredness, because this trip was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Can't wait for the next opportunity.
A big thanks to u/astrobackyard for the great videos. I largely followed this one when editing this image: https://youtu.be/yACQ3x5dTko
[–]RegularAlien[S] 16 points17 points18 points 7 months ago (0 children)
Taken 21 March 2020, under Bortle 6(/9) light pollution in Canberra, Australia.
**Details:** 35mm (*1.53 [crop factor] = 53.55mm), f2, 8s, ISO 1600.
[Focal Length, Aperture, Shutter speed, Sensitivity].
**Stacked:** 17 light, 11 dark, 20 bias frames. Total exposure time: 2min 16s.
📷 Camera: Nikon D3500
🔎 Lens: AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G
🌠 Guidance: N/A
📳 Remote control: Camera Connect & Control (A brilliant Android app!)
💻 Software used: DeepSkyStacker, Photoshop
Slight crop. Levels. Curves. GradientXterminator (RC-Astro). Local Contrast Enhancement (from the Astronomy Tools Action Set). Set black and white points, adjust to neutral black space. Enhance DSO and reduce stars (from the Astronomy Tools Action Set). Custom curves. Reduced brightest stars (Select -> Color range -> highlights + Filter -> Other -> Minimum + opacity 50% for the layer). Make stars smaller (from the Astronomy Tools Action Set). Vibrance & Saturation. Another Local Contrast Enhancement and a GradientXterminator x2 with adjusted layer opacities.
The final image had an issue with these red rings or halos around stars: https://i.imgur.com/9NyHGaZ.png
This is what I did to reduce red rings around the stars: Select -> Color range -> Sampled colors (selected a red ring). Copy the selected to a new layer. Saturation to 0. Gaussian blur (3). Adjust the opacity of the layer.
The resulting image looked better overall (that is the one I posted to this subreddit).
Here is the full resolution version *without* my fix to the red rings around stars: https://www.astrobin.com/full/kdno42/0/
I would like to know if someone here has an explanation for why these rings appear and how to best prevent/remove them?
Milky way, Jupiter, Mars & Saturn (i.redd.it)
submitted 7 months ago by RegularAlien to r/astrophotography
Orroral fire, now 20km from the Parlament House. I took this 6 Feb 2020 after sunset from Telstra Tower. (i.redd.it)
submitted 8 months ago by RegularAlien to r/canberra
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