Well, four rolls later... here are some of my first astrophoto shots:
http://www.lostpencil.com/astro.html
Currently I'm in search of a good dark site so I can pull out more nebulas and details, so if anyone knows of an astro-friendly farmer about 1 hour away from the Calgary/Airdrie, Alberta area - please let me know!
Here are some things I've learned so far that stand out in my mind:
1. Fog limit in my back yard is about 15 minutes
2. Teenagers sneaking/cutting through yards at 3:00am can scare you witless.
3. Use the hat trick method to keep camera shake down (that should be fixed by getting my new Nikon D70... soon really soon...)
4. Make sure you have adjustable rings on your guidescope so you can pick a better guide star and keep the object of interest in the center of the field of view.
5. Dress warm - sitting at 32F for four hours can chill you to the bone.
6. Bracket your shots.
7. Scaring the teenagers that scared you at 3:00am by pointing a red light at them is very satisfying.
8. Read as much as you can about Astrophotography, and then practice, a lot... weather permitting
9. It's not so bad manually guiding for 15 minutes... but I'm looking at some inexpensive autoguiding anyway.
10. Scaring away cats lurking about at 3:10am that scare you first is almost as fun as scaring the teenagers.
11. Lift weights so you can lift your 45lb unit onto the stand without passing out.
Cheers,
Paul Mikulecky
Lost Pencil Animation Studios Inc.
http://www.lostpencil.com
"The art of character animation is to try
to catch lightning in a bottle.... one volt
at a time." Brad Bird
http://www.lostpencil.com/astro.html
Currently I'm in search of a good dark site so I can pull out more nebulas and details, so if anyone knows of an astro-friendly farmer about 1 hour away from the Calgary/Airdrie, Alberta area - please let me know!
Here are some things I've learned so far that stand out in my mind:
1. Fog limit in my back yard is about 15 minutes
2. Teenagers sneaking/cutting through yards at 3:00am can scare you witless.
3. Use the hat trick method to keep camera shake down (that should be fixed by getting my new Nikon D70... soon really soon...)
4. Make sure you have adjustable rings on your guidescope so you can pick a better guide star and keep the object of interest in the center of the field of view.
5. Dress warm - sitting at 32F for four hours can chill you to the bone.
6. Bracket your shots.
7. Scaring the teenagers that scared you at 3:00am by pointing a red light at them is very satisfying.
8. Read as much as you can about Astrophotography, and then practice, a lot... weather permitting
9. It's not so bad manually guiding for 15 minutes... but I'm looking at some inexpensive autoguiding anyway.
10. Scaring away cats lurking about at 3:10am that scare you first is almost as fun as scaring the teenagers.
11. Lift weights so you can lift your 45lb unit onto the stand without passing out.
Cheers,
Paul Mikulecky
Lost Pencil Animation Studios Inc.
http://www.lostpencil.com
"The art of character animation is to try
to catch lightning in a bottle.... one volt
at a time." Brad Bird
