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Nice post, thanks. I am always astonished by the amount of detail that a backyard photographer can achieve. To celebrate these wonders, I have recently created

Nice post, thanks. I am always astonished by the amount of detail that a backyard photographer can achieve. To celebrate these wonders, I have recently created an artwork with astrophotography from astrobin.com (really cool amateur astrophotography community). Maybe someone in this thread will be interested https://www.astrumnft.art https://www.astrumnft.art The collection relates to the 110 astronomic objects of the Messier Catalog.

dheera 5y ago
Many of these nebulae that people see a lot on the internet are actually HUGE in the night sky, contrary to popular misconception that you need a Hubble telescope to capture many of them. A lot are much larger than a full moon, but just too dim for the naked eye to see. I've been doing a project to capture them in context with landscapes around California. You can get quite a lot of detail with standard camera lenses; you just need a dark sky and a star tracker that lets you expose for long enough, and a different IR filter that cuts off at ~700nm instead of 640nm, so you can get the Hydrogen alpha line to pass through (which is actually within the visible band, but consumer cameras attenuate it to almost zero). https://www.instagram.com/dheeranet/ https://www.instagram.com/dheeranet/
- shagie 5y ago
  Backing this up / supporting this, the image of the California Nebula is 2.5° long. That's five moon diameters. I've got a Nikon 200-500mm lens, which while on the long side of lenses most people have, isn't especially hard to get... and its easy to get a 500mm f/8 mirror lens (which has the same field of view, along with no issues with bokeh for astrophotography). With a full frame camera, its field of view is 5°00'. The California Nebula would take half the frame. With a DX lens, that would be 3°10'. The bigger challenge is the tracking. Btw, given: > I've been doing a project to capture them in context with landscapes around California. Have you headed out to the Alabama hills? Yea... its star trail photograph rather than specific nebula - http://www.panoscapes.com/showImage.php?partNo=P250H&catNo=7&ck=f28e77da7606 http://www.panoscapes.com/showImage.php?partNo=P250H&catNo=7... (its shot a 6x17 film camera - each frame is 6cm x 17cm - that's one shot; if you look at the full size prints you can see airplanes and satellites)
  - actually_a_dog 5y ago
    > I've got a Nikon 200-500mm lens, which while on the long side of lenses most people have, isn't especially hard to get... True. All you need to do is go online with a credit card. The thing is, that's a $1400 lens new that still sells for over $1000 used in decent condition. That's a pretty decent chunk of change. ;)
    - dheera 5y ago
      You don't need to spend that much. Get a used Nikkor ED Ai-S 180/2.8 or a Nikkor ED Ai-S 300/4.5 if you want to do the California nebula. Either should cost you under $200 if you're patient and good at eBay. The bigger issue for the California nebula (specifically) might be that most of its light is at a narrow band of 656 nm which gets blocked off by stock consumer cameras; you might need to mod your camera's IR filter. If you want an entry-level target, get either of the above lenses and image M31 (Andromeda galaxy) instead, which is visually of similar size to the California nebula anyway. Andromeda can be imaged easily with an unmodified camera. I always recommend Andromeda as a good entry level target for people after they've gotten bored of the Milky Way. The most important thing will be to get a tracker, good sturdy tripod, and get to a dark place like a national park or national forest.
      - actually_a_dog 5y ago
        Of course. There's no reason you need the latest & greatest autofocus glass just to shoot stationary-ish celestial objects, that's for sure. And, that is one good thing about lenses, too: old lenses can keep on chugging literally for decades with little more attention than proper storage and some basic cleaning every once in a while. I don't do astro, but I do shoot macro shots of stationary objects every once in a while. My workhorse lens is an older 105mm Nikkor (https://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/105mm-f28.htm https://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/105mm-f28.htm) that you can get in excellent to mint condition for little enough money that if it breaks or you drop it or something, you can just buy a new one. It's truly a nice piece of glass, even though it doesn't autofocus with my body or auto-meter. It's every bit as sharp as Nikon's newest version of the same lens (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/424744-USA/Nikon_2160_105mm_f_2_8G_ED_IF_AF_S.html https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/424744-USA/Nikon_2160...), at 1/3 the price (or less), and without features I don't particularly need shooting stationary objects. You can even shoot a decent portrait with it, if you're not bothered by the lack of autofocus. Turns out there are lots of opportunities to save a little money if you don't care about having a fast lens to autofocus on a moving subject. :-) I spent more on my copy stand and stabilization equipment than I did on glass, and that was 100% the right thing to do. If I had to share some takeaways from my experiences buying and using my DSLR + other equipment, I would say to focus on what you actually need, don't worry about getting the latest and greatest, and definitely consider used equipment. Following those principles, I got myself a couple of nice macro lenses, a D3400 body, a Kaiser copy stand, a lighting setup, and the cables & software to drive all of that, for around or maybe a little more than $1000. And, it works great & serves my needs just fine. Had I gone with brand new and current model stuff, I'd probably be well over double that.
- theshadowknows 5y ago
  Is…that what the night sky would look like If we didn’t have so many electric lights???
  - dheera 5y ago
    Sort of, you can see the Milky Way easily if you just go to a rural area, and you'll see that even if there is no light pollution it's much dimmer to the eye than you see in photos. Most of the other nebulae you can't really see at all with your naked eye no matter how dark it is, human eyes just aren't that sensitive. The Orion nebula is one exception, as it's extremely bright for nebula standards, you can see the core part of that nebula with your eye easily. These photos are more like what the night sky would look like if it was dark AND our eyes were much more sensitive. Maybe some animals actually see it that way, I don't know too much about biology.
actually_a_dog 5y ago
> Nice post, thanks. I am always astonished by the amount of detail that a backyard photographer can achieve. Not only that, but you can achieve some pretty nice results with just a DSLR or mirrorless camera, a remote trigger, and a tripod. Literally just aiming the camera at something and opening the shutter for a few minutes can get you results that, while they aren't going to be on par with some of the images linked here, are definitely going to be pretty cool looking. A lot of the tricks of the trade are really post-production techniques, rather than shooting techniques. Sky & Telescope says it better than I do, but, the TL;DR of this comment is "you don't need a lot of equipment, and it's not hard to get started." https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-resources/deep-sky-with-your-dslr/ https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-resources/deep-sky-wit...
- groby_b 5y ago
  If you open the shutter for a couple of minutes, you'll get streaks. Even with the 30 seconds recommended in that article, you'll get slightly elongated blobs instead of stars. (Unless you use an 18mm lens or shorter) But still, it's true - it's easy to get started, and all you need is a tripod, a camera, & a remote trigger. You can skip the latter if your camera has a delayed trigger. (But fair warning - if your hobbies tempt you to get new toys, this is a dangerous hobby to have. There are LOTS of toys ;)

dheera 5y ago

Many of these nebulae that people see a lot on the internet are actually HUGE in the night sky, contrary to popular misconception that you need a Hubble telescope to capture many of them. A lot are much larger than a full moon, but just too dim for the naked eye to see. I've been doing a project to capture them in context with landscapes around California. You can get quite a lot of detail with standard camera lenses; you just need a dark sky and a star tracker that lets you expose for long enough, and a different IR filter that cuts off at ~700nm instead of 640nm, so you can get the Hydrogen alpha line to pass through (which is actually within the visible band, but consumer cameras attenuate it to almost zero). https://www.instagram.com/dheeranet/ https://www.instagram.com/dheeranet/

shagie 5y ago
Backing this up / supporting this, the image of the California Nebula is 2.5° long. That's five moon diameters. I've got a Nikon 200-500mm lens, which while on the long side of lenses most people have, isn't especially hard to get... and its easy to get a 500mm f/8 mirror lens (which has the same field of view, along with no issues with bokeh for astrophotography). With a full frame camera, its field of view is 5°00'. The California Nebula would take half the frame. With a DX lens, that would be 3°10'. The bigger challenge is the tracking. Btw, given: > I've been doing a project to capture them in context with landscapes around California. Have you headed out to the Alabama hills? Yea... its star trail photograph rather than specific nebula - http://www.panoscapes.com/showImage.php?partNo=P250H&catNo=7&ck=f28e77da7606 http://www.panoscapes.com/showImage.php?partNo=P250H&catNo=7... (its shot a 6x17 film camera - each frame is 6cm x 17cm - that's one shot; if you look at the full size prints you can see airplanes and satellites)
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  > I've got a Nikon 200-500mm lens, which while on the long side of lenses most people have, isn't especially hard to get... True. All you need to do is go online with a credit card. The thing is, that's a $1400 lens new that still sells for over $1000 used in decent condition. That's a pretty decent chunk of change. ;)
  - dheera 5y ago
    You don't need to spend that much. Get a used Nikkor ED Ai-S 180/2.8 or a Nikkor ED Ai-S 300/4.5 if you want to do the California nebula. Either should cost you under $200 if you're patient and good at eBay. The bigger issue for the California nebula (specifically) might be that most of its light is at a narrow band of 656 nm which gets blocked off by stock consumer cameras; you might need to mod your camera's IR filter. If you want an entry-level target, get either of the above lenses and image M31 (Andromeda galaxy) instead, which is visually of similar size to the California nebula anyway. Andromeda can be imaged easily with an unmodified camera. I always recommend Andromeda as a good entry level target for people after they've gotten bored of the Milky Way. The most important thing will be to get a tracker, good sturdy tripod, and get to a dark place like a national park or national forest.
    - actually_a_dog 5y ago
      Of course. There's no reason you need the latest & greatest autofocus glass just to shoot stationary-ish celestial objects, that's for sure. And, that is one good thing about lenses, too: old lenses can keep on chugging literally for decades with little more attention than proper storage and some basic cleaning every once in a while. I don't do astro, but I do shoot macro shots of stationary objects every once in a while. My workhorse lens is an older 105mm Nikkor (https://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/105mm-f28.htm https://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/105mm-f28.htm) that you can get in excellent to mint condition for little enough money that if it breaks or you drop it or something, you can just buy a new one. It's truly a nice piece of glass, even though it doesn't autofocus with my body or auto-meter. It's every bit as sharp as Nikon's newest version of the same lens (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/424744-USA/Nikon_2160_105mm_f_2_8G_ED_IF_AF_S.html https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/424744-USA/Nikon_2160...), at 1/3 the price (or less), and without features I don't particularly need shooting stationary objects. You can even shoot a decent portrait with it, if you're not bothered by the lack of autofocus. Turns out there are lots of opportunities to save a little money if you don't care about having a fast lens to autofocus on a moving subject. :-) I spent more on my copy stand and stabilization equipment than I did on glass, and that was 100% the right thing to do. If I had to share some takeaways from my experiences buying and using my DSLR + other equipment, I would say to focus on what you actually need, don't worry about getting the latest and greatest, and definitely consider used equipment. Following those principles, I got myself a couple of nice macro lenses, a D3400 body, a Kaiser copy stand, a lighting setup, and the cables & software to drive all of that, for around or maybe a little more than $1000. And, it works great & serves my needs just fine. Had I gone with brand new and current model stuff, I'd probably be well over double that.
theshadowknows 5y ago
Is…that what the night sky would look like If we didn’t have so many electric lights???
- dheera 5y ago
  Sort of, you can see the Milky Way easily if you just go to a rural area, and you'll see that even if there is no light pollution it's much dimmer to the eye than you see in photos. Most of the other nebulae you can't really see at all with your naked eye no matter how dark it is, human eyes just aren't that sensitive. The Orion nebula is one exception, as it's extremely bright for nebula standards, you can see the core part of that nebula with your eye easily. These photos are more like what the night sky would look like if it was dark AND our eyes were much more sensitive. Maybe some animals actually see it that way, I don't know too much about biology.

actually_a_dog 5y ago

> Nice post, thanks. I am always astonished by the amount of detail that a backyard photographer can achieve. Not only that, but you can achieve some pretty nice results with just a DSLR or mirrorless camera, a remote trigger, and a tripod. Literally just aiming the camera at something and opening the shutter for a few minutes can get you results that, while they aren't going to be on par with some of the images linked here, are definitely going to be pretty cool looking. A lot of the tricks of the trade are really post-production techniques, rather than shooting techniques. Sky & Telescope says it better than I do, but, the TL;DR of this comment is "you don't need a lot of equipment, and it's not hard to get started." https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-resources/deep-sky-with-your-dslr/ https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-resources/deep-sky-wit...

groby_b 5y ago
If you open the shutter for a couple of minutes, you'll get streaks. Even with the 30 seconds recommended in that article, you'll get slightly elongated blobs instead of stars. (Unless you use an 18mm lens or shorter) But still, it's true - it's easy to get started, and all you need is a tripod, a camera, & a remote trigger. You can skip the latter if your camera has a delayed trigger. (But fair warning - if your hobbies tempt you to get new toys, this is a dangerous hobby to have. There are LOTS of toys ;)