Lagoon and far surrounds

[Atmos]

Had my mount setup from last night and as I knew clouds were going to be rolling in I decided I would do some visual, atmosphere was boiling. Packed the FC100 away and put the camera on there for some testing, had a mount adapter arrive last week.

This is 30x60s with my Nikon D700 unmodded as ISO800. Was taken with a 24-120mm F/4 at F/4 so the coma is quite horrendous!

Given that this was taken with a 60% moon and from the light polluted burbs of Melbourne, I am quite happy with the end result. Wasn't until I loaded them onto the computer that I realised that the focus was off (redid it a couple of times throughout the shoot). Possibly should have used a brighter star than some random one in the field at the time. May even see if a Bahtinov Mask I have for my guide scope will be usable on the lens, I have my doubts but it could be worth a shot.

I love how the thumbnail version virtually no discernible aberrations at all :P
For a high res, go to Astrobin (http://www.astrobin.com/full/252191/0/)!

Just as a little FYI for those interested in sensor comparisons. Having looked up the performance of the sensor in the Nikon D700, its closest cousin performance wise would be a OSC KAF-11002. 8.445 vs 9 micron pixels, the D700 has a bit lower read noise but the KAF has marginally larger well depths (about the same dynamic range). As this still has the IR block, not great with Ha though.

[StuTodd]

I know you astrophotography chaps jump in and criticise your work before an image can load..seems to be the norm. Maybe it is me but to my untrained eye, the focus looks good and no coma??

I'll have another bottle and look harder...:drink:

Stu

[StuTodd]

Arr..there's 3 of everyshingg...shtars, lapchops..shtars.. :prey2:

[Atmos]

The idea is to criticise your own work before anyone else can haha ;)

It is not as obvious after the processing but on the raw file it appears as if the stars are about to star donuting. They have a visually dimmer core, then a brighter ring and then the star fall off.

I also have birds in the corner of the image! I think I need to stop the lens down to F/7, maybe try it at about 75mm which is half way between 24&120 :)

[OzEclipse]

Nice one Colin.

The colour is interesting. Very gold. Is it a result of post-processing colour temp shift or saturation or the colour more or less recorded by the camera?

I struggle to decide how to present colour for milky way wide fields.My camera captures with auto white balance a yellow coloured milky way. Should galactic dust and stars be white, yellow? This isn't a criticism, just posing the question for which I am never sure of the right answer.

Cheers

Joe

[Atmos]

I believe that the colour is a bit off Joe, was just a quick process before I went to bed. There is a green cast over the image that shouldn't be there, many of the blue stars are more aqua which I don't think is a good thing. Most likely my fault during the processing.

I think the galactic dust should be a bit redder than what I have shown, thats a processing problem from me trying to remove gradients. That is what I get with a 60% moon behind me and surrounded by various amounts of light pollution :P

Be as critical as you like of this shot, I know I am :P I am happy enough with it for what it is, no award winner by any means. I was just playing, curious to see how the lens would perform at full (or near enough to) extension and wide open. I know I need to step it down, not sure what to yet. If my 50mm F/1.8 is any indication, may have step to F/7.1 to get a reasonably flat image (no birds in the corners of the image).