Southern Star Trails at Lostock

[iceman (Mike)]

Hi all

Took a trip with the family up to Lostock on Saturday for some site reconnaissance a month out from IISAC2008.

The sky was lovely and dark as I remembered, however there was a strong stiff wind blowing and the seeing was terrible, but it didn't stop me doing some widefield/piggyback shots.

Here's one of the images from the night - a startrail shot looking south over the bottom farmhouse. My widefield imaging setup is in the foreground and the camera is on a tripod about 2 metres back.

I'm happy with how it turned out but it's not exactly as I'd hoped in my minds eye. Need a wider angle lens to be able to fit more foreground interest while still getting enough sky. The SMC and LMC were very prominent in the individual frames but of course have been smeared beyond recognition in this combined image

The image is a combination of 46x 6 min exposures (4.6 hours) at ISO200, with a Canon 350D and Sigma 17-70mm lens @ 17mm. Dark subtracted and processed using startrails.de followed by Photoshop.

1200px wide version on my gallery:
Southern Star Trails at Lostock

I might try for something better at IISAC2008 - still thinking..

Thanks for looking.

[h0ughy (David)]

i like it mike - whats with the 80mm scope? did you track for some widefields?

[RB (Andrew)]

Now that's a great way to get polar aligned !

Very nice Mike, great idea with the foreground.

[iceman (Mike)]

Hi Dave
Yeh the 80mm scope was for guiding, I had the camera on top for some piggyback.

Thanks RB, not quite what I'd hoped for.. maybe I can borrow your 10-22 at IISAC

[h0ughy (David)]

Originally Posted by iceman

................Thanks RB, not quite what I'd hoped for.. maybe I can borrow your 10-22 at IISAC

SURE - HE NEVER USES IT

[dugnsuz (Doug)]

These are book-cover types of shots Mike - Lovely work, creative.
Cheers
Doug