Emu rising and other shots from Wiruna

[Irish stargazer]

Hi

Took these shots last night at the South Pacific Star Party at Wiruna. I had to come home early due to an oncoming flu but at least I had one very good night.
Canon 7D with Tokina 11-16mm and a Sigma 50mm F1.4 tracked on a Polarie. The Polarie was aligned using the hotshoe polar metre only (brilliant liitle device). Very quick and basic processing using DPP

Milkway way rising
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7366/8728474502_672d8f3ffa_h.jpg
Re processed this one

Emu Rising (early in the night)
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7289/8726877143_9246f5396f_h.jpg

Antares region
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7318/8727265011_89fee9c850_h.jpg
reprocessed this one

Enjoy:)

[iceman]

Nice shots, glad you're having great weather there!

[Irish stargazer]

Thanks Mike. The Weather Gods were good this Year. Lots of smoke around the horizon though.

Galactic centre shot with the Sigma 50mm F1.4. One minute shot.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7426/8728211410_ecc5f1dc5c_h.jpg

[Deeno]

Looks like your on a roll with the Polarie!
Nice going!

Wish I was at the SPSP...........

[Ross G]

Very nice looking photos John. Shame you had to leave early.

Looks like the weather was good at Wiruna.

You've got the Polarie working so well.

Ross.

[rogerg]

Nice shot :)

I find it very interesting that your shot taken with a 7D has the same intrinsic dusty type colour as my shots from my 7D. No matter what I try I don't seem to be able to get the rainbow of colours Mike etc do with their 5D and 6D's, with my 7D.

The last few days I've been wondering if the 7D has a particular shift of colour at high ISO.

I wonder if you've found the same?

[Irish stargazer]

Hi Roger

I usually find the colour balance is a bit off in RAW. I adjust this in DPP and drop the colour temperature to about 4200-4500 or so and increase the saturation to bring out the colour (see flickr images which are processed). I dont think it is the camera itself (but I could be wrong)

cheers

[MortonH]

John, those shots are awesome.

I gotta get out more!

[rogerg]

I guess it's the "dynamic range of colour" that I find limiting and wonder if is unique to the 7D on long exposures. It seems to me that whatever the white balance, my image is largely all that colour toniing (in long exposure astro shots using the 7D). This is as opposed to the 5D and 6D exposures I see which show more variation in colour across the one image.

I guess I need to do more direct comparisons.

I haven't proved if it's the camera or the user or the photo shoot location.

Anyhow, it was interesting to see your shots (which look good!) but similar to mine in terms of colour dynamic-ness.

Regards,
Roger.

[Irish stargazer]

Interesting point Roger. Any comments from you 6d and 5d users out there?

[ourkind]

Nice shot John, the polarie seems like such a good investment! Well done!