A challenge for all the DSO guys

[davidpretorius]

Hi...

I have been treated the least few weeks to getting up at 4am walking east out my garage and being floored by the milky way.

My challenge is to see who can reproduce what i see......

I would rate my view as dark skies down to mag 6 (just)

There are some great longer exposure, by I am wondering what shorter exposures would look like and how close they can be to the real eye view ie down to say mag 6 and 7 only????

:thumbsup:

[ving]

so you want a widefield of the easter sky dave?

[Dennis]

Hmm....would love to comply, just give me some clear skies....

Cheers

Dennis

[davidpretorius]

yeh, just like my eye can see, say 90+ degrees, but not such a long exposure so as to expose stars that we cant see with naked eye.

[davidpretorius]

some of houghys earth shine moons have been pretty close to "naked eye natural" if you know what i mean. So was wondering if the milky way can be done the same way

[rogerg]

I think it comes down to the colour as much as anything.

This shot is a stack of 20 second exposure taken on a fixed tripod out in the wheatbelt here. I always remember it as being like what I see visually out there, partly due to detail shown and partly due to colour. I'm sure that in reality it might show more than what I see visually, but it certainly looks similar to my memory, and gives the same 'feeling' to the scene.

http://www.rogergroom.com/rogergroom/esh_rog_item.jsp?Item=344

It's not perfect for what you want.... I think foreground objects would help a lot. More trees.

[davidpretorius]

that is very very nice Roger, thanks heaps.....any guess on the magnitude stars present..

[rogerg]

No sorry... I suppose I could work that out, but I haven't :) I also rarely try to estimate what I can see down to visually while I'm out there .. too lazy I guess :)

[davidpretorius]

cool, great pic none theless

[Rob_K]

If you download Roger's image, desaturate it and turn down the brightness gradually, you might get what you're after. ??

Cheers -

[rogerg]

Now there's a thought :thumbsup:

[FOOTPRINT]

Ill throw in my two bits worth, heres a few Pix taken at different times of the year of the Southern Milky Way, theres one here that seems to be what your looking for with only the brighter stars visible, however the longer one loks at the night sky on a clear night seems the more we can see.

cheers.......Jim

[davidpretorius]

thanks Jim et al, these are all great.................now to get off my ass, earn some more money and buy a 400d and try for myself.

[RB]

Ok David, here's my effort from this morning at 4am.
I tried to get what the naked eye would approximately see.

My eastern horizon is not very good so it's the best I could do.
Notice I even included my garage roofline for you. :lol:

That's Jupiter riding high on the top left with Pluto a bit below it.

This is a stack of 5 x 30 sec on fixed tripod so slight field movement especially with Jupiter.

[ballaratdragons]

Wow Andrew, that does look like naked eye stuff. :thumbsup:

When the clouds go away again (they only came in last night) I'll give it a go, Davo. You want the East, I'll try get the East. I think your darkness would be similiar to mine.

[ving]

wish it looked like that here :(

[rogerg]

:thumbsup:

That looks pretty good. Very close to what I see in my back yard.

[davidpretorius]

very nice............thats the one.....now for a fish eye lens :D

well done rocketlad, i love it!

cmon ken, frown at those clouds and make em go away!

[ballaratdragons]

:face: GO AWAY, GO AWAY

(closest smilie I could find to a frown)