SV Astrophotography Awards

[ballaratdragons]

I couldn't place this thread in Photography because it crosses all the headings so I stuck it in here.

Please place your entries in here from The Snake Valley Camp.

Categories are:
*Best Planetary
*Best Nebula
*Best Star Structure
*Best Galaxy
*Best Home-made Accessory
*Best Over-all (Erwin van der Velden Award)

The comp is open to all that attended Camp (members, guests, organisers)BUT the photo had to be taken during the Camp and the home-made item had to taken and used at the camp.

Please submit your entries here (multiple entries allowed). As for the best home-made item, if you cannot supply a photo please describe the item.

Some of the people I know of that took pics are:
Myself, Bird, Davo P & Mike. There must have been others!
I saw several home-made items eg: John xstreams accessory tray.

When submitting an entry please name the category. The judging method will be sorted out in the next day or 2.

Entries close on Monday 7th November 2005 at midnight.

[iceman]

I need to go through my venus shots, i'll hopefully have time to do that tomorrow.

[ballaratdragons]

Here are my 3 entries! :)

1. Best Star Structure (the Sun)

2. Best Planetary (Saturn just above the horizon)

3. Best home-made astro Accessory (zero-mag quickfinder)

[davidpretorius]

my mars pic.

[ballaratdragons]

I've lost my Venus shots! You saw me take them Mike, we compared pics in our cameras!! :sad:

Mine weren't very good anyway :P

[asimov]

Davo! Wanna send me your mars AVI so I can have a play in registax?? How big is it? I'm sick of stacking my own stuff over & over & OVER again!

[davidpretorius]

group sun pic

[ballaratdragons]

The organisers have unamimously decided that the judging of the Astropics awards will be by all members using the 'poll' method.

Each category entered will have it's own poll. There were no Galaxy entries so that will be scrapped. I don't think anyone caught any Nebula shots either.

Entries close on Monday 7th November 2005 at midnight.
All entries will be posted on Tuesday to be voted on and certificates will be forwarded to the winners.

Please submit your entries in this thread (multiple entries allowed).

[bird]

Aha - found it! I was looking everywhere else except here for this thread... Thanks to Ken for reminding me about it, and allowing me to contribute.

Here's my best mars image from Monday night/Tuesday morning - taken at 3am when mars was just dropping below 30 degrees in altitude. I guess this would belong in the "Planetary" category.

Equipment:

10" f/6 newtonian w/ 5x powermate + extension tubes for 8x
filter wheel + colour filters
Dragonfly Express high-speed firewire monochrome camera

Captured using Coriander for Linux, processing in Linux and Windows with
ppmcentre, NetPBM, registax, Astra Image, Neat Image and GIMP.

The 3 images here are really just one image with different amounts of saturation & smoothing, so hopefully one of these images will look ok on your display :-)

regards, Bird

[rumples riot]

Anthony that hardly seems fair, your a shoe in. Ahh now I know why went to the camp. So you could win the planetary competition. Hehehehe

[janoskiss]

Bird's pics clearly don't deserve to win. They've got these small blue markings all over them. Everyone else's Mars pics are nice clean and smooth so there is obviously something wrong with his setup. Bird, don't let this discourage you though, just keep at it and you'll get there one day. Maybe a thin smearing of vaseline over the CCD chip could have helped get rid of all those anomalies in your data. Better luck next time! :D :P

[bird]

Yeah, obviously my CCD really needs cleaning - I'll get out the wirebrush later and give it a scrub. That should take care of all those funny marks...I may as well give the primary a scrub while I'm at it - I've got a packet of steel wool around here somewhere that should be just the ticket...

Bird

[Dave47tuc]

Here is my entry. As I don't take Astro Photos I will enter in the
Best Home-made Accessory.

My scope is in the background looking at the dew shield from the front.

Does it work Oh yeh :)

"Bird you take such good Mars shots well done"

[janoskiss]

Dave, Can we consider your photo a double entry; one also for Geoff's Dob carrying strap+handle in the foreground?

[janoskiss]

I'll enter my home made tube rings. More in this thread:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=3849

[ballaratdragons]

Dave (47Tuc) can you give a brief description of your Dew shield so readers know what they are voting on please. Ta mate!

[xstream]

Okay here's my entries for best Home-made accessory

Rotatable table and eye-piece holder.
Fine focuser.

[Dave47tuc]

Mmmmmm, well its hard to explain, but it is very much like a Orion FlexiShield.
It is felt lined and is held on the scope on the spider bolts.
I got dew on my secondary once since I've had the dew shield no dew. ;)
Hope that helps :)

[iceman]

Here are my planetary shot entries, of Venus.

I've got some widefield ones to enter later today, assuming I get time to process them.

[iceman]

I'm not sure what category these go in.. star structures? :)

They're fixed tripod shots with my Sony DSCP100, 15s exposures. I tried to get the reflection of the stars off the lake. There were too many weeds in the lake for the effect I was after, but it kinda worked.

The first one is Orion, the second and third are Taurus and the Pleiades and the 3rd also has Mars at the top of frame.

Curves adjusted and resized in Photoshop, final noise removal in NeatImage.

[davidpretorius]

the category "Great shots" silly

Never been interested in taking photos much before, but as soon as you start framing objects like lakes and trees and the sky, well... i can't wait to get a good camera!!!

[Starkler]

Ok I'll describe my OTA carry handle as shown in Daves pic.
It simply consists of a luggage tie-down strap around the OTA and fed through a short piece of electrical conduit.
Being either side of the altitude hubs means the handle is at the balance point and allows me to lift and move the OTA with one hand. Very handy for loading/unloading into the back seat of the car.

[ballaratdragons]

The winner of the best Astophoto overall will recieve the Erwin van der Velden Award and the SkyLab: Software package!

Get your entries in!! entries close at midnight tonight!!!

[ballaratdragons]

Entry is closed. All the entries will be placed into 4 seperate categories for your voting.

Planetary, Star Structure,, Home-made Astro accessory and Best over-all.

Thankyou for all the entries.

The entry by davidpretorius of the Sun, allthough a group effort was submitted by Davo and worked on by Davo so it will considered as his entry!

[ving]

congrats to all. they are all great inthier own way :)