IISAC Timelapse - Third Night Lucky

[Phil Hart]

After a few travels and travails since IISAC, here finally is what i managed to scrape out of the event by way of timelapse:

Smugmug: IISAC Timelapse - Third Night Lucky (http://philhart.smugmug.com/Astronomy/Stars-in-Motion/10317254_qVP9n#1056859918_SDtDC-A-LB)

Hint for new starters: when you're setting up a short tripod in long grass, look out for blades of grass in the field of view. It's better to clear it out of the way before you get back home and find it in your images ;)

After IISAC, we spent a few nights with family south of Mudgee. Tried two nights in a row but these sequences are really more about weather and cloud than they are about astronomy! The clouds are interesting, but would have been nice to have caught more of the milky way setting in the west:

http://philhart.smugmug.com/Astronomy/Stars-in-Motion/10317254_qVP9n#1057342179_8JHQL-A-LB

For Houghy's benefit.. the panning head for my timelapse gear is just a BinTel (Chinese) SkyView Alt Az mount (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=21953) (minus the altitude arm at the moment) with an old stepper motor and controller from my original tracking platform bolted onto the worm gear to drive it round slowly in azimuth.

Phil

[Grahame]

Excellent work there Phil! Very calming to watch and extremely well framed.

Grahame.

[h0ughy]

nice work Phil - very inspirational. I am toying with the idea of using the Astrotrac and tak teegull sky mount or the second astrotrac i have to get a two way pan motion? I will experiment and see how it will work ;)

[strongmanmike]

I really like the SCP behind the tree complete with waving grass blades :thumbsup: It looks a bit sharper than the other one..?

Mike

[RobF]

Wow - really inspirational stuff Phil. I wondered how you had done the smooth panning - fantastic. My fav is the old gate with the sky and clouds above, although they're all amazing really!

Thanks for showing.

[Octane]

Just beautiful. Loved both of them.

That poor shutter.

H

[alexch]

Beautiful work, Phil!

[Bassnut]

Excellent Phil, smooth and dynamic.

[Doomsayer]

Well done Phil!
Thanks again for your IISAC presentation on your workflow for these timelapses.

guy

[deanm]

Absolutely stunning!

Could you provide some technical specs on how you achieve these (lens used, exposure settings etc.) for us open-mouthed newbies?!

Cheers!

Dean

[RobF]

Yes - would be interesting to hear how many shutter actuations you run up in a few sessions like this Phil....?

[h0ughy]

for the sequences of time lapse images i took this year at qld astrofest over the 5 nights i took 3200 images - which was from sunset to astronomical twighlight on a few occasions. it adds up and i would say Phil would be close to that number for a few sessions:D

[Phil Hart]

yeah.. with the fast lens i typically run 3000+ images in one night, but i don't do it all that often.

once my first shutter assembly fails i'll start worrying about it, until then i figure it's better to use your gear rather than have it sit on a shelf cause you're too precious about it. shutter replacement costs a bit but can be repaired for a lot less than a new camera.

i have a suspicion (unproven) that timelapse with very slow shutter speeds is not as harsh as say continuous sports shooting at 1/2000 sec. as i say.. will start worrying about it when the first one goes.. till then blissful ignorance! ;)

[mswhin63]

Beatiful and great detail love it

[Phil Hart]

there's a fair bit of chat about shutter counts on the web.. this site (http://www.olegkikin.com/shutterlife/canon_eos5dmkii.htm) suggests average of 500,000 out of 5DmkII (with a lot of variability). that's a lot of timelapse! cropped sensor cameras have lower shutter ratings but are also cheaper to repair. i'm still not worried about it ;)

[iceman]

That's a beauty, Phil. I was looking forward to seeing yours. Top shelf!

I was hoping to see a glimpse of you in your timelapse - running to get your camera out of the rain on Sunday morning ;)

[iceman]

Oh also I think I walked past your camera a few times on the Saturday night. It was only a little bit tempting to kick the tripod ;)

[Phil Hart]

Shot with Canon 5DmkII at ISO3200, continuous shooting.

24mm f1.4 with 8 sec exposures
14mm f2.8 with 30 sec exposures

Some sequences pre-processed with Lightroom, but mostly composed in Sony Vegas and some file conversion with (free) StreamClip.

Phil

[Phil Hart]

aye, but the evidence would have been on camera ;)

honestly though, there are a lot of hobbies where you wouldn't leave a few grand of equipment lying around for 12 hours. have never worried about it at star parties which says a lot about the people in this hobby.

i have some cheap rain guards which leave the front of the lens clear but cover everything else very well. should have had those on but didn't think rain was likely (Fred predicted it though). the 5DmkII would take a bit of rain ok i think but my stepper motor controller is not so robust!

[Octane]

Phil, you're absolutely right -- the equipment is designed and supposed to be used. I just feel sorry for the shutter, that's all. : P

Also, the 5D Mark II can handle a bit of water. I've taken mine out under several waterfalls where I've gotten drenched, the camera has got wet, and it has been fine. Yes, it's not weather-sealed to the extent of a 1Ds/1D body, but, it's served me well thus far.

Cheers.

H

[Phil Hart]

I do recommend sleeping while timelapse is running rather than standing by the camera listening to the shutter ticking away :lol:

But don't sleep near the camera.. one time I was sleeping on a beach with a timelapse running and eventually I had to get up and stop it cause the shutter noise on a quiet night was keeping me (and others) awake - worse than a dripping tap ;-)!

[h0ughy]

IF YOU SLEEP YOU MISS OUT ON THE NIGHT;) with my 10m Fisheye lens i was able to get away with 60 second exposures with 2 second gap to upload on the 30D. i normally operate the TL while i am imaging other stuff - keeps me busy checking on things and keep me alert all night:D you get to see some great meteors that way. I will probably have to try to do a scenic timelapse soon so i can be a copycat ;) , somehow i feel as though with the 30D i wont get anywhere near the quality of yours shot with the 5D:question:.

I did miss out on your talk, how did you transition from daylight to night shots?

[Phil Hart]

I haven't actually done this very often cause it's hard to get a pleasing result. All I do is shoot auto through twilight.. exposure will jump a bit and more so if there's clouds as well, but that's the way life is. I overexpose a little and then switch to manual once it's reached the right exposure level near the end of twilight.

Interestingly, the compact cameras (G11 etc) can do much finer exposure control so when you set them to auto you get much smoother transitions. But they're not really up to much serious night time stuff.

[h0ughy]

so do you shoot auto in daylight with a specified time gap (30sec? or 60? or shorter). When you were talking about continuous before is that with a time gap of 1-2 sec or nothing at all? would a camera less than the 5D do that or is that limited to the speed of the CF memory card?

[iceman]

For my daytime, I set it to do Auto Exposure (TV) at a fixed focal ratio (f/2.8), with a 5-second gap between images.
At night-time, like Phil, I just had the shutter locked in (on the timer remote) with the Manual setting of 25s exposure @ f/2.8 ISO1600.

The images were taken in small jpeg, which is still larger than full HD and meant I could fit at least 2000 on my 8gig CF card.

My 40D could easily save the images fast enough, so yours would too.

[Phil Hart]

sorry.. forgot that bit. yes.. shooting with a gap during the day (eg 3-8 seconds) so you really need a programmable timer release for that bit (not so at night when any manual bulb cable will do).

i've shot in continuous shooting mode on the 20D fine too for night sequences. haven't measured the gap between exposures in that mode but it's pretty short (<1s).

[spacezebra]

Excellent Phil, thoroughly enjoyed it.

Cheers Petra d.

[Alchemy]

Although stargazers hate clouds, the forming and moving is lovely to watch, I liked Orion rising through the gaps. Lots of detail, the red lights buzzing around in the background... Delightful to watch

[marco]

Very beautiful Phil, I love these time lapse movies!!
I promise myself to give it a try when I will have a chance to be under a dark sky :)

Clear Skies
Marco