Camera settings for smiley face???

[bones]

I'm pretty green when it comes to astrophotography. I had a go at just Jupiter and Venus tonight (without the moon) but I had difficulty getting the camera to take the shot. Only got one. Settings were:
Exposure mode Manual, Iso 1600, 200mm on camera, shutter speed 1.6s. I was trying to take the shot with the 10s delay mode 'cause I don't have a remote.
Just wondering any clues out there for settings for photo's for the smiley face conjunction Monday night?

[Dennis]

Hi Bones

For the Moon-Venus-Jupiter conjunction as viewed from Brisbane on the evening of 30th November 2008, I used my Canon 40D with 70-200 F4L mounted on a photo tripod. I shot at 70mm focal length and tomorrow, you should be able to frame all 3 nicely at 200mm.

Exposure was 4 secs at ISO400. I focused using in-camera Live View and exposed using a remote release in Live View Mode, which locks up the mirror to minimise camera shake. The better exposures were after 7:15pm AEST when twilight was “darker”, revealing some of the fainter stars and the Earthshine on the “non-illuminated” portion of the Moon.

At 70mm, I found that even at 4 secs, I was getting a little star trailing, which more or less disappeared at around 2.5 secs, although I then lost some of the background stars.

I found 400 ASA was the best trade off for my set up, keeping my exposure to around 4 or 5 secs whilst minimising noise. I reckon I’ll be limited to around 2 secs tomorrow, using the lens at the 200mm end.

Hope you have a successful evening tomorrow!

Cheers

Dennis

[leon]

Bones if you have a AV setting on your camera just switch it to that all will be well then, the Camera will look after the rest.

Leon

[Dennis]

Hmm, not sure about that Leon? AV is aperture priority I think?

If you set the exposure mode to AV then effectively you are telling the camera that you will set the aperture (e.g. F4 or F5.6) and the camera will then calculate the relevant exposure based on your chosen aperture.

Most cameras try to balance the exposure to achieve an 18% tone in the image. That is, the sensors measure tones around the frame and then averages them all out to produce a mid tone exposure of 18%.

If there is a lot of white in the frame, (e.g. snow) then the snow will come out an 18% grey colour; that is, under exposed and not nice and white.

If there is a lot of black in the frame, (e.g. dark skies) then the dark areas will come out an 18% grey colour; that is, over exposed and not black.

The risk in letting the camera decide, even with today’s incredibly sophisticated auto exposure algorithms, is that the scene may not be recorded as you intended, so I would recommend experimenting with a few manual settings until you have the aperture and shutter settings combination that produces, e.g. an acceptable amount of star trailing, the Moon not too over exposed and showing earthshine, etc.

Cheers

Dennis

[iceman (Mike)]

The beauty of digital is that you can preview the result and adjust straight away.

I'd go for something like 1-3s exposures @ ISO100 earlier in the night while there's still some light, and as it gets darker, switch to ISO200 or ISO400 while keeping the exposure roughly the same. If you increase the exposure to cater for the lack of light as it gets darker, and you end up with 8-15s exposures, you'll notice the planets will visibly elongate in your final result - even moreso at longer focal lengths.

[bones]

Thanks for all your comments guys. . I'll give it a go. Here's hoping the clouds clear up enough in time.

[rmcpb (Rob)]

From the looks of it here its may turn out to be a fizzer. Cloud everywhere!

[Insane Climber (Jason)]

Nooooooooo

[RB (Andrew)]

I agree with Dennis and Mike, do some test shots, then put it in Manual mode and adjust accordingly.

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

The smiley was loud and proud in perth last night, got the miss's and the mother inlaw out there to have a ponder!