Star Trails at the Mangrove Mountain Pony Club

iceman (Mike) · #1 14-09-2009, 07:17 AM

Finally, I got the chance to do some social observing and some astrophotography away from home when I went to the Mangrove Mountain Pony Club on Saturday night.

This image and animation of star trails was a quick last minute effort made while I was packing the car to go home.

It's 8 frames @ 2.5minutes each, ISO400, using the Canon 20D and Sigma 17-70mm lens.

Image, Animation and commentary here:
Star Trails at the Mangrove Mountain Pony Club

The real target of the night, the widefield Milky Way, is yet to be processed and will hopefully be done later this week.

Thanks

h0ughy (David) · #2 14-09-2009, 07:37 AM

Man look at all that light pollution......LOL nice teaser

jjjnettie (Jeanette) · #3 14-09-2009, 07:43 AM

Very pretty Mike.

lacad01 (Adam) · #4 14-09-2009, 07:53 AM

That animation is great...given me some ideas to try

[1ponders] (Paul) · #5 14-09-2009, 08:03 AM

Wow Mike that looks just like the observing field at astrofest......when you point the camera in h0ughy's setups direction

erick (Eric) · #6 14-09-2009, 10:04 AM

OK, my pps in Paul's startrails thread stands corrected!

[1ponders] (Paul) · #7 14-09-2009, 10:31 AM

That's a nice effect having the celestial equator in there Mike. I thought your lens had curvature in it (Middle right) until I worked out where you were shooting.

iceman (Mike) · #8 14-09-2009, 10:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by [1ponders]

That's a nice effect having the celestial equator in there Mike. I thought your lens had curvature in it (Middle right) until I worked out where you were shooting.

I shot (a much better) one like that at Nambucca Heads last year.

http://www.mikesalway.com.au/2008/11...n-the-twilight

(scroll down near the bottom).

[1ponders] (Paul) · #9 14-09-2009, 10:56 AM

Yes i remember that one. It is a lovely shot. Do you remember what FL you were shooting with at the time? Was it the 17-70 sigma lens?

iceman (Mike) · #10 14-09-2009, 11:22 AM

yeh same lens, would've been nearer the 17mm.

erick (Eric) · #11 14-09-2009, 11:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iceman

I shot (a much better) one like that at Nambucca Heads last year.

http://www.mikesalway.com.au/2008/11...n-the-twilight

(scroll down near the bottom).

Hmmm.. I'm doubly corrected!

Nice shots, Mike. Yes, I like the Equator effect!

Tom Davis (Tom) · #12 14-09-2009, 11:37 AM

Cool!

Tom

iceman (Mike) · #13 15-09-2009, 06:05 AM

Thanks Eric and Tom. I'm reasonably happy with it after only 20 minutes as a last minute thing while packing the car.

RB (Andrew) · #14 15-09-2009, 09:39 AM

Ah, beautiful shot Mike, I was looking forward to this.
I love how the colours contrast beautifully with the night sky and trails.

The anim looks great too.

Also can't wait for the wide field Milkyway shot, the subs looked fantastic on your laptop.

Lumen Miner (Mitchell) · #15 15-09-2009, 01:40 PM

WoW!! That animation looks great!! I would love to achieve a similar effect on a 4 hour trail...
The problem I am having is when I convert the images to gif, the gif animation ends up massive like 10mb for 5 frames (only 25sec each) .... Can I ask, how did you manage to make such a big gif so small in kb size...?

I realise a full trail would still be a massive gif, but at this point I can't seem to get anything near the size of yours... Maybe I just need another program..

Thanks, can't wait for the widefield.

leon · #16 15-09-2009, 01:43 PM

Fantastic capture Mike, "I like It"

Leon

Hagar (Doug) · #17 15-09-2009, 10:04 PM

Might be just a quicky but it has come up pretty well. Just watched the animation....... That boot must be fairly full by now.

iceman (Mike) · #18 16-09-2009, 04:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RB

Ah, beautiful shot Mike, I was looking forward to this.
I love how the colours contrast beautifully with the night sky and trails.

The anim looks great too.

Also can't wait for the wide field Milkyway shot, the subs looked fantastic on your laptop.

Thanks RB - your nice bright headlamp makes an appearance in the last frame

The Milkyway shot is hopefully coming today!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lumen Miner

WoW!! That animation looks great!! I would love to achieve a similar effect on a 4 hour trail...
The problem I am having is when I convert the images to gif, the gif animation ends up massive like 10mb for 5 frames (only 25sec each) .... Can I ask, how did you manage to make such a big gif so small in kb size...?

I realise a full trail would still be a massive gif, but at this point I can't seem to get anything near the size of yours... Maybe I just need another program..

Thanks, can't wait for the widefield.

Hey! I reduced all my frames to 640x480 before creating the animation. So each frame was only 150ish kb each, and the animation turned out at about 700-odd kb.

It's the size of the individual images and how much compression you apply that affects the size.

Quote:

Originally Posted by leon

Fantastic capture Mike, "I like It"

Leon

Thanks Leon, I was hoping to have the camera setup all night to capture longer trails but my ball mount was busy!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hagar

Might be just a quicky but it has come up pretty well. Just watched the animation....... That boot must be fairly full by now.

Thanks Doug - and yep, with Jacob asleep in the front seat, the back of the little hyundai was certainly full!

I even managed to fit my 12" Newt in there as well (with all the other gear) when I went to Nambucca last year!

RB (Andrew) · #19 16-09-2009, 09:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iceman

Thanks RB - your nice bright headlamp makes an appearance in the last frame

LOL are you sure it was the headlamp?

It might have been my cigar !

Octane (Humayun) · #20 08-10-2009, 11:24 PM

Mike,

That's a great image.

Regards,
Humayun