hidden centre

[orestis]

This image of the sagittarius region was taken with only a digital camera(not slr).the original photo just showed the brightest stars.

but when i changed the brightness and then the contrast,the milky way appeared,which i thought was quite interesting.can anyone explain this.good photo for me as i've only just begun.

photo descriptions:1 minute exposure (unguided)on tripod.
processed in PHOTOfunstudio-viewer
moonless night

hope you liked it
Orestis

[multiweb (Marc)]

Hi Orestis, I'm not familiar with really widefield but if you use a tripod I reckon you might want to limit your exposures to let's say 10s max then stack them so you can avoid the star trailing. Then you will get better details in the milkyway and it'll be easier for you to manage and process.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Hi Orestis.

Marc got the right idea, but to work out the max exposure without trails, divide 700 by the focal length of the lens of your camera (if you check you booklet it should give you min and max focal length) Usually little point and shoots have about 8 mm to ??? . So if you were zoomed out to the max (say 50mm) then you will only get 14 sec of exp before you start to get trailing. At 8 mm you will get roughly 90 sec. Give it a try

Also focusing is a bit of a challenge as will if you don't have manual focus. There needs to be something bright enough for the camera to focus on.

[orestis]

Originally Posted by [1ponders]

Hi Orestis.

Marc got the right idea, but to work out the max exposure without trails, divide 700 by the focal length of the lens of your camera (if you check you booklet it should give you min and max focal length) Usually little point and shoots have about 8 mm to ??? . So if you were zoomed out to the max (say 50mm) then you will only get 14 sec of exp before you start to get trailing. At 8 mm you will get roughly 90 sec. Give it a try

Also focusing is a bit of a challenge as will if you don't have manual focus. There needs to be something bright enough for the camera to focus on.

Thanks for the info,Unfortunately as it is not a manual camera it only has fixed exposures,15 seconds,30 and 60.So this would most likely be a problem for me ,also with focusing as i cant see any stars on the lcd screen ,i think its because the sensor is not very sensitive.Will definetly give it a try though.

thanks orestis

[orestis]

Originally Posted by multiweb

Hi Orestis, I'm not familiar with really widefield but if you use a tripod I reckon you might want to limit your exposures to let's say 10s max then stack them so you can avoid the star trailing. Then you will get better details in the milkyway and it'll be easier for you to manage and process.

thanks,for a stacking program would you recomend Registax

Thanks orestis

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

It's all good advice.
Might as well throw in my 2 cents worth too.

Once you've got your focus and worked out how long your exposure can be, start filling up your SD card with as many exposures as you can. 20, 30, 50, just take heaps of shots.
Have you downloaded Deep Sky Stacker yet? It's a freebie image stacking program that a lot of us use here. http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/index.html
It's very intuitive to use. Don't worry about adjusting the settings, it works just fine on the default settings.
Now load all the photos you took into DSS, click on stack all then let it do it's thing.
After a while it will present you with a stacked image that you can tweak in photoshop, then post on the forum for us all to go oooh and ahhh over.

Have fun.

[orestis]

Thanks jeanette i am downloading it now.Now if only these clouds will clear ..

thanks orestis