I posted an earlier story on the suitability of the new Fuji Superia Xtra (FSX) 400 ISO film that is very astronomy friendly. We, my old observing mate Noel Munford and I (henceforth referred to as "The Old Firm," and our young 'apprentice,' Rhiannon McNish had a session on perfecting some almost long forgotten skill called knife-edge focussing through our local Society's 30cm f/7 Newtonian.
Not wanting to waste any of my stock of FSX 400 on this training run we used some stock standard Fuji Superia (FS) 200. After running through the usual processes involved in knife-edge focussing it was time to load the film in.
I was quite intrigued to watch Noel struggling with the loading process. Noel is a professional photographer of nearly forty years standing. I wouldn't mind a dollar for every roll of film that he has loaded into a camera in that time! Five years of being fully digital has taken its' toll though.
We locked onto Eta Car and Noel did the 15 minute exposure attached below. The 70% lit Moon was just above the horizon at the time so with the film choice and this as well we weren't expecting a great result. Rhiannon did a 5 minute exposure of the Jewel Box to keep up her new skills of manual guiding. As can be seen from the picture Noel was a bit rusty on his responses during the guiding. The focussing was good and the tracking was acceptable.
The thing that amazed us all was the response of the FS 200 film. A good colour range and saturation for such a relatively short exposure. Not as vivid in the red response as the FSX 400 I can see me trying this out on the Astrograph mount with widefield lenses this weekend.
The Old Firm are well pleased with the surprise result, and our apprentice, ever the filmophile, now has a choice in films to use!
