LDN323 centered wide field

[JD2439975 (Justin)]

OK there's more interesting objects in this wide-field than "The black hole of Calcutta" but it's closest to the center so...

Sunday evening proved to be quite clear so despite a late setup I thought Id give it a go just to be out under the stars for a change.
Started badly with the old Vaio laptop dying a sudden death but I pushed on with the ED80 unguided on a bunch of M80's in Virgo...not happy with the outcome so you won't be seeing those.

So I gave my new 50mm f/1.8 a go, the Tamron has proved to be crap no matter what F ratio or FL I try.
Temp was 26 deg ALL night with 98% RH, with the dew point only half a degree away I'm really glad I invested in dew heaters...gotta love the tropics.

14x5min lights, 15 darks, ISO800 at f/8, uncropped.
In hindsight should have gone for f/5 maybe? this lens is far superior to the Tamron at keeping round stars to the edges.
Lost a bunch of the latter subs to lightning (the ultimate in flash photography) and clouds, hence more darks than lights.

"Slightly" larger image Here (damn freeby Photobucket resize)

C & C welcomed.

Justin

[trent_julie]

Now that in my opinion is excellent, great work

Trent & Julie

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

Not a bad crack of the whip there Justin. I always belive that lens's work really well for this kinda thing. I took a image like this but on a bit bigger scale before the 40d was modified but i was in the center of Australia some 800m above sea level. that was special

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

That is brilliant piece of work, I am considering this type of photography as my next step in deep space after star trails, It will be amazing to capture something of this quality (if I can).

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

its serprizingly easy to capture this kind of data with even a modest lens and dslr! once you introduce tracking things take a whole big step up.

[JD2439975 (Justin)]

Thank you Trent & Julie, glad you like it.

Brendan I'm chuffed with the little "nifty/thrifty fifty" lens, for such a cheap lens it has great performance & I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to do widefields on the cheap.
Mmmm...dry desert air at altitude...NICE!!

Malcolm even a modest tracking mount without guiding would see you right with wide field imaging, would take you from a few seconds to a few minutes exposure time easily.