Great comparison Mike - I hope I share your passion after 25+ years.
I remember reading about hypered films in S&T when I was at high school. After reading your description of the chemistry set required for your imaging, I too am glad I entered astrophotography in the digital age. At least now we just have to plug everything in and hope the smoke doesn't leak out of the cables.
Great comparison Mike - I hope I share your passion after 25+ years.
I remember reading about hypered films in S&T when I was at high school. After reading your description of the chemistry set required for your imaging, I too am glad I entered astrophotography in the digital age. At least now we just have to plug everything in and hope the smoke doesn't leak out of the cables.
DT
Yeah that jogged my memory - remember the Lumicon Hypering Kit ad that was in every issue of Astronomy and S&T?
Doug
milk crates are hardly cutting edge technology mate
What a great comparison and nostalgic trip back.
Wow, what a buzz it must have been to have access to the Oddie.
I also mucked around with film and processed my own Ilford
stuff in a rough darkroom , setup in the folks caravan
Some nights I'd process stuff the same night as capture.
Lot's of rolls of failures.
Here's me in the local paper back in '86 with my homemade 8" GEM.
How cool is that digital watch man...and that tracksuit
Great comparison Mike - I hope I share your passion after 25+ years.
I remember reading about hypered films in S&T when I was at high school. After reading your description of the chemistry set required for your imaging, I too am glad I entered astrophotography in the digital age. At least now we just have to plug everything in and hope the smoke doesn't leak out of the cables.
DT
It's funny, as far as how I do things these days the levels of frustration are still on a par because the expectations are so much higher. The idea that I should strive for average guide errors of well under 1/2 arc sec was just not even considered back then and the amount of trailiing in the 1984 shot was perfectly acceptable really. Let alone being able to see lots of detail in the dust lane, well, that was left to David Malin and a 4m telescope. Laptops now freeze, cables get pulled out or don't work, guide scopes dew over, batteries run down the list is just as long these days as it was then. The best thing about the digital age though is that you more often catch the imaging issues early so you can look for fixes more quickly, wating until the next day or longer to see how an imaging run went was par for the course and mighty frustrating at times.
milk crates are hardly cutting edge technology mate
What a great comparison and nostalgic trip back.
Wow, what a buzz it must have been to have access to the Oddie.
I also mucked around with film and processed my own Ilford
stuff in a rough darkroom , setup in the folks caravan
Some nights I'd process stuff the same night as capture.
Lot's of rolls of failures.
Here's me in the local paper back in '86 with my homemade 8" GEM.
How cool is that digital watch man...and that tracksuit
Steve
Very cool Steve we must be similar ages..? I have a photo almost identical (me and my 8" newt) that appeared in the Canberra Times in 1985 after winning an award for my astro efforts - too funny!
Yep, the good old darkroom in a garage at night was my approach and as for rolls of failure...tell me about it!!!!!
well all I can think to say Mike is .... congrats on making it through the 26 years and advancing so far!
I find it often feels like I make little improvement from one year to the next, so it's good to see that after 26 years significant improvement can be seen
I remember setting up our own lab just to process film. B&W and even colour. Most of the colour was slides but we used really fast colour and processed it. If we found a negative that looked sharp and well guided we would get it printed. Such was the cost of astrophotography then.
I can appreciate your images as we did similar stuff in the middle to late eighties. We loved every minute of the adventure and you know I still do. I am sure you do too.
In 1984 (or 1994 for that matter) I did not even own a telescope. You are light years ahead of me, Mike!
Congrats on a great imaging legacy!
Tom
Light years ahead of you? mate! you are my bluddy idol ...well one of them
Quote:
Originally Posted by bmitchell82
... how bout the mighty PS3 Sidonio action ... give it a once over see if you cant bring out a bit more detail? ey mike... dare ya to
Its great looking back on where you have been and where you are going. always exciting for me to do
Glad the nostalia was appreciated, made me think a bit actually.
Don't think even my wizzardry in the repro department could improve that image, it is a scan of a poor quality print actually using a cheap home A4 scanner, The print was once photo cornered to a display from 1984 and was ripped off and poorly stored
Quote:
Originally Posted by rogerg
well all I can think to say Mike is .... congrats on making it through the 26 years and advancing so far!
I find it often feels like I make little improvement from one year to the next, so it's good to see that after 26 years significant improvement can be seen
Yeh never give up. I had a 9 year break while trying to become the Worlds Strongest Man but the imaging fire never left me
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Haese
Man I got to scan some of my old film stuff.
I remember setting up our own lab just to process film. B&W and even colour. Most of the colour was slides but we used really fast colour and processed it. If we found a negative that looked sharp and well guided we would get it printed. Such was the cost of astrophotography then.
I can appreciate your images as we did similar stuff in the middle to late eighties. We loved every minute of the adventure and you know I still do. I am sure you do too.
Thanks for the comparison. Love the freezer suit.
You should mate, it's great for comparison purposes. I remember pre 1984 the beez kneez of photographs were being taken by Evered Kraimer (sp?) remember his Messier Album, he used a cold camera, B&W film and 12" Newt if I recall? He was my idol. The bright bits in images were all burned out of course but that was all we knew before David Malin worked his magic
Attila Horvath? Many years ago I was a very keen Archer, and I remember that there was an Attila Horvath involved in the Vic Archery scene back in the 70s and early 80s. I think, and I could be wrong that he was at Ararat. Wonder if it is the same person, ther couldn't be 2 people with that name surely!
No not him, Attila was born and bread and still lives in Canberra. I think the name Attila in Hungary is like John or Gary here and Horvath is like Stewart or Johns...so there are probably lots of Attila Horvaths on the planet
26 yrs! Mate you should get the lifetime award soon 
Great job on both shots. 
