I know that most of you astrophotographers are hooked to some form of digital image gathering, but for those of you who haven't tossed all of your film camera gear away there is a verygood film available that gives us all we need re colour.
Fuji Superia Xtra 400 with use-by dates in the 2010-11 range has the red/blue sensitivity just right. I assume that it is marketed in Australia under the same name as it is here in New Zealand.
The 35mm shot is with my Nikor lens and has a bit of cloud in it. The 400mm shot of M 8 - 20 region is at f/6.3.
those are clouds actually. This was actually my first ever shot on the tracking platform we call The Astrograph Mount since it was set up at my place. Previously the Mount had been a nearly 300km round trip to use. Now it is only 40m from my back door. The Mount has a 10 inch Byers drive. No dec drive, and is just for mounting cameras on (see the picture attached as it was at its' previous location).The mount is capable of handling up to ten cameras at once.
Bojan
The 35mm was f/2 for 15 mins, and the 400mm was f/6.3 for 15 mins.
It may seem like going back to a washboard to some, but for simplicity and cost, especially for beginners, it is an easy choice.Of course film or digital is only one part of the equation. Tracking ability is the other.
That's awesome mount..
Very cheap and simple solution for patrolling the sky in search for novae and similar transient events. And for taking beautiful pictures that show a lot wider spectra, without a need for expensive camera modifications (film is sensitive to red as it is).
I would not mind having something like this in my backyard... provided I live in the country with no LP (well, one day it will happen....)
you can't be blamed for throwing the old gear away. No one knew that one of the big film companies would produce such a great film for astrophotography.
Therein lies the problem though. When Fuji get too many complaints about how someone's aunt's cheeks are too rosey then they will probably go back to the green/blue caste of the past. I hope not. Even though I have plenty of stock in the fridge, it won't last forever.
Frank & Trevor, I'm glad that you enjoyed the views.
Bojan, you are right in thinking that this needs to be set-up in a dark sky site. I live 15 minutes drive west of a city of 80,000 but I can see mag 7.0 stars at my zenith on an average night. Great for deep-sky observing and astrophotography.
Having said that I will probably be heading into town over the weekend to do some prime focus stuff through our local society's 31 cm f/7 Newtonian. The Manawatu Observatory is based on the south side of the city of Palmerston North, and we can still do astrophotography down to about 40 degrees altitude without sky fogging. As long as we get the focussing and manual tracking down pat I should have something to show by early next week.
This brings up the other drawback of film. You don't know on the night if you have a good result or not. You have to trust your regimen of past good practice. Good things often come to those who wait.
Nicely done Ian, I still have my Olympus OM 4Ti plus a fantastic 50mm F/1.2 Lens, might give this a try, at least we don't have to worry about sensor noise.
Leon
PS, don't suppose you want a Canon, modified 5D do ya , and yea mate I have seen some fantastic film around for Astro stuff.
I haven't tried the Fuji Provia yet, but I think it will be worth a crack.
I was hoping that the easterlies blowing over us here at the moment would bring the usual clear skies, but looking at the satellite image the whole of the North Island and even the top of the South Island, plus most of the east and S.E. of Australia is covered in clouds! I can only hope that it all moves off by the weekend. But there is an awful lot of it pumping in from the sub-tropics.
What beautiful work, and fascinating to see the mount and how many cameras it can carry. You could buy cheap film EOS cam's on ebay, shoot all your film on one night, and have an instant mega mosaic!
Seriously though - pics very smooth and red sensitivity has come through very nice.
For somone who has no suitable digital camera for astro-imaging (as yet), this has inspired me to dust the cob-webs off of my old Pentax LX. Very nice wide-field images Ian.
I am glad that you liked the results. The weather cleared last night and we had a little familiarization session with knife edge focussing through our 30cm Newtonian at our local observatory. Because it was just a test session I thought that I wouldn't waste any precious FSX 400 film on the trial and used standard Fuji Superia 200 in stead( the sort of film you can buy from a supermarket of service station). I won't add it to this thread but I will open a new posting to reveal something that I didn't expect. Stay tuned.
might give this a try, at least we don't have to worry about sensor noise. 
