Clouds, ships and Milky Way (time lapse)

[alexch (Alex)]

Hi All,

With more active Sun I thought I'd try to image some Auroral activity and as soon as the clouds went away (sort of) I went to Cape Schanck and set up the time lapse.

Although there was not much of Aurora show that night, the planets, Milky Way, low flying clouds and passing ships produced an interesting result:

http://www.vimeo.com/14018789

Click here for a high res version (18MB)

An image with the planetary conjunction is below.

Time lapse and still image details:
Nikon D700, 14-24mm @14mm f/2.8, 30s @ ISO 3200, on a fixed tripod
minimal processing in Nikon Capture NX 2

Cheers,
Alex

[renormalised (Carl)]

Great shot there, Alex...very dramatic!!!

[marco (Marco Lorenzi)]

I LOVE IT! Fantastic and truly inspiring time lapse, made me dream for a while Great job Alex!

Marco

[cybereye (Mario)]

Wow!!!

[multiweb (Marc)]

Great stuff. The timelapse is awesome. The plane of clouds adds a whole new dimension to the field. Really well done.

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

Nice work there. I love that lens too, looks nice and wide.

[gregbradley]

I just love your time lapse work. Really is extremely beautiful.

I can see some serious competition for Phil for next year's Malin's.

What exposure length and time gaps did you use?

I gotta get me one of those 14-24mm lenses. Superb.

Greg.

[Esseth (Alan)]

Thats awesome, kudos

[alexch (Alex)]

Thanks everyone for the comments! Your compliments do make it really worth the effort.

Originally Posted by gregbradley

I just love your time lapse work. Really is extremely beautiful.

I can see some serious competition for Phil for next year's Malin's.

What exposure length and time gaps did you use?

I gotta get me one of those 14-24mm lenses. Superb.

Greg.

Oops, forgot the exposure time. I made a proper battery solution and can power it up whole night now so I decided to try 30 seconds this time. I am glad I did - the Milky Way is much better defined.
The gap was 1 second.

[TheAstroGuy (Shane Ross)]

MEGA!

Once again, you have outdone yourself!!!

Fantantic work, beautiful and creative timelapse, i really like the dark clouds that roll in at some stages that appear to have some kind of onimous feeling to them, and great interest in the ships too, i love the ship in the middle that does a U turn and heads back the way it came, perhaps it had caught it's crayfish catch for the night and was on it's way home for dinner.

Kind Regards

Shane

[astroron (Ron)]

Brilliant Night's Work there Alex but I suppose the work comes in after the images are taken

[alexch (Alex)]

Shane, Ron - thanks!

Originally Posted by astroron

Brilliant Night's Work there Alex but I suppose the work comes in after the images are taken

Not this time, with 30 seconds exposure time there was minimal post-processing, the most difficult part in the time-lapse was choosing and matching the music.

[John45 (John)]

Really nice picture. Great composition.

[luigi]

Really nice TL Alex, I really hope you took some stills too because each frame of the timelapse would be an amazing photo.

[spearo (Frank)]

Great shot Alex
excellent composition!
frank

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by alexch

Thanks everyone for the comments! Your compliments do make it really worth the effort.



Oops, forgot the exposure time. I made a proper battery solution and can power it up whole night now so I decided to try 30 seconds this time. I am glad I did - the Milky Way is much better defined.
The gap was 1 second.

30 second exposures ISO3200 14mm F2.8 and 1 second gap between images all night? That would make 8 hours worth around 1000 images.
That must take up massive memory. At 2 mbs each thats around 2 terrabytes. Do you save the image as a small jpeg? Not sure what the file size that would make it but probably still over 1mb?

Do you setup a laptop? Do you set it up and then sleep in the car?

Your battery setup, is that like a deep cycle battery and an inverter?

A lot of work must go into the capture.

Greg.

[avandonk]

Alex your time lapse shows a lot of planning and skill. It shows what we would see if our vision could see the dim sky in colour.

A similar 'movie' shot from a beach at the Twelve (7) Apostles would be awesome. You would have to make sure the tide does not get you. The top of the cliffs may be safer.

Beautifully done, thanks

Bert

[alexch (Alex)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

30 second exposures ISO3200 14mm F2.8 and 1 second gap between images all night? That would make 8 hours worth around 1000 images.

Yes - about right. This time lapse was 890 images.

Originally Posted by gregbradley

That must take up massive memory. At 2 mbs each thats around 2 terrabytes. Do you save the image as a small jpeg? Not sure what the file size that would make it but probably still over 1mb?

I shoot RAW and each image is about 16MB and a 1000 of them is only 16GB (not TB) and I have a 32GB CF card.

Originally Posted by gregbradley

Do you setup a laptop? Do you set it up and then sleep in the car?

I observe a bit with binoculars or just watch the meteors and then have a nap in the car. Although this was my first proper all night, before I had to be near the camera and quickly swap the battery when it stopped working.

Originally Posted by gregbradley

Your battery setup, is that like a deep cycle battery and an inverter?

A lot of work must go into the capture.

Greg.

I decided to stay away from inverters because I am not comfortable with 240 Volts in dewy conditions and some of the battery charge would be lost in redundant conversions.

Nikon needs 9V DC and 4A so I bought a 5A multiple voltage car adaptor and soldered a Nikon plug to it. The plug is a separate story - it is unique to Nikon and I had to pay $170 (!!!) for their DC adaptor just to cut the cord off it. A total rip-off but there was no other way, I tried to make my own plug but failed.

This time I used two batteries - 7A AGM battery for a dew strap around the lens and a Li-Ion laptop-like battery for the camera as it gives a regulated 12V output. I reckon this setup would last at least 16 hours.

I will take some pictures with a pocket camera next time I set up in the field and post here.

Cheers,
Alex

[alexch (Alex)]

Originally Posted by avandonk

Alex your time lapse shows a lot of planning and skill. It shows what we would see if our vision could see the dim sky in colour.

A similar 'movie' shot from a beach at the Twelve (7) Apostles would be awesome. You would have to make sure the tide does not get you. The top of the cliffs may be safer.

Beautifully done, thanks


Bert

Thanks Bert.

Port Campbell weather is my browser start-up page but conditions there are very challenging to predict. I hope wit will be better closer to summer.

Cheers,
Alex

[DavidU (Dave)]

Love your work Alex. I will show the kids tonight.