60D: First real Astrolight - Crux

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

I've had the 60D waiting since Xmas to get a chance to try as an astrocamera and I finally managed to get my act together last night before the moon came up. Only a total of 45min so not much to really go buy but it does look promising.

Crux with 60D & 135mm: ISO400, 15x3min. Flats and Darks and stacked in DSS. A quick follow up processing in PS. Because of the short total exposure I haven't tried to do too much with this shot, but I'm happy with the initial results. And that I've finally used the 60d for AP

The second image is a crop from around Mimosa @ 300%

[marco (Marco Lorenzi)]

Very nice Paul, I like these wide fields shots. Have you ever thought to add some diffusion filtered exposures to the wide field subframes? I used to do it for a while and to me the final resoult is very nice. Here is a link to some notes I wrote on the matter long ago:
http://www.astrosurf.com/lorenzi/articles/diffusion.htm

Just a suggestion to increase color saturation on the main stars and reveal patterns of constellation. You can see some examples here:
http://www.glitteringlights.com/Imag...258309&k=JzjYV

Clear skies
Marco

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Thanks for those links Marco. I wonder if there is something similar available for the 72mm wide 135mm lens. I might look at making a lens hood cap with some high quality light transparency paper, see if that would work

[iceman (Mike)]

Very nice Paul, and Marco - wow!

Great ideas and awesome pics.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Thanks Mike.

Actually now that i think about it, the defocusing technique would be better for me. Flip out screen, 10x live view. Too easy to slightly defocus. In fact a number of defocused shots could be taken and the best one used.

[h0ughy (David)]

nice one there Paul

[marco (Marco Lorenzi)]

Originally Posted by [1ponders]

Thanks for those links Marco. I wonder if there is something similar available for the 72mm wide 135mm lens. I might look at making a lens hood cap with some high quality light transparency paper, see if that would work

I actually used a Cokin square filter with the adapter at exactly 72mm. You can get adapters as large as 82mm if you buy their P (pro) series or even larger (but expensive!) if you take zpro or xpro. I suggest systems like cokin because you need to buy only one filter and than just adapter rings suited to your different lens sizes. Other brands of course are ok, but find the right diffusion filter may require some tests, you want the effect to be there but not too strong or too subtle. As for Cokin I tried both their P830 and P840 and are both ok, 820 is too light and 850 too strong though. I have at home a comparison of several diffusion filters done some years ago on TemmonGuide, it is in japanese (!) but pictures are quite self explaining. If you are really interested pm me and will look for it..

Originally Posted by iceman

Very nice Paul, and Marco - wow!

Great ideas and awesome pics.

Thanks Mike, actually this is not my idea, the original is from the great Akira Fujii, he used this technique for several years on medium/large format film to make his legendary images. He did it on film directly, adding the filter the last part of the exposure. Nowaday, in our digital time, you can get the same with much less efforts

Clear skies
Marco

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

That's a great crutch you have there Paul

Lovely resolution too

Mike

[h0ughy (David)]

you know paul when i compare yours to mine from Astrofest i have to say that resolution is king.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Top shot Paul. Gorgeous field and colors. So fine. Love the image scale

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Thanks guys, its nice to back in the driver seat again trying out new gear. It seems like its been forever. Here's to plenty more clear nights for a while. The 135 is a nice lens to use, nice to get focused too teamed up with the 60D flip out screen.

10x6 deg FOV with the 60D so i fits in some interesting objects; Omega cent Cent A &ngc4945; Eta carina, Theta Carina and Ngc3532; a good slab of the virgo galaxies around Markarian Chain; Antares and rho Ophi. Plenty to keep me busy.

[RickS (Rick)]

Look forward to seeing what you can do with some more exposure time, Paul!

Thanks for the useful info, Marco!

Cheers,
Rick.