potential imaging subjects for a really really dark site?

[rmuhlack (Richard)]

Hey everyone!

The weekend after next (25-26th May) Im planning a trip out to a friend's farm for an imaging session (with some visual observing with the rest of the group as well). Now I have pretty dark skies at my house, but at this place (about 30km north of Barellan NSW) the skies are *seriously dark*, with clear sky views basically in all directions.

So I'm wondering what I should put on my list of potential imaging subjects that would take full advantage of very very dark skies. One thought was the Veil Nebula either through the 8" imaging newt or as a wide field with the 200mm f4 Nikkor prime. A tricky subject from my latitude but do-able i reckon from this dark location with clear northern skies.

I've also seen some of the great star trail and milky way panoramas on IIS recently and was thinking i could give those a go at the same time using my other (un-modded) 400D and a fixed tripod.

So - any suggestions?


(apologies if i've posted this in the wrong sub-forum...)

[Octane (Humayun)]

Try for the Dark Doodad between the South Celestial Pole and the Southern Cross.

Should fit nicely in the 200mm lens with the surrounding star field.

That's just one target out of loads. This is the best time of year to be imaging. Particularly from dark skies.

Have fun!

H

[rmuhlack (Richard)]

haha - cheers for that. Definitely on the list now

[naskies (Dave)]

Wide field photos are great from very dark sites (e.g. my Comet Lovejoy photo from Roma).

Zodiacal light is also much easier to shoot without LP gradients!

I've found that dark nebula (in particular) are much easier to shoot from a dark site - you can get amazing photos of dark dust lanes straight on the back of the SLR without stacking/processing.

Maybe you can try some of the fainter galaxy clusters, e.g. in Virgo?

[rmuhlack (Richard)]

Thanks Dave