RASC Hamilton Your February, 2015 issue of Orbit is ready

Sun Feb 8 23:31:08 EST 2015

One of the things you can do is to find a dark spot, set your lens at it's shortest focal length and take a series of images of the sky.  

Take images of 1 second, 2 seconds, 4 seconds, 8 seconds, and 16 seconds.  Then, zoom in to each of the images and see which is the longest exposure you can do without any trailing.  Make sure your lens is wide open, and turn the ISO rating fairly high.

If you can do an 8 second exposure but not a 16, then try 10, 12 and 14 seconds.  

Once you've determined the longest exposure, take 5 or 10 minutes worth of exposures.  Once you get back, or if you have Deep Sky Stacker on a laptop with you, stack the images.  You could be surpised at how much you capture.

If you have the time, repeat the process with lower ISO, to keep the noise down.  

I mentioned Orion, because it is easily found and it straddles the celestial equator, so it will move most rapidly across the sky.  There's also all kinds of great stuff to capture in it, too. 

Oh, and if you double your focal length (from say 18mm to 36mm, then you'll have to halve your exposure time.

Enjoy your trip!

Roger

-----Original Message-----
From: astronomers on behalf of Wayne Herd
Sent: Sun 08/02/2015 9:07 PM
To: astronomers at hamiltonrasc.ca
Subject: Re: RASC Hamilton Your February, 2015 issue of Orbit is ready

Great stuff Roger.
I'm off to Cuba next week for a photo workshop. Santiago de Cuba near the south end of the island.
While most of the action will take place during the day, I plan to get out at night for some night sky shots.
If I get anything worthwhile, I'll send them along when I get back.

Wayne

On Feb 8, 2015, at 7:05 PM, Roger Hill <Roger.Hill at hiteach.net> wrote:

> Thanks for the kind words, Wayne.  
> 
> I published your pictures because you took the time to send them, and I thought people needed to see them.  I'm glad that this will encourage you to do better, because the goal of "doing better" means that you're "doing" in the first place.  People should also realize that astrophography is not just about massive telescopes, heavy duty mounts and hundreds of exposures stacked and processed using expensive software...all you really need is a camera and a tripod to record a lovely view of something in the night sky.
> 
> Sometimes, you need to know there is something worth recording, and that's the reason for the calendar.
> 
> The events I listed on it are taken from the 2015 RASC Observers calendar, and I don't always check it to see what's coming up.  I had thought about requesting the RASC to send out reminders about things like occultations, or when the Lunar X is visible.  This led me to think that perhaps rather than being the consumer, I should be the provider.
> 
> My thought was to do this strictly for members, rather than our "interested parties" list, sending out a reminder of an event (but not all events) the day before it occurs.
> 
> For instance, there are some lunar events that are worth observing this month, visible using binoculars, and possibly an ordinary telephoto lens.  The Lunar X, for instance, should be photographable (is that a word?) with a DSLR and good telephoto.
> 
> One of them, on February 20, will occur around sunset, and there is Gary Colwells Lovejoy Observing event at the observatory.  24 hours beforehand, we'll have a reasonable idea as to whether it will be clear or not (thanks to the Clear Sky Chart).  It might then be a good idea to observe (and photograph) Mars, Venus and a thin Moon from just north of the observatory...there's a good view of the west to be had from Milborough Town Line just north of 7th Concession East.  Following that, send a guy out to go and get some pizzas from Waterdown, and have supper there before Gary's session starts.
> 
> The following night, the crescent Moon will pass in front of Uranus.  Like Mercury, many people have never seen this planet, and so an event like this is a great time to strike it off your bucket list because you don't have to hunt for it...it'll be easy!  It might be a great event to record with a webcam (or the Mallincam) and the Centre's C14.  Or a smartphone, a Dobsonian, and one of the iOptron adapters we have.
> 
> 
> And yes, if you submit a photo, I'll publish it.  If I get several dozen pictures of the same event, I'll publish at least one from each person who sends one in.  
> 
> After all, a photograph is a worth a thousand words, and that's a thousand words I don't have to write!
> 
> Roger
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: astronomers on behalf of Wayne Herd
> Sent: Sun 08/02/2015 11:42 AM
> To: astronomers at hamiltonrasc.ca
> Subject: Re: RASC Hamilton Your February, 2015 issue of Orbit is ready
> 
> Hi Roger, congratulations on another great issue of Orbit. The articles are always interesting and informative.
> I think the calendar is a great idea. Not sure about the reminders. Returning to Orbit for info should be sufficient and would also generate more traffic for Orbit and the web site.
> 
> Thanks very much for including my photos of Comet Lovejoy and Mars, Venus and Mercury. This kind of exposure is encouraging and pushes me to learn more and do a better job each time out.
> 
> Best regards,
> Wayne Herd 
> 
> 
> On Feb 4, 2015, at 5:40 PM, Roger Hill <Roger.Hill at hiteach.net> wrote:
> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> You can go directly to:
>>> http://www.hamiltonrasc.ca/Orbit/orbfeb15.pdf ,
>>> or head to http://www.hamiltonrasc.ca/ , and click on "Orbit Newsletter" .  The latest issue is always at the top.
>>> 
>>> In this month's issue you'll find the usual article from NASA, this month about Black Holes.
>>> 
>>> Page 4 has a reminder of the upcoming Observatory Night being hosted by Gary Colwell and a couple of pictures of Comet Lovejoy.
>>> 
>>> Page 5 has a couple of pictures from members, while page 6 has a review and pictures from the New Observatory Users Night on January 17th.
>>> 
>>> Pages 7 and 8 have some humour and poetry.
>>> 
>>> The next two pages show what you missed if you didn't make it out to the January meeting on the 8th.
>>> 
>>> There's a calendar of events on Page 11.  Pay particular attention to a pair of occultations on January 21 and 28th.
>>> 
>>> Page 12 shows our new mailing address, and a picture of the Moon.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> As always, I'd really like to get more pictures in Orbit from a wide variety of people, so you should check page 11 to see what opportunities there might be. 
>>> 
>>> I'd like to thank Scott Barrie (front cover), Gary Colwell and Wayne Herd (page 5, Troy McCoy (page 6) and Ed Mizzi (pages 9 and 10) for the pictures this month.  I have pictures on pages 5 and 12.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Lastly, I spent some time this month creating the calendar.let me know if you'd like it to be a regular feature.  Also.should I remind people of the events in this calendar (perhaps the day before?) or is this sufficient?
>>> 
>>> Thanks,
>>> 
>>> Roger Hill
>>> Orbit Editor
>> _______________________________________________
>> astronomers mailing list
>> astronomers at hamiltonrasc.ca
>> http://hamiltonrasc.ca/mailman/listinfo/astronomers_hamiltonrasc.ca
> 
> 
> <winmail.dat>_______________________________________________
> astronomers mailing list
> astronomers at hamiltonrasc.ca
> http://hamiltonrasc.ca/mailman/listinfo/astronomers_hamiltonrasc.ca

_______________________________________________
astronomers mailing list
astronomers at hamiltonrasc.ca
http://hamiltonrasc.ca/mailman/listinfo/astronomers_hamiltonrasc.ca

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: winmail.dat
Type: application/ms-tnef
Size: 6638 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://hamiltonrasc.ca/pipermail/astronomers_hamiltonrasc.ca/attachments/20150208/978e5799/attachment-0002.bin>