Lights in the sky

[iCe]

One big one and one fuzzy one. The fuzzy one has a little motion blur...

[Shadow]

Nice. Tell us what your gear set up was. Looks pretty sharp to me.

[cfortner]

I noticed the exif data shows -1 as the sutter speed on the second one. I love to know how that shot was setup! Excellents pics, thanks for sharing!

[iCe]

I forgot to mention that some sunlight was used for fill in the first image

[PhotoByLeal]

Very nice shots!
Cool what did you use to take this?

[tech1961]

I knew you used fill flash. Great shots Michael

[jfoureyes]

You have got those moon images down!!

[Patti Edens]

Great moon and ... uh, pardon my astronomical ignorance (ignorance of astronomy, not gigantic ignorance), but what is the second one? It's cool looking, but I don't have a clue what it is.

[iCe]

Originally Posted by PhotoByLeal

Very nice shots!
Cool what did you use to take this?

Apparently not my brain. I could have sworn that I answered this but apparently not

600 f4 on a 1DsMKIII. Honestly the camera doesn't matter as much as the lens. I was just wanting to give the DsMKIII a workout.

ISO 100
2s@f4

The nebula is called The Orion Nebula. it's a pretty intense area of star formation. It's also called M42 (M = Messier) Google Messier for the details. It's on the "sword of Orion". Orion is a winter constellation Look SW and up about ?? 50° above the horizon after 9ish. I'm not sure what time it rises. Bear in mind that rises in the east (ish) and crosses through the ecliptic (roughly the same path as the sun and moon) 45° is about 3 fists held (fist is vertical... like thumb on top) at arms length

The shot I took is pretty tight. You can't see the entire constellation in it. just the belt / nebulosity that surrounds M42 and M43.

I might try at a little higher ISO when the sky clears up...

Here's a tighter crop.

[iCe]

Originally Posted by tech1961

I knew you used fill flash. Great shots Michael

Yeah but did you realize that it was bounced!

Originally Posted by jfoureyes

You have got those moon images down!!

Thanks... but they are pretty easy to do now. At least with the lens that I am using it is.

iCe added 1 Minutes and 11 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below

Hmmm... Looks like shutter slap or slight motion rather than sidreal motion. I need to shoot that again with the mirror locked up

[Patti Edens]

Originally Posted by iCe

...snip...
The nebula is called The Orion Nebula. it's a pretty intense area of star formation. It's also called M42 (M = Messier) Google Messier for the details. It's on the "sword of Orion". Orion is a winter constellation Look SW and up about ?? 50° above the horizon after 9ish. I'm not sure what time it rises. Bear in mind that rises in the east (ish) and crosses through the ecliptic (roughly the same path as the sun and moon) 45° is about 3 fists held (fist is vertical... like thumb on top) at arms length

The shot I took is pretty tight. You can't see the entire constellation in it. just the belt / nebulosity that surrounds M42 and M43.

I might try at a little higher ISO when the sky clears up...

Here's a tighter crop.

Attachment 94652

Okay. I've heard of the Orion Nebula and I can recognize Orion by the three stars that make the belt. I'll go check it out later tonight and see if I can see the nebula with my binocs.

I just googled it and found that the nebula covers more than 4 times the area of the full moon! And it is very bright and under good conditions can be seen with the naked eye! Cripes. I feel like an idiot. The only thing I ever look at with my telescope is planets.





Thanks!!!

[Glassman]

Cool shots Michael...make me want to go out and try a few.

[Shelby Lane]

Originally Posted by iCe

I forgot to mention that some sunlight was used for fill in the first image

Wow, you're good. Cool nebula shot, btw.

[mdparthum]

Greats shots Michael! So to confirm, the Orion Nebula was at ISO 100 2 secs.@f/4? I love the color too. Did you do much PP for the color? Again, great shot!

[iCe]

Patti- lest someone think that you can't get a decent shot unless you have a magna-turbo-wongo-terrific-big lens check this out. This is with the 200 f2 on the 1DsMKIII.

8s @f2 ISO 3200

Shelby- I learned from the best It was a beech trying to get the assistant on the phone to move the reflector .0005° at a time until the light was just right

Michael- I'll double check the EXIF but I believe that is right. Not much PP at all. Basically I did a very slight color balance and dropped the red a tad in the shadows and mid range as well as added a tad of blue in those areas. I basically made the black as close to black as I could get it. In fact, I used the Select tool to select the black area so that the stars and nebulae were not adjusted. If you look real close (might not be able to see it in the posted (see that as smaller) image there is a ton of nebulosity in the Orion constellation. This shot is just the belt and sword stars. Bernards Loop covers a huge area (wrap around the belt and M42/43) but I did not try to capture it. Orion is a jewel and you don't need a MTWTB lens to capture it's beauty. The toughest thing about capturing it is the extremely slow shutter speeds required. It's hard not to get some motion blur. Some from the stars, some from the shutter moving (I really should use mirror lockup), and to some degree there is a slight amount of shake from straps blowing in the wind or other camera movement. If you pixel peep this image then you can see that points are actually tiny w's. Don't underexpose... slightly over expose and that will help with the noise issues.

the other image is called the Pleiades (aka Subaru... aka the Seven Sisters)