Perseids Tuesday Night

[Toby]

Tuesday night/Wednesday Morning, I put the my camera up on a tripod and let it rip all night while I watched the Perseids at a friends house near Fredericksburg. We battled clouds all night but were able to get a good night in at the telescope and just seeing bright meteors lounging in chairs. Good night overall.

I pulled them all together into a movie in Quicktime and here is the end result. Enjoy!

http://www.southtexasstargazer.com/perseids.mov

[PhotoByMark]

Very cool. Thats a great idea!

[Schlitz]

That's really neat, Bryan. How many shots did you put together?

[Toby]

I shot around 750 shots at 30 seconds each, F3.2 at around 800ISO. I pulled them into Quicktime and compiled it into 25 images a second. And that was the end result.

I'm planning much longer ones now that I am getting the sequence down. It has taken some practice but it is paying off! Thanks for the inquiry. It's quite simple.

[zmaniscalco]

nice

[Toby]

Thanks for the kind remarks! Going to try a milky way image later in the week. If its any good I'll post for you to see.

[Kcoogan]

Fantastic! Did you shoot them all in JPG or RAW?

[SpeedRacerSlots]

ok, so what did you use to trigger the camera every 30sec?

[Toby]

I'll answer both questions here:

#1 I shot these all in jpg. I am normally a RAW shooter but since there were going to be so many I didn't want to have to convert them into a format Quicktime could read them. So that is why I shot straight into JPG.

#2 how did I trigger the camera every 30 secs. I used Nikon Camera Control 2 software on my laptop and downloaded each image onto the computers hard drive when after it took the image. You can also use the an intervalometer for your make of camera if one can be connected to it. I have a nikon unit and use it quite a bit for astrophotography stuff.

And before someone asks, I had an external power supply to power everything all night. The electricity was from a marine battery to an inverter to power both the laptop and camera all night. Worked great and didn't have to worry about the internal battery dying halfway into the shoot.

[andyz]

The clouds movement added a great deal of drama. Nice segment!

[Toby]

Thanks Andy. I am planning on maybe another run saturday night. Will keep you posted on my progress.

[Toby]

Last night I went out to the Hill country to test some more ideas shooting the night sky. Well the clouds up in Fredericksburg didn't cooperate at sunset, but I sat it out and it started to clear. This time instead of shooting a sequence of images to make another animation, I wanted to do some night panoramic work. Here is my result:

http://www.pbase.com/btobias/image/116422830

7 images shot at 50mm and stitched. I wasn't shooting for a scenic foreground, just to test how well a stitch could do with night images. I'm pleased but have a few things to nit pick personally. The clouds rolled in again, so this is the only series of images I got, but the knowledge gained was worth the trip!

I am now thinking of locations to frame with a milky way shot. Will keep you posted!

[photosteve]

[QUOTE=Toby;976553]Last night I went out to the Hill country to test some more ideas shooting the night sky. Well the clouds up in Fredericksburg didn't cooperate at sunset, but I sat it out and it started to clear. This time instead of shooting a sequence of images to make another animation, I wanted to do some night panoramic work. Here is my result:

http://www.pbase.com/btobias/image/116422830




Other than the moon which is a little over exposed this is fantastic!!!!!!

[Toby]

LOL! That ain't the Moon! It's Jupiter! Go out tonight and look to the East at sunset. That bright star low on the horizon is Jupiter. I have no idea why it is so large in the images. Something to figure out.