Week 25 of appreciating Five Minute Fridays

I really appreciate your talking about composition and framing. As a newcomer I’m still mostly learning to just capture the DSO, to document it. But I always have in my mind a desire to show it off beautifully, as art. Thanks for this video acknowledging this!

You’re giving away all the important secrets to a successful image!

I just used it to get the Rosette nebula and the Christmas Tree cluster in a single frame, and this works great! Many thanks for sharing this.

Now I need a printer! Thanks for sharing this with us Nico.

Nico you are awesome, we all learn so much from you! Thanks again

Thanks so much for pointing out Blackwater skies imaging toolbox! Its been a key part of my planning process for several months!

When it comes to actually framing it up in the field and you are fully manual, I would HIGHLY recommend a geared head such as the Benro GD3WH which allows you to adjust the camera tiny amounts on every axis individually. This is especially good with longer focal lengths where trying to adjust a ball head is a total nightmare and half the frame can move once you tighten the thing up. I'd also recommend getting a 2nd one to allow extreme precision for polar alignment if you struggle with that

@wooddogg8

2 жыл бұрын

I've been using that head for for over a year and it's worth the money. It really does work good for polar aligning too as long as you don't overload it.

@kevinnewell09

2 жыл бұрын

@@wooddogg8 what would be to much weight if using for polar alignment?

@wooddogg8

2 жыл бұрын

@@kevinnewell09 Benro list max weight at 6 kilograms or a little over 13 pounds. You should be fine if your not using anything that requires counterweights.

@philadams9254

2 жыл бұрын

@@wooddogg8 I've gone to 8kg with my full video rig and it's fine if you're using it to level the shot. Go to extreme twisty angles and it gets sketchy.

Great Video Nico and a great website.

Great video, Nico! Even with a goto, for multi-target compositions such as the veil nebula or the tadpoles + flaming star, the blackwaterskies imaging toolbox is great for figuring out the RA+DEC coordinates for the center point of your framing, I’ve found.

Fantastic Composition nico. That's A Great Way to get The Right Portion of The Target. Enjoyed The Video As always

Cool trick! Thanks for sharing!

Hey Nico, thanks for the video and the Blackwater Skies website. It's going to help me quite a bit in determining what focal length I need to use for certain deep space objects. It will also let me know before I go out if I can get a descent size image of the object with my 150-600mm lens.

Great video Nico.

Nice! I use a similar technique using Stellarium. Paper reference IMO is more effective than using a sky app on my phone.

Great video and terrific information, Nico. Thanks! Not sure why my comment from yesterday disappeared, but I wanted to relate how I made a negative image in LightRoom Classic, after taking a screen shot in Stellarium, by increasing the LrC levels shadow slider all the way up, and decreasing the white point slider all the way down. I wasn't able to use Blackwater Skies because it didn't have the lens I was planning to use. Just thought I'd share this in case anyone else has the same problem with their lens not appearing in Blackwater Skies.

Excellent - thanks for sharing!

I'll definitely try this next time i'll be out in the field. It might save me some precious time !

Trying to track down a video that I though was by Nico. It was about the choice for an astronomy torch. I remember a big factor was for the torch being able to remember it's settings so you don't get it defaulting to several megawatts of white light and requiring multiple clicks to get it to the red light mode. I recently bought a Ulanzi VL49 RGB LED Video Light and it seems very nice for astronomy. Mainly because it remembers it's settings so you can set it to very low red light and it will return to that setting next time it gets powered on. The light intensity is variable in 1% increments. It has a magnet so you can attach it to any steel object. Then at the end of the night you can switch to white light and it is very bright and gives a wide spread of light. Handy for packing up and making sure you didn't leave a cable or something in the grass. Charges with a USB-C cable. The reason I wanted to find the original video was to see if there were any other features that would be useful in an astronomy torch.

@NebulaPhotos

2 жыл бұрын

Ah, sorry I deleted the video because its one I thought I could do it better, but haven't gotten to making a new version. The one click to red light is most important, but a second consideration is the swivel. I like ones that can swivel down so the red light is pointed down at your equipment and not in other astrophotographers eyes

Thanks for this tip.

Appreciate the info Nico!

Thanks

Thanks for the video Nico! I can not find a "budget' lens ring to fit my Samyang 135mm

Nice video Nico! Did you know Magic Lantern ((for Canon)) have a ghost image function, so you can up two images exactly? Also, can you let us know what you did to mount the lens plus camera, the name of the ring support and the dovetail, looks like a Williams optic product. I struggled for years to get a satisfactory working setup for camera + lens for a GEM setup! Thanks!

@NebulaPhotos

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the tip Bill! I did not know that about Magic Lantern. That sounds very useful. In the case of the lens I showed, the ring is a 3rd party lens collar made by Vello for this particular camera lens: amzn.to/3qut4n5 If you can't find a lens collar made for your lens, the next best thing is to buy a split ring designed for a telescope and then use some kind of inner ring spacer to get it perfect. Prima Luce Lab makes many sizes of good split rings, although they are expensive. Lots of companies now make the universal dovetails so the price on those has fallen in recent years. The one I used is by the company Askar. Here is the link: agenaastro.com/askar-vixen-style-universal-dovetail-plate-150mm-5-9-length-vdp150.html?aw_affiliate=eyJjYW1wYWlnbl9pZCI6IjQiLCJ0cmFmZmljX3NvdXJjZSI6Im5vX3NvdXJjZSIsImFjY291bnRfaWQiOjEyfQ

Great video Nico! I'm looking into the lens collar but I am intrigued how it connects to the vixen dovetail underneath?

@NebulaPhotos

2 жыл бұрын

The vixen dove tail is of the 'universal' type with a channel to accept cap screws. I have a bunch of 1/4" 20 cap screws of different lengths for mounting purposes like this. So a 1/4" 20 cap screw goes up through the channel of the vixen plate and screws into the bottom of the lens collar.

@Marcel-gh5ex

2 жыл бұрын

@@NebulaPhotos brilliant, thanks!

i just use the starSense app and phone mount that came with my Celestron scope. i can snipe any star in the sky in less than 1min. I also use it to polar align i can't see polaris from my back porch so i do polar align on front porch then put scope on a bright target in the east then move the whole setup to back porch and adjust tripod position until the scope is back on target this gets my alignment really close and is better than drift alignment.

I believe that in Stellarium, you can more or less do the same thing; regarding matching your equipment with the sky.

Make a video on things to consider before buying telescope Like what is dia, focal length and f-no. Lens type etc Like what is the difference between 80x400 f5 and 80X900 f11 etc Budget astrophotography

hey nico space!

Hello Mr Carver. I know this is off topic of the video, but surprise, I have a question, lol. So in another video about camera mods for astrophotography, I was curious as to whether all modified cameras can still shoot daytime photos, or whether only some can? If some can and some can't, which mods can and which can't, and how do they work for astrophotography and daytime (which filters would you have to add or whatever) and why do some work for daytime and some don't, if any of them do work at all? I know this is a wordy question, but I like to understand the why's and how's behind certain actions and it's the best way I can word what is going through my head. I appreciate your time.

@NebulaPhotos

2 жыл бұрын

All, can 'work' to some degree just by setting a custom white balance every time the light changes. With some Canon models, you can buy an original white balance filter so that you can just put that in and not have to worry about setting a custom white balance. Did you see at the end of the video where I compared what the photos look like without and with a custom WB? That should demonstrate the differences in how the different mods compare to stock on the left.

@kevinashley478

2 жыл бұрын

@@NebulaPhotos cool. Thank you. Did you get images of the eclipse? How does someone "predict" camera settings for an event like a solar or lunar eclipse? About halfway thru it hit me, like oh shit I won't be able to see anything with my settings for catching a full moon. Is that just experience or is there a way to know what settings to use?

@NebulaPhotos

2 жыл бұрын

@@kevinashley478 Both lunar and solar eclipses are pretty predictable so there are exposure guides: www.mreclipse.com/LEphoto/image/LE-Exposure1w.GIF Lunar eclipses are long enough that you should be able to just dial it in with test exposures. For total solar eclipses, you really need to be prepared as they happen so quick. Cloudy here for this most recent one, but lunar eclipses happen often so I'm not too upset about it.

@kevinashley478

2 жыл бұрын

@@NebulaPhotos yeah, it was cloudy all night, butw I did manage to get 2-3 shots between clouds during the peak and it came out ok, as in you at least know what you are looking at. I drove 2 hours south to Columbia, SC for the 2017 solar eclipse. I saw people there with scopes and set ups, but now, yeah it is only 2 minutes or so of totality. But it was absolutely mind blowing. I have asked others this question and I haven't gotten much more than a shrug of the shoulders as an answer, but why is that every image I have seen of the solar eclipse at totality looks absolutely NOTHING like what I saw with my eyes? I rember seeing a black perfect circle, like a hole in the sky, and blue gaseous flame-like "stuff" coming out from around it. Is it because they are still in a solar filter and maybe a color camera would catch more of that, or is it that cameras just can't see what our eyes can? I remember hearing 250 people shout "oh my god" almost in unison when it went into totality. I plan to try to be in a place for the April 2024 total eclipse, once I figure out the logistics. And my goal will be to try to capture what my eyes see. I don't think the images we see, do it justice.

celestron astromaster 70 az 70/900 f13 refractor vs meade infinity 70/700 f10 which is better

@NebulaPhotos

2 жыл бұрын

For what? For deep sky astrophotography, I wouldn't get either. Those telescopes are best suited for viewing the moon. They sound pretty similar spec-wise, I'd just get whichever comes with more accessories.

At 5:42, you mentioned filling the corners with black, but I couldn't follow what you actually did in photoshop. Seemed like you hit a hotkey to fill it?

@NebulaPhotos

2 жыл бұрын

Ah, yes, I did. Sorry for not explaining that. After creating the new layer, I filled it with the foreground color (black at that time) with the photoshop keyboard shortcut. This is one of those keyboard shortcuts that I use so often that I've committed it to memory. I was on a Mac so it's: Option+Shift+Delete (Mac). On Windows, the fill with Foreground Color shortcut is: Alt+Shift+Backspace (Windows). If you don't want to try to remember shortcuts, the Fill... command is under the Edit menu.

@dalekim1712

2 жыл бұрын

@@NebulaPhotos Awesome, thank you! A "Must know Photoshop hotkeys or actions for astrophotography" would be pretty helpful for someone like me who just started both astrophotography and using Photoshop.

I got a question that I’ve had a lot of trouble trying to figure out. It’s ok if you can’t answer it, but I use the ASIAIR pro in plan mode a lot. It’s connected to a ioptron cem26. Several times in plan or autorun mode it will stop tracking but never in preview mode. Basically it will continue to run the program, but the tracking toggle in the asi air will shut off randomly and stay off. I can re-enable tracking if I just pause and restart the plan until it stops tracking again. All firmware’s are updated and the OS has been flashed for the ASIAIR pro. ZWO says they looked at the log file and said it stops tracking because it hits a limit. Such as near the meridian or below the horizon. I said it’s not possible because I never start imaging until above 30 degrees and it will stop tracking hours before the meridian. I eliminated filter changes, focusing, guiding and program plan variables. Have you had any experience with an issue like that? I just don’t know whether it’s a hand controller, mount or asi issue. And I can only test it on clear nights because in order to test “plan mode” it has to plate solve. I can only test preview mode indoors. The only thing that comes to mind is coordinates somehow maybe getting messed up dynamically which to me would suggest a hand controller. Which has to be used for the asi air to control the mount. Thanks In advance.

@NebulaPhotos

2 жыл бұрын

That's frustrating. Unfortunately, I don't use an ASIAir. Based on what you wrote, it is indeed confusing. If ZWO sees a problem with mount limits in the log, that's the best information we have to work with. Have you already gone through the menus on the hand controller to see if you can turn all limits to "off"?

@GrowingAnswers

2 жыл бұрын

@@NebulaPhotos I haven’t. I will see if there is an option for that. Thanks. I’ll let you know what I find.

@jaseastroboy9240

2 жыл бұрын

I don't have any experience with tracking mounts (hopefully one day) so here are some total guesses from zero experience. :) Do you mean the co-ordinates of the target or the log/lat co-ordinates where the scope thinks it is located? I imagine if either of those changed somehow it may think the target was now below the horizon. But then I wouldn't imagine just pausing and restarting should make it work again. Does it redo the plate solving when it restarts? Possibly re-establishing it's co-ordinates? Is it possible that the limit mentioned in the log was a some other type of limit? Like a power limit due to scope weight or a voltage limit due to a momentary sag in voltage.

@GrowingAnswers

2 жыл бұрын

@@jaseastroboy9240 It’s not the weight. It’s not even a half a day maximum yet. And everything is in perfect balance. And yes it does plate solve when it restarts. And yes I mean mount coordinates.

@jaseastroboy9240

2 жыл бұрын

​@@GrowingAnswers When it stops are you able to release the mount and move it back slightly on it's tracking path before restarting it. Just to see if it stops at the same point again. Then you would know if it was a genuine (if confusing) limit that the software thought it had reached rather than a random event.