Chasing a Comet, Finding Much More
My good friend and exceptionally talented astrophotographer, Phil Hart invited me to go with him last weekend, to a country observing site to photograph Comet Lulin, and test out the 5D2 as an astrophotography camera. As you can see above, we were successful!
Below are a selection of my favourite photos and multimedia from the night, with descriptions. There are two embedded movies and two panoramas, which require Flash 9 to be installed [Download Flash]. Make sure you look at the panorama at the very bottom. I’m very proud of that one! :)
Top: The comet image was taken with Phil’s camera and lens, but I chose the composition and setup, and merged the images before processing. I guess you could call it a colaboration! Canon 40D, 200mm f2.8, 8 x 120sec exposures stacked and processed.
Above: A beautiful young moon watched over us as we set up our equipment.
Above: Phil carries his telescope, used only for astrophotography, from the car to the tripod. Watch this movie in High Def at YouTube.
Click here to view a larger version of this panorama.
Above: A spherical panorama of our observing field, at the Leon Mow dark sky site, near Heathcote, owned by the Astronomical Society of Victoria (ASV). There were another dozen or so people observing on a different field, dedicated to telescopic observation, rather than astrophotography.
Above: For much of the night, Phil used my new 5D MkII on his telescope, as seen above, to photograph the comet and to test the capabilities of the camera. I was content to let him use it, as I’m very curious to know its astrophotography capabilities. First impressions from Phil is that it is a very capable astrophotography camera. I entertained myself by continuing to shoot with my 350D.
Above: Phil uses the 5D2 on his 530mm f3.3 telescope to photograph Comet Lulin, which can just be seen as a tiny green dot to the left of the bright blue Altair, above Phil’s hear near the top of the photo.
Above: Phil and I weren’t the only ones photographing the comet. Another ASV member is seen here controlling his telescope from an attached laptop. All of these photographs with foreground elements and the stars behind were captured in single exposures, and not composited. They were typically 30 second exposures at 18mm f3.5 and 1600ISO on the Canon 350D. It’s amazing how good a dark sky can look in camera.
Above: While the 5D2 was clicking away shooting an automated sequence, we visited the observation field, and were able to observe Comet Lulin through a gigantic pair of binoculars, 100mm (4in) in diameter. It was truly an incredible sight.
Above: I also turned my 350D to the iconic Southern Cross for a 30 second exposure with my 50m f1.8. The stars are incredibly dense and beautiful in this area of the sky.
Above: Once Phil had completed his tests with the 5D2, I was itching to get the fisheye lens onto the camera, to take advantage of the full frame and photograph the whole sky in a single shot. I did a sequence of almost 200 photos to create a time lapse, but for the photo above, I stacked 14 of the exposures together to minimise the noise and increase the brightness of the stars.
Night Sky Time Lapse by Fisheye.
Above is the full time lapse sequence built from the nearly 200 photos taken. Unfortunately the compression in the video at Vimeo doesn’t look great, but it’s better than the dreadful quality of the version at YouTube.
Click here to view a larger version of this panorama.
Above: Finally, I experimented with the all-sky photograph, as seen above, and turned it into an interactive panorama that you can click on and drag to look around the whole night sky. It’s really worth seeing this one bigger, so please click the link above. This has inspired me to try an photograph an all-sky panorama with my 50mm lens, and stitch all of the image together, to make a highly detailed interactive panorama of the night sky!
[Update] Phil just posted his own blog entry on the evening. Go check it out and see how a REAL astrophotographer shoots a comet – his photo is *gorgeous*: http://www.philhart.com/node/127
From the photos you definitely enjoyed the evening, and by taking and sharing the photos, I was able to share your time. Thanks
The picture of the moon watching over you is my favorite with the color contrast of the sky against the new moon.
I have no idea how you did it, but the panorama shots are excellent.
Looks like an incredible experience! Those photos are WOW!
Absolutely awesome! I have been following your blog for a while, but these photos just take the cake. Thank you so much for sharing.
Neil, I’d like to know more info, like the filters you used, etc.
Does the place gotta be very dark? I’m in Malaysia, and the places around me, they’re kinda bright at night. Whats your advise?
[...] Shoot the stars! Take your camera and a tripod away from the city, under some darker skies and point the camera up. A moonless night is best. Use the self-timer or a remote shutter release to minimise camera shake. Set the shutter to 30sec and shoot the stars. Focus can be a challenge, so try auto focusing on a bright star, or use live view zoom to focus if you have it. Here are some of my recent astrophotos. [...]
[...] Shoot the stars! Take your camera and a tripod away from the city, under some darker skies and point the camera up. A moonless night is best. Use the self-timer or a remote shutter release to minimise camera shake. Set the shutter to 30sec and shoot the stars. Focus can be a challenge, so try auto focusing on a bright star, or use live view zoom to focus if you have it. Here are some of my recent astrophotos. [...]
God’s creation is marvelous!
I don’t really want to politicise the comments but I want to quote the wonderful, late, Douglas Adams: “Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”
Thank you everyone for your wonderful comments! :)
@Felix I didn’t use any filters on the camera. I did do some fairly significan post-processing on most of the images, mostly to reduce noise, increase brightness and contrast, and up the saturation. A dark sky is absolutely essential for good night sky photos. A light polluted sky will outshine most stars and will completely overwhelm them in the exposure. Get as far away from city lights as possible. I was two hours drive from melbourne, and North of asmall mountain range.
I’ll write more about astrophotography in the future. It’s pretty accessible. All you really need is a tripod, a camera with manual controls, and a fast lens.
Phil just posted his own blog entry on the evening. Go check it out and see how a REAL astrophotographer shoots a comet – his photo is *gorgeous*: http://www.philhart.com/node/127
Neil,
Thanks! I’ve subscribed to your feeds!
amazing pictures. can you please elaborate more about stacking of exposures ???