Pleiades
Well I did get a pretty cool present from my daughters and their significant others for Christmas. It is the Star Adventurer tracking mount for taking night photos of the sky.
So I spent the past few days reading up on how to use the unit, make sure it was calibrated and then aligning it properly with the north star so that long exposures can be taken of night sky elements.
Finally had a clear night to try out the alignment with Polaris which turned out pretty cool. Then mounted my 300 mm lens on the Canon 7D Mark II to try it out taking some photos of Pleiades, a formation of baby stars in the sky.
Given there were some thin clouds and moisture haze in the sky as well as a near quarter moon adding light that would be better off not there, and taking this from my yard in Baltimore County which is not even close to a 'dark' sky ... it was some cool practice to see that I was able to get the unit aligned correctly so that 1 to 3 minute exposures could be done. It was able to even pick up some of the gas there around the stars even under the partial moon and city lights impacting the sky.
This capture here was at ISO 800 and just over 70 seconds, and at f/8 to get some star bursts.
Given I have enjoyed viewing this stellar object through a telescope many years before ... the amount of light being picked up here by the longer exposure is so much better than what the eye can see through the scope.
Looking forward to using it under much darker sky conditions ...
Pleiades
Well I did get a pretty cool present from my daughters and their significant others for Christmas. It is the Star Adventurer tracking mount for taking night photos of the sky.
So I spent the past few days reading up on how to use the unit, make sure it was calibrated and then aligning it properly with the north star so that long exposures can be taken of night sky elements.
Finally had a clear night to try out the alignment with Polaris which turned out pretty cool. Then mounted my 300 mm lens on the Canon 7D Mark II to try it out taking some photos of Pleiades, a formation of baby stars in the sky.
Given there were some thin clouds and moisture haze in the sky as well as a near quarter moon adding light that would be better off not there, and taking this from my yard in Baltimore County which is not even close to a 'dark' sky ... it was some cool practice to see that I was able to get the unit aligned correctly so that 1 to 3 minute exposures could be done. It was able to even pick up some of the gas there around the stars even under the partial moon and city lights impacting the sky.
This capture here was at ISO 800 and just over 70 seconds, and at f/8 to get some star bursts.
Given I have enjoyed viewing this stellar object through a telescope many years before ... the amount of light being picked up here by the longer exposure is so much better than what the eye can see through the scope.
Looking forward to using it under much darker sky conditions ...