View allAll Photos Tagged alphacentauri
This is my first attempt at imaging a portion of the Milky Way Galaxy from my back garden. The Crux Constellation and Coalsack Dark Nebula can be seen near the bottom of the photograph. At the top of the photograph the Milky Way's galatic centre is captured in this view.
Twenty stacked 20-second exposures at ISO 800, f/4.0, 17mm.
I recommend Stellarium (a free open source planetarium software) for anyone interested in looking at the night sky.
Included in the notes are the positions of: Alpha Centauri, Beta Centauri, Apus Constellation, Coalsack Dark Nebula, Crux Constellation, Milky Way Galaxy, Musca Constellation, Cat's Paw Nebula, Pipe Dark Nebula, Triangulum Australe Constellation, Southern Pleiades.
This is a framing of the most spectacular area of the southern Milky Way, from Centaurus at left, to Carina at right, with Crux, the Southern Cross, at centre.
In this field are arguably the sky's finest examples of various classes of celestial objects:
- the finest telescopic double stars: Alpha Centauri at far left and Acrux at the bottom of the Southern Cross
- the finest globular star cluster: Omega Centauri at top left
- the best dark nebula: the Coal Sack beside Crux (at bottom is the long "Dark Doodad" in Musca)
- the best emission nebula: the Carina Nebula at right (to the left of it is the Lambda Centauri nebulosity)
- the best open star cluster: NGC 3532 or the Football Cluster to the left of the Carina Nebula, with IC 2602, the Southern Pleiades below the nebula a fine runner up. Many other superb star clusters populate this field such as the Jewel Box, NGC 4755, beside Crux.
This is a stack of 8 x 4-minute exposures with the Canon RF28-70mm lens at 48mm and f/2.8, on the Canon Ra at ISO 800, with an URTH light pollution filter to help increase contrast. All on the MSM Nomad tracker. Taken from Mirrabook Cottage near Coonabarabran, Australia on a superb night March 5, 2024.
♫ "They say that it's always darkest right before the dawn
They say that I must be strong just to carry on
But they don't know that I would wait my whole lifetime through
Because of you, my love, that I'd be waiting just for you
There you stood, amazing, shining for the whole world to see
And I knew an angel had been sent to watch over me
So I'll be waiting, hoping, dreaming, loving you
Because I know, my love, that you do love me too.."
© All rights reserved. None of my photos may be used for any reason without my explicit permission.
The southern sky splendours over the OzSky Star Party, with the Milky Way from Vela to Centaurus, including Crux and Carina left of upper centre. The Large Magellanic Cloud is at lower right below Canopus.
This section of sky contains a large number of the splendours of the southern hemisphere sky.
This is a single tracked 2-minute exposure with the Rokinon 14mm lens at f/2.8 and Canon 5D MkII at ISO 2500.
This is a framing of the formation of dark lanes in the Milky Way called the Dark Emu in Australian aboriginal sky lore, seen here in its entirety with it overhead in the April pre-dawn sky. The head is at right in Crux, as the Coal Sack; the body is around the Galactic Centre; the tail is at left in Scutum.
Some airglow discolours the sky.
This is a stack of 5 x 2.5-minute exposures with the 14mm Rokinon lens at f/2.8 and filter-modified Canon 5D MkII at ISO 1600. No filter was employed. On the iOptron Sky-Tracker. From Tibuc Gardens Cottage near Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia, April 28, 2017. Re-processed in 2024.
This fish-eye lens view takes in the southern Milky Way, from Scorpius rising at lower left in the east (though partly behind trees here), to Orion setting at upper right in the west. At centre are the bright starclouds of Carina and Centaurus, along with the Southern Cross, Crux, and the dark Coal Sack. To the left of the Coal Sack are the stars Alpha and Beta Centauri, the Pointers.
At right is the huge magenta Gum Nebula in Vela and Puppis. To its left are the stars of the False Cross in Vela and Carina. The "Dark Emu" made of dust lanes in the Milky Way is rising at lower left.
At upper right south of Orion is Sirius, while at bottom above the Large Magellanic Cloud is the star Canopus, for a framing of the night sky's two brightest stars.
This illustrates how from the southern hemisphere Orion and Scorpius can be seen in the sky at the same time, contrary to the mythogical story of their fate and placement in the sky after their battle.
The faint glow of the Zodiacal Band can be seen at upper left.
This is a stack of 4 x 4 minute exposures with the TTArtisan 11mm full-frame fish-eye lens wide open at f/2.8 on the modified Canon R camera at ISO 800. The camera had a clip-in filter installed – an Astronomik UV/IR Cut filter, which for this lens improves its off-axis performance. The camera was on the iOptron SkyTracker, taken from the Warrumbungles Mountain Motel during the 2024 OzSky Star Safari in March 2024.
Way out toward the edge of our Milky Way galaxy, a young star that is still forming is sending out a birth announcement to the Universe in the form of a celebratory looking firework.
These seething twin jets of hot gasses are blazing across eight light-years – twice the distance between our Sun and the nearest star system. Superheated gases falling onto the massive star are blasted back into space along the star’s rotational axis and powerful magnetic fields confine the jets to narrow beams.
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope witnessed the spectacle in infrared light. The jets are plowing into interstellar dust and gas, creating fascinating details captured only by Webb.
The discovery has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.
[Image description: Gaseous yellow-orange filaments look like a rose seen from the side and tilted slightly from upper left to lower right, slightly higher than the centre of the frame. Extending from the rose to the upper left and lower right are gaseous outflows that appear as red lobes that have an overall shape of tall, narrow triangles with rounded tips. Each red triangle is made up of wavy, irregular lines. Dozens of stars are scattered across the field. One particularly bright white star with eight diffraction spikes is located at the top of the yellow rose. Another bright blue star with even more prominent diffraction spikes is to its lower left. The background of space is black.]
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Y. Cheng (NAOJ), J. DePasquale (STScI); CC BY 4.0
The Dark Emu of aboriginal sky lore rising in a moonlit sky over the Tasman Sea from a beach near Lakes Entrance, Victoria, Australia, April 2, 2017. Lights from fishing boats dot the horizon out at sea. Illumination is from the waxing crescent Moon behind the camera to the north. This is looking southeast. Crux, the Southern Cross, is at top; the Pointer Stars are below.
This is a single exposure, from a 300-frame time-lapse, at 36 seconds at ISO 3200 and f/2.5 with the Rokinon 14mm lens and Canon 6D.
The southern Milky Way and galactic centre rising on an April night in Australia, with the constellations of Sagittarius and Scorpius coming up, and the bulge of the galactic centre above the treetops. The sky is discoloured by some bands of airglow. Alpha and Beta Centauri are at top right. Antares is left of centre. The dark lanes here form the neck and body of the Dark Emu.
This is a stack of 8 x 45-second exposures for the ground, mean combined to smooth noise, and one 45-second untracked exposure for the sky, all with the Rokinon 14m lens at f/2.5 and Canon 6D at ISO 3200. Taken as part of a 500-frame time-lapse sequence.
The Dark Emu of aboriginal sky lore rising in the east at the OzSky 2016 star party at Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia, on April 2, 2016. The sweep of the Milky Way from Carina at upper right to Sagittarius at lower left just rising takes in much of the splendours of the southern sky. The Dark Emu itself is made of dark lanes in the Milky Way, with the dark Coal Sack at upper centre forming his head and beak. The dark lane through Centaurus forms his neck. At left is Scorpius rising, with Mars and Saturn to the left of Antares. The Small Magellanic Cloud is at lower right setting.
The Zodiacal Band and Gegenschein add the brighter sky at upper left.
This is a stack of 5 x 3-minute exposures, all tracked on the iOptron Sky Tracker, and with the 14mm Rokinon lens at f/2.8 and filter modified Canon 5D MkII at ISO 2000. The ground comes from one 8-minute exposure at ISO 800 with the tracker motor off taken right after the tracked shots. This provides the sharp foreground, with a photographer with the OzSky star party at lower right. The composite does leave some ghosly trailed trees at left and along the horizon. But I think this looks rather neat.
Continuing my series of shot taken from Brotas' Bortle 4 skies; this time showing more of the Milky Way, Carina and hints of the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Xiaomi Redmi 11S ISO640 25s f/1,89 5,89mm EV0.
Edited with MS Picture Manager.
Created in Google Gemini 2.5 Flash, aka, "Nano Banana."
Based on the thermal boreholes featured in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri PC game. Thermal boreholes were a late game option terraforming technology the player could choose.
civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Terraforming_(SMAC)
See more here: www.youtube.com/@journeymanplayer7459
This image of the stellar jet in Sh2-284, captured by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera), shows compass arrows, scale bar, and color key for reference.
The north and east compass arrows show the orientation of the image on the sky. Note that the relationship between north and east on the sky (as seen from below) is flipped to the direction arrows on a map of the ground (as seen from above).
The scale bar is labeled in light-years, which is the distance that light travels in one Earth-year, and arcsec (It takes 1.1 years for light to travel a distance equal to the length of the scale bar.) One light-year is equal to about 5.88 trillion miles or 9.46 trillion kilometers.
This image shows invisible near-infrared wavelengths of light that have been translated into visible-light colors. The color key shows which NIRCam filters were used when collecting the light. The color of each filter name is the visible light color used to represent the infrared light that passes through that filter.
[Image description: Image titled “James Webb Space Telescope; Stellar Jet; SH2-284,” with compass arrows, scale bar, and color key. Gaseous yellow-orange filaments look like a rose seen from the side and tilted slightly from upper left to lower right, slightly higher than the center of the frame. Extending from the rose to upper left and lower right are gaseous outflows that appear as red lobes that have an overall shape of tall, narrow triangles with rounded tips. At the bottom left are compass arrows indicating the orientation of the image on the sky. The east arrow points toward 10 o’clock. The north arrow points in the 2 o’clock direction. At the bottom left is a scale bar labeled 1.1 light-years, 15 arcsec. The length of the scale bar is about one sixth of the total image. Below the image is a color key showing which NIRCam filters were used to create the image and which visible-light color is assigned to each filter. From left to right: F162M and 182M are blue, F200W and F356W are green, and F405N and F470N are red.]
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Y. Cheng (NAOJ), J. DePasquale (STScI); CC BY 4.0
Alfa Centauro, la estrella (en realidad 3) más cercana al sistema solar: 4.3 años luz.
Southern Cross & Alpha Centauri (star system closest to the Solar System, being 4.3 light-years).
In the Southern Hemisphere, the Southern Cross is frequently used for navigation in much the same way that Polaris is used in the Northern Hemisphere.
Rocas de Santo Domingo. Valparaíso, Chile.
Camera: Nikon FM-2
Lens: Nikkor 50mm f1.4
Film: Fuji Velvia 50
The Southern Cross and Alpha/Beta Centauri are clearly visible in the center of the frame. This star trail was taken by gradually de-focussing the lens over a 15 minute time span.
This frames the Australian aboriginal "Dark Emu" made of dark dust lanes in the Milky Way as it rises in the east. The spectacular southern reaches of the Milky Way from Centaurus to Carina shine above high in the south, including the Southern Cross. The dark Coal Sack beside the Cross is the head of the Emu. Her neck is the dark lane that splits the Milky Way starting at the star Alpha Centauri and extending down and into Scorpius, here rising above the trees.
The faint Zodiacal Band is visible at left. The two Magellanic Clouds are setting at right.
This is a blend of four tracked exposures for the sky and one for the ground, all two minutes at ISO 1600 with the TTArtisan 11mm full-frame fish-eye lens on the filter modified Canon EOS R camera, on the old iOptron SkyTracker. The camera was equipped with an Astronomik clip-in UV/IR Cut filter which when used with this lens actually reduces its off-axis aberrations.
Taken late at night on March 10/11, 2024 at the Warrumbungles Mountain Motel near Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia, during the OzSky star party. The red light is from my other camera rig taking panorama images of the Milky Way.
For this image I reduced the stars to emphasize the Milky Way and dark lanes, using RC-Astro StarXterminator, and an Apply Image function to create a "stars only" layer to blend back in selectiively using a luminosity mask, to reduce the profusion of faint stars but retain the brightest stars.
Camera: Nikon FM-2
Lens: Nikkor 50mm f1.4 AIS
Film: Fuji Velvia 50
The skies in Australias outback are INCREDIBLE. Being so remote there is virtually no atmospheric pollution so they are crystal clear. This is the South Celestial Pole - by using the Southern Cross and Alpha/Beta Centauri its position in the sky is easily determined. By drawing a line to the horizon from that point you have due south.
The green colour in the sky is due to Reciprocity failure which requires exposure compensation (usually adding a stop or 2 to the metered EV value) and also causes this colour shift (green in this example) Most films are designed to be exposed between 1 second and 1/10000th sec. Anything outside these parameters causes this effect.
By using faster speed films you can decrease the exposure time but of course you then get smaller arcs as the stars arent travelling as far across the frame. I really dont know of any way to limit the green colour cast effect in Velvia other than using a magenta colour correction filter or colour correcting in post.
Tungsten balanced film will have a different colour shift. Provia 100F requires no correction at all for exposures shorter than 128 seconds wheras Velvia exhibits colour shift after 4 seconds.
Seen from the summit of Haleakalā, the constellations Centaur and Southern Cross glow in the night sky above the Pacific Ocean.
The buildings near the right edge of the photo are the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope and the two Pan-STARRS telescopes at the Haleakalā High Altitude Observatory Site.
The Southern Cross and the Pointer Stars appearing amid the sunset twilight over the Green Cape Lighthouse, New South Wales, Australia. This was March 29, 2017, with these stars rising into the southeast. The working beacon is the smaller structure at right. The old tower was decommissioned in the 1980s. Taken as part of a 780-frame time-lapse sequence.
A wide-angle photograph of a portion of the Milky Way as seen from the Southern Hemisphere.
Starting from the lower part of the image, we have the prominent Southern Pointer Stars (Constellation of Centauri) - Alpha Centauri and Beta Centauri (a.k.a., Hadar).
Just beyond the Coalsack Dark Nebula, we next see the iconic Jewel Box and Southern Cross (Crux Constellation).
And in the upper third of the photograph, there are many stars belonging to the Constellations of Carina on the right and Vela on the left, both of which have several Caldwell Catalog objects.
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See "https://www.flickr.com/photos/momentsforzen/30802518655/" for a photograph that I took of a similar portion of the Milky Way.
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List of Messier Catalog objects that are present in this scene ...
[This portion of the sky is not visible from Paris where Messier observed the objects that made up his catalog. Hence, there are no Messier Catalog objects in this region of the sky.]
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List of Caldwell Catalog objects that are present in this scene ...
Catalogue # | Name | NGC or IC # | Type | Constellation | Apparent Brightness
C91 | Wishing Well Cluster | NGC 3532 | Open Cluster | Carina | +3
C92 | Eta Carinae Nebula | NGC 2272 | Nebula | Carina | +3
C94 | Jewel Box Nebula | NGC 4755 | Open Cluster | Centaurus | +4.2
C97 | Pearl Cluster | NGC 3766 | Open Cluster | Centaurus | +5.3
C98 | (Unnamed) | NGC 4609 | Open Cluster | Crux | +6.9
C99 | Coalsack Nebula | N/A | Dark Nebula | Crux | N/A
C100 | Lambda Centauri | IC 2944 | Open Cluster and Nebula | Centaurus | +4.5
C102 | Theta Car Cluster | IC 2602 | Open Cluster |Carina | +1.9
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Some final thoughts ...
The post-processing applied to this photograph was targeting ...
- Repression of fine scale speckle noise.
- Enhancement of texture / structure / mid-scale signals related to the stars.
- Adjustments to the ambient color of the image.
The first item can be tackled with the tools available in Lightroom (i.e., the Luminance and Color tools in the "Detail - Noise Reduction" block of the Develop module menu. Some care is required to avoid excessive filtering because this gives the image a very unnatural fine scale texture.
My approach to the second item is to adjust the settings within the "Tone" block (i.e., Exposure, Highlights / Shadows, and Whites / Blacks), the "Presence" block (i.e., Clarity), and the "Effects" block (i.e., Dehaze). Some improvement can be achieved, but I have to accept that the ambient light pollution level of locations such as this place limits on the degree of improvement that can be achieved.
The final aspect is the one that I struggle with the most. The image as shot has a nasty yellow-brown-purple color. For those that know the city of Melbourne (Australia), think about the color of the water in the Yarra River as it passes through the city centre and you will have some idea of the color of the original photographs. Note that I always set the White Balance in-camera to 'Daylight". I don't particularly like this color, and set about changing it. Time and time again I finish up with the bluish shade that the image in this posting displays. Not a natural color, but one that I find more pleasing than the original. To make the changes, I use ...
- The "Graduated Filter" and "Radial Filter" in the "Local Effects" block.
- The "Vignetting" slider in the "Lens Corrections" block.
- The "Temperature" setting in the "Color" block.
- The "Exposure" setting in the "Color block.
- The "Vibrance" and "Saturation" settings in the "Color" block.
- The HSL settings in the "HSL / Color / B&W" block.
I would note that I try to separate the processing related to items 1 and 2 from the processing related to item 3.
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With the level of ambient light present, there is only so much that can be done to obtain a "good" (i.e., pleasing) result. In this instance, ...
- The base level of the background luminance noise is elevated, which reduces the contrast and color gamut of small point objects that can be extracted from the raw data.
- The result is a flat, rather monochromatic image.
A better approach than trying to "rescue" a "damaged" image would be ...
- (Obvious, really) (helpful, maybe) Take the photograph in an area with much lower ambient light / light pollution so that a more natural, higher dynamic range, lower noise image is obtained.
This may be seen as flippant, but it gives cause to think creatively about the ways to get out to locations in and around Canberra that would have lower levels of ambient light.
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Links for background information ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caldwell_catalogue
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_object
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_General_Catalogue
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[ Location - Barton, Australian Capital Territory, Australia ]
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Photography notes ...
The photograph was taken using the following hardware configuration ...
(Year of manufacture indicated in braces where known.)
- Hasselblad 501CM Body (Chrome) - S/N 10SH26953 (2002).
- Hasselblad CFV-50c Digital Back for Hasselblad V mount camera.
- Hasselblad Focusing Screen for the CFV-50c digital back, with focussing prism and crop markings.
- Hasselblad 45 Degree Viewfinder PME-45 42297 (2001).
- Hasselblad Carl Zeiss lens - Distagon 50mm f/4 CF FLE T* (1991).
- FotodioX B60 Lens Hood for Select Hasselblad Wide-Angle CF Lenses.
- MeFOTO BackPacker Air Travel Tripod (Blue) - MFR # BPAIRBLU.
- Hasselblad HATQCH (3043326) Tripod Quick Coupling.
- MeFOTO PMU50 Quick-Release Plate - 50 x 37 mm - MFR # PMU50.
- Nikon AR-3 Threaded Shutter Release - MFR # 664.
- Artisan & Artist ACAM-302 Silk Cord for Hassleblad Cameras (Black).
I acquired the photograph (8272 x 6200 pixels) with an ISO of 3200, exposure time of 8 seconds, and an aperture of f/4.0
Post-processing ...
Finder - Removed the CF card from the camera digital back and placed it in a Lexar 25-in-1 USB card reader. Then used Finder on my MacBook Air to download the raw image file (3FR extension) from the card.
Lightroom - Imported the 3FR image. Applied a standard metadata preset (20161110 Import 001) during the import process.
Lightroom - Used the Map module to add the location details to the EXIF header.
Lightroom - Made various lighting and color adjustments to the image.
Lightroom - Saved the Develop module settings as preset 20161228-210d.
Lightroom - Output the image as a JPEG image using the "Maximum" quality option (8272 x 6200 pixels).
PhotoSync - Copied the JPEG file to my iPad Mini for any final processing, review, enjoyment, and posting to social media.
@MomentsForZen #MomentsForZen #MFZ #Hasselblad #501CM #CFV50c #Lightroom #Sky #Night #Dark #Stars #MilkyWay #Centaurus #SouthernPointerStars #AlphaCentauri #BetaCentauri #Hadar #Crux #JewelBox #SouthernCross #CoalsackNebula #Vela #Carina
The galactic core area of the Milky Way Galaxy in Sagittarius and Scorpius rising in the east at left, with the spectacular southern reaches of the Milky Way from Centaurus to Carina above high in the south. The Dark Emu made of dark dust lanes in the Milky Way is fully visible here. Scorpius is rising on its side at left, while the Southern Cross is high in the south at upper right.
This is a blend of two tracked exposures for the sky and one for the ground, all two minutes at ISO 1600 with the TTArtisan 11mm full-frame fish-eye lens on the filter modified Canon EOS R camera, on the old iOptron SkyTracker. Taken before dawn on March 11, 2024 at the Warrumbungles Mountain Motel near Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia, during the OzSky star party. The red light is from my other camera rig taking panorama images of the Milky Way.
Created in Google Gemini 2.5 Flash, aka, "Nano Banana."
Inspiration from the Gaian faction in the old classic sci-fi PC game, "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri."
The Gaians were the eco-friendly faction in the game that built organic-like settlements, were experts at terraforming, and skilled at harnessing the native alien lifeforms to their advantage.
See more here: www.youtube.com/@journeymanplayer7459
An observer gazes at a target in the southern Milky Way in Carina, at the OzSky Star Party in Australia, April 2016. The Southern Cross, Crux, and the dark Coal Sack Nebula are at top. Alpha and Beta Centauri are below, made fuzzy by high haze moving in on the last night of the star party.
This is a single untracked 10-second exposure with the 35mm lens at f/2 and Canon 6D at ISO 6400.
A vertical panorama showing 180 degrees of the MilkyWay from one horizon to the other. The galactic bulge is visible at the center of the photo.
www.machitmedia.com/character-portraits
In the 22nd Century Tinto Cyrillic, industrialist of the Asteroid belt planet Ceres and Bitis Matumaini, Lezcollejah High Priestess of the Imperial Iean Empire were reunited in the Alpha Centauri star system following the end of the War of the Star Systems that raged for five Earth years following the abduction of Emperor Macrolis of Iea. The victory of the solar system allies owed a lot to the power, wisdom and knowledge both Bitis and Tinto provided to the Imperator Silafrica Shejola the leader of the solar system forces.
The southern Milky Way with the Dark Emu rising over the OzSky Star Party on April 5, 2016. This is the section of the sky and Milky Way that cannot be seen from northern latitudes.
The Milky Way extends from Puppis and Vela at top to Centaurus at bottom, with Crux and Carina at left of centre with the Southern Cross and the Carina Nebula at centre. The Small and Large Magellanic Clouds are at lower right. The South Celestial Pole is at lower centre. Canopus is the bright star upper right.
The telescopes are from the Three Rivers Foundation Australia for use by visiting amateur astronomers at the annual OzSky Star Party, held on the grounds of the Warrumbungles Motel near Coonabarabran, NSW.
This is a stack of 4 x 5 minute exposures with the Rokinon 14mm lens at f/2.8 and Canon 5D MkII at ISO 1600, all tracked on the iOptron Sky Tracker, plus one 5-minute exposure untracked of the ground to prevent it from blurring. The trees are blurred at the boundary of the two images, tracked and untracked.
From the Earth to Alfa Centauri: Tribute to Vladimír Babula, a Czechoslovak writer of my first red scifi book The Planet of Three Suns (1963). Alpha Centauri known as Toliman too is the brightest star below. The path on water leads symbolically to this my favourite star in the distance 4,27 light years. Single shot I took in Mauritius on December 2, 2013, Canon EOS 6d, lens Sigma 50 mm, aperture 2,2, ISO 2500, tripod. The airglow is quite obvious (green and yellow). Copyright: Marián Dujnič
"Lord, you can take me now, I've seen it all." (Dan Dierdorf, TV commentator, 19941017).
This was the first long exposure star trail photograph that I took using a recently acquired Zeiss (Hasselblad) 30mm fisheye lens. The lens that I used was manufactured in 1996 but it was in perfect condition. I acquired this lens to serve as a wide-angle lens for my Hasselblad 501CM camera.
The geometry of the scenes that are photographed with a fisheye glens is unusual - I think of it as being midway between the geometry obtained using a conventional rectilinear lens and the geometry of a 360 degree lens. It is quite disarming the way that it captures so much of the horizon - and this is the case even when using the CFV-50c digital back where the recorded photograph is a cropped portion of the image circle. (** I shall have to take some photographs using a film that includes a larger portion of the image circle, just to see the full fisheye geometry of this lens!).
When considering the use of a fisheye lens, it must also be remembered that a fisheye lens geometry is actually quite appropriate for astrophotography as the visible hemisphere is best mapped as a curved space, not a rectilinear space.
As for the photograph itself ... When looking at the LCD screen at the time of capture, it had a pleasing composition, and the light trails, though short, curved nicely around the South Celestial Pole.
Several days later, when I had organized some time to process the image, I sat back to evaluate my feelings about it and ...
... I couldn't be more pleased.
The maximum exposure length for my Hasselblad CFV-50c Digital Back is just over 34 minutes (34:08), which is barely sufficient for capturing star trails. What this exposure length does allow, however, is for various "ghost" features of a short exposure to be drawn out but to remain recognizable. The curve of the star clouds that define the Milky Way are evident, as is a smudge near the right hand edge of the image, just above the building facade, that relates to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Within the confines of the Milky Way, close to the middle of the image, is a dark region that is the expression of the Coalsack Dark Nebula. The final feature that I shall mention is the dramatically elevated exposure in the lower left corner of the image. This is a product of the street lights along Bowen Drive and beyond that, to the "lavish" (extravagant, excessive) street/building lights in Kingston.
I would imagine that an exposure time of 16 minutes or so might result in an even "balanced" blend of star trails and point star features.
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This is one of a pair of photographs that I took of the stars around the South Celestial Pole on this morning. The web links (URL's) for the pair are given below. One was a "point star" photograph with an 8 second exposure, whilst this image was a "star trail" photograph with a 34 minute 8 second exposure.
The post-processing applied to this star trail photograph was largely based on Lightroom preset 20170206-108. This preset captured the sequence of processes applied to the complementary point star image.
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URL's for the pair of point star and star trail photographs ...
Point star image on Flickr ...
www.flickr.com/photos/momentsforzen/32671217101/
Star trail image on Flickr ...
www.flickr.com/photos/momentsforzen/32788031332/
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[ Location - Barton, Australian Capital Territory, Australia ]
Photography notes ...
The photograph was taken using the following hardware configuration ...
(Year of manufacture indicated in braces where known.)
- Hasselblad 501CM Body (Chrome) - S/N 10SH26953 (2002).
- Hasselblad CFV-50c Digital Back for Hasselblad V mount camera (2016).
- Hasselblad Focusing Screen for the CFV-50c digital back, with focusing prism and crop markings.
- Hasselblad 45 Degree Viewfinder PME-45 42297 (2001).
- Hasselblad Carl Zeiss fisheye lens - F-Distagon 3.5/30 CF T* (1996).
- Really Right Stuff (RRS) TFC-14 Series 1 Carbon Fiber Tripod - MFR # 13996.
- Really Right Stuff (RRS) BH-30 Ball Head with Mini Screw-Knob Clamp - MFR # BH-30 PRO.
- Hasselblad HATQCH (3043326) Tripod Quick Coupling.
- Arca-Swiss ARUCP38 Universal Camera Plate 3/8".
- Nikon AR-3 Shutter Release Cable.
- Artisan & Artist ACAM-302 Silk Cord for Hassleblad Cameras (Black).
I acquired this photograph (8272 x 6200 pixels) with an ISO of 100, exposure time of 34:08 seconds (20170205 @ 02:14:38 to 02:48:46), and aperture of f/11.0
Post-processing ...
Finder - Removed the CF card from the camera digital back and placed it in a Lexar 25-in-1 USB card reader. Then used Finder on my MacBook Air to download the raw image file (3FR extension) from the card.
Lightroom - Imported the 3FR image.
Lightroom - Used the Map module to add the location details to the EXIF header.
Lightroom - Applied Lightroom preset 20170206-108.
Lightroom - Used the Spot Removal tool to attenuate a number of the characteristic small, dark circular artifacts that are related to dust spots on the digital sensor.
Lightroom - Decreased the saturation and increased the exposure for the blue fraction of the image (see HSL panel).
Lightroom - Added a small radial filter to the bottom left corner to reduce the exposure in this region.
Lightroom - Saved the complete processing sequence as Lightroom preset 20170212-004.
Lightroom - Output the image as a JPEG image using the "Maximum" quality option (8272 x 6200 pixels).
PhotoSync - Copied the JPEG file to my iPad Mini for any final processing, review, enjoyment, and posting to social media.
@MomentsForZen #MomentsForZen #MFZ #Hasselblad #501CM #CFV50c #Lightroom #Night #NightSky #LongExposure #Sky #Cityscape #FisheyeLens #WideAngleLens #Apartments #Stars #MilkyWay #LargeMagellanicCloud #LMC #Pointers #SouthernPointers #SouthernCross #Crux #AlphaCentauri #BetaCentauri #Hadar #Coalsack #CoalsackNebula #JewelBox #OmegaCentauri #EtaCarinae #StarTrails #LightTrails
The Southern Cross, Crux, and the Pointer Stars, Alpha and Beta Centauri, above in the moonlight of the waning gibbous Moon before dawn, from the Smoky Cape Lighthouse looking southwest, on the coast of New South Wales, Australia. The Cape was named by James Cook in 1770 for the fires he saw on shore here.
This is a single 5-second exposure at f/2.8 with the 35mm lens and Canon 6D at ISO 1000.
Created in Google Gemini 2.5 Flash, aka, "Nano Banana."
Based on the sensor array terraforming improvement from the legendary strategy game, "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri."
See more here: www.youtube.com/@journeymanplayer7459
“The planets conquered, Man turned towards the stars – to the alien worlds of Alpha Centauri.”
From the back cover:
Interplanetary travel was an established fact. Bases had been set up on the Moon, Mars and even on far-away Pluto. But that was as far as Man could go. Beyond the Frozen Planet lay an immeasurable gulf of light-years which it would take a lifetime to cross.
Not until the interstellar drive was discovered, was it possible for a ship to be sent to Alpha Centauri in the search for new planets suitable for colonization by the human race.
This is an imaginative novel of the ill-assorted crew of this first starship to land on a new planet in a new system. Leaving their parent ship in a closed orbit, they went down onto the planet, where their only pinnace cracked up on landing!
Then a party of non-humans show up, claiming to be the inhabitants of the planet. But it is soon apparent that they are something more than that . . .
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Badger Books were published between 1959 and 1967 in a number of genres, predominantly war, westerns, romance, supernatural and science fiction. In common with other “pulp” or mass-market publishers of the time, Badger Books focused on quantity rather than quality. A new title in each of the major genres appeared each month, generally written to tight deadlines by low-paid authors. One of the most remarkable facts about Badger Books is that much of its output was produced by just two authors (using a range of house names and other pseudonyms). John Glasby (over 300 novels and short stories) and Robert Lionel Fanthorpe (over 200 novels and stories). [Wikipedia]
A close-up look at the Milky Way Galaxy in the night sky from Blayney, Central West, NSW, Australia.
Featuring the Southern Cross (Crux) and the Southern Pointers (Alpha and Beta Centauri), this stacked composite star trail image was taken from the grounds of the Landmark Apartment complex. The camera was directed to the WSW and angled upwards (i.e., the roofline of the building has an elevation of around 25 degrees above the horizon.
Star trail and other images were acquired over a 7 hour period. The image here is a layered composite of 7 images or sets of images - 2 ultra-long exposure during the night, a “blue-hour” pre-dawn long exposure photo, and 4 "dark frame" self-response images compiled into a “master dark frame”.
It is a testament to the flexibility of the camera and camera apps on an iPhone. I’ve been fascinated with astronomy and photography since I was a boy, and with a little creativity and patience, you can do some amazing things just with an iPhone to combine the two - even in the “polluted” high-ambient light environment of a city.
The camera on an iPhone is quite noisy, and isn’t amenable to adding telephoto lenses - although it is possible. So, you can’t readily image a narrow field of view. Using the iPhone as an imaging camera, however, you can use a telescope to provide the magnification and create quite useful images. OK - I’ll admit that I’m on the lookout for a semi-portable telescope for this purpose.
I have estimated that here in town, stars with magnitude 2 and brighter can be imaged with my iPhone 5. Some camera apps allow images to be stacked indefinitely in real time to provide the base image for a star trail photo. The stars can then be identified in the photo by their trace, even when they are barely visible in a single frame. The Pocket Universe app is a great iOS app to help put names to the stars.
This image was the result of an experiment of the battery drain that occurs during the extended acquisition period, and the suitability of using an external battery to keep power to the iPhone. Previously, I have always connected to mains power via an extension lead. For this test, I was using a “Mophie juice pack powerstation® PRO” 6000 mAh battery pack. The session used around 5000 mAh of power, just over 3 full charges for the iPhone 5. With a single charge, this means that the iPhone 5 can stack images with the Slow Shutter Cam app for just under 2 hours.
www.mophie.com/juice-pack-powerstation-PRO-smartphones-ta...
I have identified various features using notes - pass the cursor over the image to see them. There are many other partial and very faint star trails present.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Centauri
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Centauri
Barton, ACT, Australia.
PHOTOGRAPHS ...
iPhone 5 - Photographs taken with the camera on an iPhone 5.
Slow Shutter Cam - SSC - A set of 7 images acquired as stacked composite images using the Slow Shutter Cam app.
1) Ultra-long exposure - 20130410 23:42:53 to 20130411 05:14:07 - 19874 seconds - 5 hours 31 minutes 14 seconds.
2) Very-long exposure - 20130411 05:15:21 to 20130411 05:38:24 - 1383 seconds - 23 minutes 3 seconds.
3) “Blue-hour” pre-dawn image - 20130411 05:58:32 to 05:58:43 - 11 seconds.
4) - 7) Four "dark frame" self-response photos acquired by covering the lens and exposing for around 120 seconds each.
PROCESSING (All this may seem long and complicated - I experimented for an hour or two with various alternatives, but once I decided which way I would go, it only took 20 minutes or so to do.) ...
Superimpose - I combined the 4 "dark screen" images in pairs in a cascading fashion using the Normal blend mode and a 50:50 contribution. This resulted in the “master dark frame” image.
Superimpose - The camera self-response (master dark frame) image was subtracted from the ultra-long and very-long exposures using the Difference mode. This does an excellent job of removing the light vignette from the left and right sides of the image and the awful purple tint that is present with the iPhone 5 camera in low light conditions.
Snapseed - Overall lighting adjustments applied to the combined star trail image.
Simply B&W - Star trail image converted to B&W using the green option.
Handy Photo - Some stray bright pixel artifacts in the star trail image retouched.
Snapseed - Overall and selective lighting adjustments made to the pre-dawn “Blue Hour” image to produce a dark image that still shows the building along the bottom edge and the beautiful blue sky colors.
Superimpose - Star trail and pre-dawn images blended using the Screen blending option.
Pixlr Express Plus - A small amount of the Asymmetric vignette added to the top left and right corners of the image.
Exif Editor - EXIF data from the ultra-long exposure transferred to the final image.
(Filed as 20130418_iPad3 001 SlowShutterCam-Superimpose-Snapseed-SimplyB&W-HandyPhoto-PixlrExpressPlus-ExifEditor.JPG)