{"id":214,"date":"2005-11-13T03:31:05","date_gmt":"2005-11-13T03:31:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2005\/11\/13\/wide_field_astr\/"},"modified":"2005-11-13T03:31:05","modified_gmt":"2005-11-13T03:31:05","slug":"wide_field_astr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2005\/11\/13\/wide_field_astr\/","title":{"rendered":"Wide Field Astrophotography &#8211; November 5 &#038; 6, 2005"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On the evening of November 5th, I had an opportunity to observe at Anderson Mesa with Bill Ferris, Dave Saunders, and Marc Wiley. After a sketch of M45, and another try at G1\/Mayall II, I moved on to some piggyback, wide-field photography. For all shots, I used my Canon Digital Rebel (300D) with the kit lens widened completely to 18 mm. I had the aperture as wide as it would go at f\/3.5, the ISO set to 800, and was taking 10 minute exposures. For most of the images, I stacked 3 images on top of each other after subtracting dark frames and averaging in flat fields to remove noise and amp glow, and get rid of uneven illumination. The Skyview Pro mount was tracking great after some care with polar alignment, but then again, wide field photography is pretty forgiving of this. I spent about 30 minutes on focus, but once that was done, I was able to groove along with the exposures.<br \/>\nI was really happy to see a lot of DSOs showing up in the images&#8230;especially open clusters, and a variety of emission nebulae. After playing with the images some, I think that 5 minute exposures might work nicely as well. The 10 minute shots really pulled out the Milky Way and dark nebulae. It also helped with some of the fainter emission nebulae. But it also overexposed the brighter stars. That left me with less options to expose the images in Photoshop the way I want them. It&#8217;s a trade-off. To get nicer range in faint areas, I sacrificed flexibility in the bright spots. I&#8217;m wondering if 5 minute shots will give me better play at both sides of the luminosity scale. I&#8217;m also dealing with purplish\/magenta blooming around the brighter stars. I&#8217;m not sure how to get rid of that, short of painting it out&#8230;so I&#8217;ve just left it in.<br \/>\nThis post shows the low resolution versions of the photos. I&#8217;m working on them one by one to map out the various details visible in each shot. I&#8217;ll post larger, labeled versions of those as I finish them.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/archives\/images\/2005\/img2005110502_Auriga450.jpg\" border=1 color=ffffff><br \/>\nThis image is centered around the constellation Auriga with major portions of Perseus showing in the upper left, and Taurus in the upper right. The Pleiades and Hyades are prominent, as are a number of dark dust clouds shaping the Milky Way in the area.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/archives\/images\/2005\/img2005110601_Cass450.jpg\" border=1 color=ffffff><br \/>\nThis image is centered around the constellation Cassiopeia with the Andromeda Galaxy, M31, prominent at left.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/archives\/images\/2005\/img2005110602_Orion450.jpg\" border=1 color=ffffff><br \/>\nThis image is centered around the constellation Orion, with Canis Major and Lepus below.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/archives\/images\/2005\/img2005110603_UMaj450.jpg\" border=1 color=ffffff><br \/>\nThis image centers on the constellation Ursa Major. Bill Ferris&#8217; 18&#8243; &#8216;Obsession&#8217; telescope is visible in the foreground along with red light trails from his sketching light.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/archives\/images\/2005\/img2005110604_CanisMaj450.jpg\" border=1 color=ffffff><br \/>\nThis last image is centered on the constellation Canis Major. Sirius is the brightest star visible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>20051113<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astro-photography"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":625,"url":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2015\/12\/13\/nightscape_imag\/","url_meta":{"origin":214,"position":0},"title":"Nightscape Image Editing Tutorial","author":"jperez1690","date":"December 13, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I just wrapped up a five-part video series that describes one of the methods I use to process nightscape photography. In particular, it focuses on dealing with excessive noise--in this case, working with a lens that only opens to f\/3.5. At smaller apertures, one needs to boost ISO to especially\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/22064572405_6214dd509f_o-1-thumb-520x346-498.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":446,"url":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2008\/12\/01\/conjunction_moo\/","url_meta":{"origin":214,"position":1},"title":"Conjunction: Moon, Venus and Jupiter","author":"jperez1690","date":"December 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Conjunction: Moon, Venus and Jupiter","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Astro Photography&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Astro Photography","link":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/category\/astro-photography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":621,"url":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2014\/08\/24\/c2014_e2_jacque\/","url_meta":{"origin":214,"position":2},"title":"C\/2014 E2 (Jacques) &#8211; August 23\/24, 2014","author":"jperez1690","date":"August 24, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I drove out to Sunset Crater tonight to get a shot of an Iridium Flare, and brought my equatorial mount with me to follow up with some images of Comet Jacques. Its beautiful turquoise coma was drifting through the Cassiopeia Milky Way this evening and showed up even in my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Astro Photography&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Astro Photography","link":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/category\/astro-photography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/img20140823_IMG_3171-Edit-Inset_lg-thumb-520x346-275.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":239,"url":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2006\/03\/17\/iridium_flare_n\/","url_meta":{"origin":214,"position":3},"title":"Iridium Flare Near Sirius &#8211; March 5, 2006","author":"jperez1690","date":"March 17, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"A couple weeks ago, while at the SAC meeting at Lowell Observatory, Padraig Houlahan noted that an Iridium Satellite was going to flare up to -8 magnitude shortly after the meeting. I had never seen one of these reflective rascals before, so I made sure to set up the camera\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Astro Photography&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Astro Photography","link":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/category\/astro-photography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":385,"url":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2007\/11\/20\/17p_holmes_nove\/","url_meta":{"origin":214,"position":4},"title":"17P \/ Holmes &#8211; November 19, 2007","author":"jperez1690","date":"November 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"17P \/ Holmes 20071119","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Astro Photography&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Astro Photography","link":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/category\/astro-photography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":215,"url":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/2005\/11\/13\/wide_field_auri\/","url_meta":{"origin":214,"position":5},"title":"Wide Field Auriga Milky Way &#8211; November 5, 2005","author":"jperez1690","date":"November 13, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"20051113","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Astro Photography&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Astro Photography","link":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/category\/astro-photography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perezmedia.net\/beltofvenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}