Well after lurking for an eternity, and throwing the odd ringside comment in occasionally, it is about time I put an image up.
I actually have a few travel shots, but need to work on the processing.
Instead, I'll go in a different direction here.
Another passion of mine is astrophotography, and I have used all manner of cameras over the years, DSLR style being one. If anything the astro imaging is best suited with a dedicated, cooled CCD camera, but apart from a few modifications the chip is essentially the same or very similar to what you and I use every day. Cooling via a Peltier cooler, and usually no filter on the front of the chip, so full spectrum.
Last night it was crisp, above zero degrees, just, and with the odd intermittent cloud passing. I slipped the X-Pro 1 on the the rear of the little 80mm refractor, and used either a focal reducer (for the M8-M20 shot) or a field flattener (for the Omega Cent shot).
With the reducer the focal length becomes about388mm, and with the flattener it remains about it's native 480mm. Yo will see that the spacing distance with the reducer was not bang on, so we have "warp factor 5" happening in the extreme corners, this is a simple fix, get the spacing correct.
M8 and M20 are in the Sagittarius area, both are just visible to the naked eye, and spectacular through a decent sized scope. M8 is known as the Lagoon Nebula, and M20 known as the Trifid.
Omega Centaurus is also known as NGC5139, and is THE most spectacular globular cluster in the sky, it was directly overhead last night.
Focus was effected by way of a Bahtinov mask, difficult but not impossible, and the magnified live view really helped.
ISO was in the vicinity of3200 or 1600 for the M8/M20 shots, and ISO800 for the Omega shots.
M8/M20 was 6 shots each 45 seconds, I used a cable release and the bulb setting. If I had used my noodle, the T setting would have been better, but dark/cold/old age conspired.
The Omega shots were 10 shots at 45 seconds. One really neat idea is the counter timer visible on the rear LCD, makes my astro shots simpler, although an intervalometer would be better, I could then program a series and walk away.
Gary Beal
New Zealand
I actually have a few travel shots, but need to work on the processing.
Instead, I'll go in a different direction here.
Another passion of mine is astrophotography, and I have used all manner of cameras over the years, DSLR style being one. If anything the astro imaging is best suited with a dedicated, cooled CCD camera, but apart from a few modifications the chip is essentially the same or very similar to what you and I use every day. Cooling via a Peltier cooler, and usually no filter on the front of the chip, so full spectrum.
Last night it was crisp, above zero degrees, just, and with the odd intermittent cloud passing. I slipped the X-Pro 1 on the the rear of the little 80mm refractor, and used either a focal reducer (for the M8-M20 shot) or a field flattener (for the Omega Cent shot).
With the reducer the focal length becomes about388mm, and with the flattener it remains about it's native 480mm. Yo will see that the spacing distance with the reducer was not bang on, so we have "warp factor 5" happening in the extreme corners, this is a simple fix, get the spacing correct.
M8 and M20 are in the Sagittarius area, both are just visible to the naked eye, and spectacular through a decent sized scope. M8 is known as the Lagoon Nebula, and M20 known as the Trifid.
Omega Centaurus is also known as NGC5139, and is THE most spectacular globular cluster in the sky, it was directly overhead last night.
Focus was effected by way of a Bahtinov mask, difficult but not impossible, and the magnified live view really helped.
ISO was in the vicinity of3200 or 1600 for the M8/M20 shots, and ISO800 for the Omega shots.
M8/M20 was 6 shots each 45 seconds, I used a cable release and the bulb setting. If I had used my noodle, the T setting would have been better, but dark/cold/old age conspired.
The Omega shots were 10 shots at 45 seconds. One really neat idea is the counter timer visible on the rear LCD, makes my astro shots simpler, although an intervalometer would be better, I could then program a series and walk away.
Gary Beal
New Zealand
Last edited: