Early Early Morning Star Trails. With the continuing clear skies, I set up two cameras to record star trails early this morning. I started at 3:00 AM after the moon set. I was still worried about condensation on the lens. I pointed a Nikon D3 camera with a 16 mm f/2.8 fish-eye lens north, and a Nikon D3x camera with a 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens at 14 mm pointed south. I used some gaffer tape to prevent the focal length lens creep on the 14-24 mm lens that ruined a previous star trails session. The Nikon D3 camera stopped recording after 2 hours. After the fact, I realized that I used a EN-EL4 rather than the higher capacity EN-EL4A battery. The D3x camera with a EN-EL4A battery ran until I went out to get the cameras at sunrise. Unfortunately, condensation on the lens started distorting images after about 5 AM. Both the North and South facing Star Trails ended up about 60 images (2 hours). The really bright trail in both the Northern and Southern view is Jupiter.
North View Star Trails. Autumn Early Morning in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D3 and 16 mm f/2.8 mm Fisheye lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/4, 1 min 59 sec). Composite of 56 images combined using the Startrails program. (David J Mathre)South View Star Trails. Autumn Early Morning in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D3x and 14-24 mm f/2.8 mm lens (ISO 100, 14 mm, f/4, 1 min 59 sec). Composite of 60 images combined using the Startrails program. (David J Mathre)
Backyard Summertime Sky Over New Jersey. Solar Disk and Sunspots.
One of the websites that I follow for sunspot and auroral (northern light) activity is SpaceWeather.com. I noticed yesterday and today that there are three new sets of active sunspots (1260, 1261, and 1263). My telescopes have solar filters to allow safe viewing of the solar disk. The following images were taken with a 3.5″ and 7″ Questar telescope and clearly show the sunspots. The third image has some clouds passing in front of the solar disk. The solar filter for the 3.5″ telescope is darker (lets through less light) than the filter for the 7″ telescope. This required increasing the ISO and decreasing the shutter speed for the smaller telescope. Another issue with the smaller telescope is that it is much more sensitive to mirror slap and shutter motion. In order to get a sharp image, I used the mirror-up feature and waited 30 seconds to let the entire system stabilize. With the larger telescope this is still a problem, but attenuated due to the overall extra weight of the telescope relative to the Nikon D3s camera. The higher magnification of the larger telescope however, increases the effect of vibration. Focusing was done viewing the image through the camera using LiveView — and using a HoodMan to be able to view the LCD screen. After shooting images (and videos) for about 30 minutes, I did get a sensor over heating warning (which then turned LiveView off).
Sun with Sunspots. Image taken with a Nikon D3s and Questar 3.5 inch telescope with solar filter (ISO 640, ~1500 mm, f/16, 1/250 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define 2, and Photoshop CS5.Sun with Sunspots. Image taken with a Nikon D3s and Questar 7 inch telescope with solar filter (ISO 200, ~2500 mm, f/16, 1/2000 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define 2, and Photoshop CS5.Sun with Sunspots and Clouds Passing in Front. Image taken with a Nikon D3s and Questar 7 inch telescope with solar filter (ISO 200, ~2500 mm, f/16, 1/2000 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define 2, and Photoshop CS5.
