I set up the Mindrain Astro motion control head to take 360 degree images of my backyard. The house renovation project is in progress. The roof has been replaced, and the new siding is in progress. The deck is gone and the patio just started. The Astro was programmed to trigger a Fuji X-T1 camera with a Zeiss 12 mm f/2.8 lens periodically as it rotated the camera in a complete circle. The images were then processed into the following time-lapsed videos. Later in the evening I tried night sky sequence (but only rotating the camera 120 degrees.
Backyard Winter Night Sky in New Jersey: Star Trails and Quadranitids Meteors.
The sky was clear last night so I set up two cameras to record the night sky. The SpaceWeather site reported that the Quadrantids meteor shower should peak in the early morning hours. The Nikon D3x with a 24 mm f/1.4G lens was set up to look north above my roof. I used an external power supply for this camera so I wouldn’t need to change batteries during the night. The second camera was a Nikon D3 with a 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens looking south. For both cameras, I used the MC-35 remote set for 59 second exposures, once a minute (the extra second is needed to transfer the image from the camera to the memory card). It was cold (getting down to 10° F), and I was glad that at least one camera was using an external power supply. I had to change the battery in the D3 every 2 hours, and even then it was so cold that the battery ran out before the time. The following are a meteor trail image and a time-lapsed video of everything from the night.
Quadrantids Meteor Trail. Night Sky Over New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D3x and 24 mm f/1.4G lens (ISO 100, 24 mm, f/2, 59 sec). (David J. Mathre)
