Sunrise/sunset/sky photos thread

Brian Van Fleet

Pretty Fly for a Bonsai Guy
Messages
13,961
Reaction score
45,897
Location
B’ham, AL
USDA Zone
8A
We just got home from a week on a ranch in Utah. My daughter wanted to stargaze and shoot the Milky Way. Due to moon phase timing, we didn’t have that much dark sky, but we did manage to get a few really nice shots. Here is one.
42355BD4-0B06-43A7-819E-5EFBC28EB60F.jpeg
24mm lens, F1.4, ISO1600, 20 second exposure. The moon had set, but the light still impacted the shot.
 
Last edited:

Starfox

Masterpiece
Messages
2,602
Reaction score
5,317
Location
Costa Blanca, Spain, zone 10b
USDA Zone
10b
Very nice shot Brian!

There was a lunar eclipse last night, this is just a teaser as I got over 70gb of photos that are uploading which will take hours plus I have to go out before I can do any real processing to them but it was a cool event. For over an hour the moon was dark red, half of those pics are not in focus though so I'll have to see what I ended up with.



f.JPG
 

Brian Van Fleet

Pretty Fly for a Bonsai Guy
Messages
13,961
Reaction score
45,897
Location
B’ham, AL
USDA Zone
8A
Very nice shot Brian!
Great moon photo, super clear.
Thanks for the pointers. I ended up with a Rokinon 24mm wide angle lens and am happy with it. Here is the best Milky Way shot, post-processing. This was 24mm, f1.4, ISO1600, 25 second exposure. Any critique would be appreciated. This was our first night trying this, so I don’t know if I’m showing the dark sky photographer’s equivalent to a Walmart “Malsai”.?
90036865-DA01-438D-8775-5A950E81B1F4.jpeg
 
Last edited:

Starfox

Masterpiece
Messages
2,602
Reaction score
5,317
Location
Costa Blanca, Spain, zone 10b
USDA Zone
10b
Great moon photo, super clear.
Thanks for the pointers. I ended up with a Rokinon 24mm wide angle lens and am happy with it. Here is the best Milky Way shot, post-processing. Any critique would be appreciated. This was our first night trying this, so I don’t know if I’m showing the dark sky photographer’s equivalent to a Walmart “Malsai”.?


Cheers, I'm a bit gutted more of them are not as crisp as that one but I had a good night regardless.

That's a pretty solid picture as well, the Milky Way is well defined and a good foreground image too, I'd be happy with that. I think you could maybe drop a handful of seconds on the exposure because you can just start to see the stars elongating a touch but that really comes down to trial and error and conditions at the time. For a first try that is great.
The more you get out and do it you tend to create a little checklist of things in your head to set up but like I said even I didn't get it right until a couple of hours in last night. Focus was my issue, I should of sorted that properly before I started, best way to do that is to find a bright star and use the camera live view and zoom in on it and then focus it until the star is as tiny as you can get it.

Also in the top left of the picture it looks as if you caught an iridium flare from a satellite although it could even be a faint shooting star so that is a good catch.

Here are a few more from last night.

gg.JPGff.JPGg.JPGa.JPG


Tonight now I have my gear set back up I might switch to a CCD camera and try for some planets and moon close ups.
 
Top Bottom