If the screwed-up ones look this good...

[Charlie in Dayton]

...how nice will they look when I figger out what I'm doing?

800 speed film, time exposures of about ten seconds (yes, they're terribly underexposed, was just wingin' it, next time I take a stopwatch and some exposure charts along), about 1:30AM Monday morning 27 Oct, about three miles west of Seney MI in the Upper Peninsula...it is dark up there...next year, a couple more rolls of 800, some exposure charts, a tripod with a tracking motor on it...

http://www.unavowed.net/charlie/LSPR...hePleiades.jpg
Taurus and the Pleiades, cropped...gotta learn Photoshop, that background looks icky...

http://www.unavowed.net/charlie/LSPR...iOverSeney.jpg
Orion and Gemini over Seney...the red lights are radio towers maybe five miles away...in theory, on the original photo, you can just barely see what's supposed to be the Rosette Nebula...I dunno...I lean a tad more to camera artifact...sumpin's in the wrong place...

[SirThoreth]

Recommendation - try 400 or lower ISO film. I found that switching to a lower ISO really helps with the background - there's less light sensitivity, but much better color saturation, and much smaller grain.

As it is, though, both came out really nicely.

[Kaptain K]

[edit] SirThoreth posted while I was typing.

Just a suggestion. Slower film has much finer grain. If you have access to dark skies, take advantage of it. Fine grain (slow) film + long exposure beats high speed film (grainy) every time as long as you don't run into sky fog. I often used 30 minutes (or longer) exposure times with Ektachrome ASA 160 film from suburban sites.

PS If you have the patience, really long exposures on Kodacolor ASA 25 (print) or Kodachrome ASA 64 (slide) films can be breath taking.

[Charlie in Dayton]

Oooooooooookay...35mm camera, 50 (or maybe 28mm) lens, tripod, no clock drive...thirty second limit for no star tracks...800 gives me lots and lots of light absorption, but a grainy background (and don't take that Pleiades shot as an example, that's been cropped and sorta kinda zoomed so it sux even worse)...400 gives me a tad less light absorption, but a less grainy background...200 even moreso, 100 even more...but the idea is to see stars in the picture...where's the point of diminishing returns? Especially if there's a guy at the local 1 hour photo place who works closely with us on star shots?

...I thought I had this figgered out...I'm so confused... #-o

[Kaptain K]

ops: I did not realize that you were taking unguided pics. Sorry. ops:

[kilopi]

I captured a screenshot into LviewPro and bumped up the contrast--the Pleides shot looked a lot better. With photoshop, even nicer.

[Pinemarten]

Can your friend at the photo place 'push process' a lower ASA/ISO film?
You put 400 in the camera, set it to 800, and he leaves it in the developer for 2x the time.
It should come out the same, but with less grain.

[SarahMc]

Charlie, does your scope have a driven equatorial mount? Sure makes it easier to take longer exposures using ASA 400 film. 6 minutes with a 50mm lens gives you some real depth of magnitude and a FOV that most smaller constellations will fit within. Just make sure it's a new moon, or before the moon has risen and from a location with minimal skyglow. Piggyback brackets are pretty inexpensive for the most part.

Definately a good start on your imaging endeavors though

[Charlie in Dayton]

Not to worrry, K, the guided shots are next.

My friend at the photo place will probably do what I ask as long as I ask nicely...the push processing is possible...

I have a source at Orion, and there's a request in to him as to whether Orion makes a mount so's I can put my 35mm camera on an EQ2 equatorial mount with clock drive (don't ask how, but I have a spare EQ2 tripod). This sort of setup would be much solider than my cheapo flea market tripod. The clock drive would make life much easier too.

Back to Covington's book...this stuff is starting to make some sense.