Looking at the photographs below you would think that they were taken in the daytime. The image is as bright as day but it was taken after midnight at 12:30 a.m. with the aperture at f/5.6 and a long exposure of 18.6 seconds with the ISO set to 3200 using the Sigma 10-20 mm lens. To borrow the lyric from Dire Straits. 'I've been turning all the night time into the day!'
I got a bit excited as I thought I had captured another Perseid Meteoroid but it was not to be. It turned out to be an aeroplane. You can tell by the two distinct colours of light in the line of travel plus the angle was wrong.
I guess I must have just been lucky getting the previous photographs of the Perseid's as they are proving quite difficult to capture.
Perseid Meteoroid was an aeroplane!?
As you will see in the following photographs the cloud cover was patchy and covered the area that I was trying to photograph but the results were still quite interesting to me.
The apple tree under the stars
A lot of the light in these photos is coming from an almost full Moon off to the right of the images. The photo below looks like the dawn is about to break!
It looks like dawn!
I also thought that I had spotted Mars, the red planet but on closer inspection it seems that it is a lens aberration as there are dozens of red planets or points of light in this image. It was also in the wrong part of the sky to be Mars...I think?
This is not Mars? :)
I will continue looking for the Perseid meteoroid shower but the cloud cover in the last week has been very challenging. And that is what I enjoy. If it was easy it wouldn't be worth doing and I wouldn't learn much.
As an exercise in astrophotography I learned a lot about the capabilities of the camera and the lens. If I hadn't told you. You may well have assumed that it was daytime. The presence of stars in the photos gives you the clue that it is actually night time. I had no idea that the camera was capable of capturing so much light. It is quite astonishing.
From these photographs I can see that there is much work to do on balancing the aperture, ISO and exposure time. These photos are over exposed so now I know what to do next time there is a break in the clouds.
@astrophoto.kevin did guide me away from using a high ISO of 3200 but I just wanted to see what it would look like. Now I know :) Thanks Kevin.
"We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery"
Samuel Smiles, The Lives of George and Robert Stephenson
Thanks for reading. Follow my journey into #astrophotography and my interests in science and nature. If you are not into these things don't follow me. I won't be offended. Follow what you enjoy. :)
I haven't got to where I want to get with photography...Yet!
My camera gear
EOS Canon 70D
Canon 50 mm 1.8 II lens
Sigma 30 mm lens
Sigma 20 mm lens
Pixel Shutter Cable Release
Travel tripod
Camera settings
Category (Astro photography)
Camera (Canon EOS 70D)
Exposure(range - 6 seconds to 20 seconds)
f Stop (f/5.6)
ISO (3200)
Lens (Canon 10-20 mm)
Your title got me, and now I've got Dire Straits stuck in my head! :P
I think I've given up on trying to capture celestial events. I've lived in Florida for 4 years and every time something cool is going on in the sky; fresh batteries in the camera, tripod at the ready - it's overcast or storming. sigh So I enjoy everyone else's photos :D
Ha ha tell me about it. I was all geared up for the eclipse the other day and then bam! Solid cloud cover. So I watched the live feed from NASA.
I used to play guitar in a band years ago and we covered Dire straits and I felt like I was in dire straits taking these photos lol.
Tonights photos came out so much better. :)
@molometer I still can't beleive that there were shot at night.You have done very amazing work.Your photos are quite impresive.Thanks for sharing such wonderful pics.keep it up.
Thank you Rohit, the camera is the real star here :) It can do amazing things.
Did you get these results through only long exposure? Is it the nearly full moon that makes them seem like day compared to your other astrophotography?
Yes as I mentioned in the post.
That combined with a wide open aperture and a high ISO. :)
The picture below “It looks like dawn!” Looks like a skeleton chilling on the rooftops in the sky. Awesome photos.
Now you mention it. I can actually see the skeleton laid back in the clouds. Well spotted inc :)
Thanks! You could do something with it around Halloween😎
Great photos @molometer
Try all possible settings, so you see what happens when. How satisfied were you with the noise of iso 3200?
When the moon is gone, you will see that the sky will be much more darker und you are capable to photograph much more stars.
Using the camera at ISO 3200 was interesting and gave this almost daytime effect. The noise gives the images an almost art effect.
I was out again last night and got some cleaner images by trying various settings. I will post them tomorrow with a bit of luck. :)
The noise sometimes fits well with the picture and gives it that certain thing.
I'm really looking forward to your pictures :-)
That's hilarious @molometer.
Keep going. You'll get there in the end! 😁
It tickled me too. Tonights photos are much better. Everything is much clearer and focused. Now I need to get a telescope lol
The journey is the fun part! :)
Its Nibiru! I am sure of it!
Ha ha you are such a wag...wait!
What if you're right!?
Rofl
This post has received a 96.7 % upvote from @boomerang.
Thanks @boomerang much appreciated. Slow night hey?