Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2012

alexthecheese · 20 Sep 2012 at 20:24

Pretty amazing series of photos here all nicely wrapped up in a narrated animation:

Fireflies dancing beneath the stars, the last transit of Venus for 105 years and giant swirling galaxies deep in space. The 2012 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition has produced some awe-inspiring images.

Take a journey through the night sky with two of the nine judges - Chris Lintott who is best known as co-presenter of the BBC's The Sky at Night, and Olivia Johnson from the Royal Observatory Greenwich.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19637073

King Damager · 20 Sep 2012 at 20:37

Ok, genuine question, how do you even get images like this?!

Meaning more the ones with insane DOF/ a foreground and the stars in the sky, I realise a lot of the planets/stars etc.. are done with telescope photo stuff, was more curious about yeah, like the first image in the slideshow.

kd

PistolPete · 20 Sep 2012 at 21:38

Long exposures.
I tried for the first time a little while back and got this:

Had a had a little amount of light in front of the trees they would have exposed too

King Damager · 20 Sep 2012 at 22:09

When we say long, how long are we talking?

Actually do you just have the exif for that file?

kd

BlackCoat2k10 · 20 Sep 2012 at 22:19

Take a look at photo stacking, I haven't tried it myself yet but will be over the next few months when I get a weekend capable of staying up late late late.

Here's a link to a tutorial I have read, could be a place to start for you. http://asignobservatoryii.webs.com/tutorials.htm

Kevin Clark · 20 Sep 2012 at 22:20

This is quite a good explanation
http://vimeo.com/16833554

Skynet-T800 · 20 Sep 2012 at 22:34

Simply amazing images there!

pecnarf · 20 Sep 2012 at 22:43

King Damager said:
When we say long, how long are we talking?

Actually do you just have the exif for that file?

kd

i would say no longer than 11sec as any exposure longer than 11sec you need a tracking mount so that you don't get star trails.

Ginger-Menace · 20 Sep 2012 at 22:53

Wow thanks for posting that. hard to believe that's all out there

Kevin Clark · 20 Sep 2012 at 23:19

As a general rule of thumb (from what I've been reading), the length of exposure is 600 divided by the focal length (or 400 if you're on a cropped sensor) before you start to get trailing stars.

eg for an 18mm lens you would do (maximum)
Full frame 600/18 = 33secs
Cropped 400/18 = 22secs

The_Abyss · 20 Sep 2012 at 23:30

I'd love to be able to actually capture those astro clouds - the nebula up there. I took a couple earlier in the year - this is one of them - and it is quite scary to think how much effort's required to get the results linked above!

sunset moonrise part 2 by Greg Kingston, on Flickr

pecnarf · 20 Sep 2012 at 23:37

well i normally don't use more than 11 seconds due to the fact that my 650d is attach to my apo refractor so im using focal length of 600mm and when i throw my 1.4x kenko dgx pro teleconvertor my focal lenght is 840mm.

PistolPete · 21 Sep 2012 at 08:37

Can't find the original ATM, but it was 30 seconds @ ISO800, not sure what aperture.

King Damager · 21 Sep 2012 at 08:53

PistolPete said:
Can't find the original ATM, but it was 30 seconds @ ISO800, not sure what aperture.

Tbh, presumably wide open, but yeah it seems shove ISO up, and leave for 10-30 seconds

Definitely going to try this when the sky clears out a bit.

kd

PistolPete · 21 Sep 2012 at 09:11

King Damager said:
Tbh, presumably wide open, but yeah it seems shove ISO up, and leave for 10-30 seconds

Definitely going to try this when the sky clears out a bit.

kd

Was a 24-70 2.8, maybe @ 3.5? ISO noise is a real killer on my body. I did initially try 1600 for 15 seconds, but you could barely tell the stars from the noise!