Noticed this ridiculously bright thingy in the sky last night. I struggled with the extreme dynamic range in my camera and eventually experimented with slowing my exposure to 8 seconds by reducing my ISO and widening my aperture, and then using my hand to cover up the upper portion of the lens to cover up the moon for the first 6-7 of the 8 seconds in order to bring a better exposure balance across the shot. I liked one of my many tries...
My bigger birding lens (Nikon 600mm f4) gets some moon work in at times, but need to step up with the distant stuff that is so cool on this site- @Canuck from Kansas
View attachment 104810
View attachment 104803
Thank you! Hope to get a good clear night sometime here soon and give it a go. I do shoot with my Olympus mirrorless 2x crop instead of reg crop or full frame so that is not a plus, but love experimenting. The camera has a high resolution mode option but has to be with very still objects only as it takes 8 frames/shots in a grid and stitches them, but there is just enough delay ....I think 2 seconds, for the moon at high power to blur up.Outstanding!!
You would be amazed at the deep sky objects you can capture with that lens. Just point it at Orions Belt, set iso to 1600 or so - without tracking, you will only be able to take about 1" exposures, but you might be able too pick up the Flame nebula - just go a little below the belt and you will get the Orion Nebula
The Winter triangle (Betelgeuse, Procyon, and Sirius) almost standing on its apex. Orion's belt are the 3 stars in a row (right to left Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka), with Orions Nebula in what appears to the naked eye as a hazy star cluster below Alnilam.
Taken last night with Sony Alpha 77 (APS-C) @ 40 mm; iso 1600, 20 second exposure (zooming in shows some star trailing, so 20 seconds was actually too long):
View attachment 104947
Just downloaded a new toy. I know I can be slow to catch up on the latest gizmos, but I've been missing out big time. Got this Stellarium app to locate the Pons/Brooks comet but can see this becoming a problem...
View attachment 106241
Lunar eclipse March 24th/25th midnight. Start 10pm (24th-tomorrow) -almost a full one a tad after midnight. That would help the show some.NOAA SWPC has just issued a G3 geomagnetic storm watch for the early hours of March 25th. I think I am screwed with cloud cover as well. The bright moon is going to suck as well.
Received via HF radio:Update: looks like the CME is arriving much earlier than anticipated. There’s a G2 storm warning now until 9 utc tomorrow.