First Picture

bharat · Post by **bharat** » Thu Jul 15, 2010 11:51 pm

This is one of my first attempts at any sort of astrophotography. I am using my Nikon D5000 DSLR. I am attaching 2 pictures, one of the moon and venus and other of scorpio and adjacent constellations. Obviously, I have a lot to learn so I hope to get comments and suggestions for improving my pictures.

1. Moon & venus
Focal Length: 55mm; F num: F/5.6; Exp time: 5/8 sec; ISO 800, basic processing (brightness & contrast) using Office Picture Manager

i. Is there anyway to eliminate or reduce the halo around the moon (in the picture)
ii. Why is it that the camera captures a reflection of the moon (right hand side)?

2. Scorpio and other constellations

Focal length: 18mm, F-num: F/3.5; Exp time 13sec, ISO 640, basic processing with office picture manager
Constellations seen: Scorpio, Wolf (lupus), saggitarius (partial), serpens (partial)

i. I think I can see M7, M6 & NGC6231 as fuzzy patches in the picture. Am I seeing correctly?
ii. Are the camera settings used ok or any changes will make the picture better?
iii. ANy way to make the sjy darker and stars brighther (I mean by processing).

Thanks in advance

Update: Trying again to upload pictures....

Can any one please tell why are the pictures appearing as icons rather than the full??

...Having another go now with Gary's tutorial...let us see

...bingo! It worked!

Gary · Post by **Gary** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 12:02 am

Hi Bharat, your pictures not showing up. Try to upload them to an online photo album and link it here.

bharat · Post by **bharat** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 12:10 am

Gary wrote:Hi Bharat, your pictures not showing up. Try to upload them to an online photo album and link it here.

Thanks Gary. I understand now. I was trying to break my head over how to get the pictures down to below 65 kb and still make them lookable!

Gary · Post by **Gary** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 1:15 am

You need to select "All Sizes" in flickr and then copy paste the link.

bharat · Post by **bharat** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 1:41 am

Gary wrote:You need to select "All Sizes" in flickr and then copy paste the link.

Bingo! Finally got it right. Thanks for your tutorial Gary!

Gary · Post by **Gary** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 1:47 am

Wow. It's beautiful. Where is the location and what time was it shot?

bharat · Post by **bharat** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 7:36 am

Gary wrote:Wow. It's beautiful. Where is the location and what time was it shot?

Shot last night around 10pm, location- Singapore, outside my block.

orly_andico · Post by **orly_andico** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 2:01 pm

in the moon photo... there seems to be a ghost moon at the top-right. or am i just seeing things?

photographing the moon without that halo means you have to increase the shutter speed a lot. the moon is in direct sunlight, so the sunny f/16 rule applies. you'd have to use manual mode. but if you use sunny f/16, everything else goes dark.

so an ideal situation would be to take two shots in quick succession (or, overexpose 1 stop but use RAW so you can pull out some shadow detail) and/or do some HDR processing.

bharat · Post by **bharat** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 2:39 pm

orly_andico wrote:in the moon photo... there seems to be a ghost moon at the top-right. or am i just seeing things?

photographing the moon without that halo means you have to increase the shutter speed a lot. the moon is in direct sunlight, so the sunny f/16 rule applies. you'd have to use manual mode. but if you use sunny f/16, everything else goes dark.

so an ideal situation would be to take two shots in quick succession (or, overexpose 1 stop but use RAW so you can pull out some shadow detail) and/or do some HDR processing.

Yes, the ghost moon is there and I have no clue as to why its there. Any possible reason?

I did take the picture in manual with exp time 5/8 sec but my F-stop was F/5.6. I will try with a smaller aperture as you mentioned.

cloud_cover · Post by **cloud_cover** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 4:35 pm

The stars are really nice

The ghost moon is really a secret CIA satellite base...... *grin*
Since its inverted, I'm guessing its either a reflection off your protective daylight/UV fliter or from a internal reflection from one of the lens elements (your nikon lens will invariably be made of a collection of a few pieces of glass lenses inside)
I'm no astrophotographer, but I do use a nikon

For good exposure, use "Spot Metering" on the bright part of the moon directly. The Nikon metering is really quite good when used this way. Matrix metering tries to balance both the sky and the moon. Result is a few bright stars in a black sky and a blown out moon. You might want to underexpose from there (use your exposure compensation button and make it negative something) as it may throw up better details. Also, since the Nikon autofocus uses edge contrast, do remember to place your focus point on the edge of the moon surface. Or manual focus

I disagree with f/16 though - at that size aperture it might cause diffraction blurring. I think f/8-f/11 generally brings out the best in most nikon zooms. It also allows you to bump up the shutter speed (to prevent movement blur) or reduce the ISO (for better dynamic range and less contrast).
Hope this helps!