Astrophotography and Equipment · September, 2013 In our Galaxy there are billions of stars of many...
Transcript of Astrophotography and Equipment · September, 2013 In our Galaxy there are billions of stars of many...
Ok
la
ho
ma
C
am
er
a C
lu
b, I
nc
. F
ou
nd
ed
1
93
1
Volume 70, Issue 3
September, 2013
In our Galaxy there are billions of stars of many colors, Globular clus-ters containing millions of stars, and emission Nebulas that emit red light (mostly hydrogen alpha light); but oth-ers are blue color Nebulas that reflect the light of the star that illuminates them, they are blue color like our sky. Outside of the Milky Way (the earth’s galaxy), there are many more, the Andromeda Galaxy is the closest and the only one visible with the naked eye. Astro Photography Cameras Our regular cameras have no prob-lem with the blue light, but they only pass a little of the red light because of the filter in front of the sensor. The Canon Corporation modified the model 20D (8 mega-pixels) DSLR by removing the filter in front of the sen-sor and replaced it with another filter that passes 4 times more of the red hydrogen alpha and renamed the camera 20DA. Recently they modified the 60D and called it the 60DA (18
mega-pixels) for around $1400. This is a great camera to get you started in Astro-photography. All my Astrophotography Cont’d Page 2 . . .
Astrophotography and Equipment
by Eddy Milanes
General Competition Rules
Print Competition - the first meeting of each month. Projected Image Competition - the second meeting of each month. Exceptions – the one meeting in No-vember is Print Competition; the one meeting in December is Projected Im-age Competition. Members can enter a maximum of two images in each print/projected image division. Prints must be submitted no later than
7:15 pm the night of the Camera Club Meeting; prints do not have to be mounted. Pictorial Class A Monochrome or Color - maximum size of 16 X 20 inches including mount and matting (if any added). Pictorial Class B, Monochrome or Color - maximum size of 11 x 14 inches including mount and matting (if any added). Cont’d page 3 . . .
Special Points of Interest
Eddy Milanes, new member provides insight
to Astrophotography with fabulous images
Mary Hines returns to visit again - Welcome
back Mary
Special Moments Shared - The Best Camera
is the One You have With You.
PSA Print Collection to be Moved 2
Scored “15” - Kay Williams & Bob Bosarth 3
Programs for September 3
Scored “15” - Carol McCreary, APSA, 4
Because I Want to Remember this Moment 4
Competition Images 5 - 6
Oklahoma Camera Club, Programs 8
Inside this issue:
“Orion-nebula”
T
he
Hyp
oC
heck
2
has been taken with the Canon 20DA. You can also buy cameras specifically for Astrophotogra-phy for a lot more money. Expect to spend between $2000 for cameras with smaller sensors to $15,000 for the models with large monochrome sensors and color wheels with 7 different filters. Start with your DSLR cam-era; later you can switch to an Astro camera. Astrophotography Lenses and Telescopes You can use all your lenses to do Astrophotography; the ones with shorter focal lens will capture the Milky Way and the complete grouping of stars called constellations. (These are also fun for long exposures of star move-ment.) An 80-200 mm zoom lenses will do close-ups in-side the constellations, but you will need lenses with longer focal length to reach Nebulas and globular clus-ters. To move from your DSLR lens, a good starting telescope is an 80 mm Apo-chromatic Refractor with 500 mm focal length for about $500 to $800. However, you will need a T-adaptor to attach the telescope to the DSLR camera. The next step-up, for about $4000 you can buy the best, the new 4-inch (106mm) FSQ-106EDX about 550 mm focal length made by Takahashi; fantastic for observing plan-ets. Reflecting vs. Refractors You may remember from your science class, there are less expensive reflecting telescopes in lieu of the expen-sive refractors discussed above. These enable you to reach Galaxies and planets for a lot less money. For good astronomy work, you will want to start at 6 inches in aperture diameter. However, all the reflecting telescopes usually come mounted in Fork mounts; good for visual observation, but not for long photo exposures. In a proper polar aligned German Equatorial mount exposures of 5 to 8 minutes are possible with out the need for the more ex-pensive mounts.
Telescope Mounts For the longer exposures, you will need to buy a mount with a controller and two motors, one of the motors moves
the right ascension axis of the mount to track the normal east to west motion of the stars; the second motor con-trols the declination axis and moves the telescope north and south. The mount must have a computer to control both motors and move the telescope to the desired lo-cation in the sky.
Images with this Article From a dark site I can take between 8 to 10 exposures, lasting from 10 to 15 minutes each with the Canon 20DA; from my back yard in Simi Valley California, a special filter needs to be placed in front of the camera to block the street lights (Sodium and Mercury). The expo-sure time is limited to less than 8 minutes. After taking photos, the fun begins in the image processing process using the Adobe Photoshop Program. The 8 or 10 im-ages are placed as separate layers in the Adobe Photo-shop program where they are stacked to reduce the camera sensor noise. Part of the process is to “stretch” the image by using the curve functions in the program; then the fine details begin to come alive. Processing Astrophotographs can take several hours; it is not uncommon for professional astronomers to send their images to Advanced Amateur for processing.
PSA Print Collection to be Moved
Astrophotography and Equipment
“Flame and Horsehead”
The PSA Print Collection will move from Artspace at Untitled, where it is currently located, to the University of Cen-tral Oklahoma; Artspace is going a different direction. Jon Burris will now be working as an independent contractor as a part time professor at UCO, and Curate the Print Collection there. PSA will be entering into an Agreement with Jon Burris as an independent contractor to Curate and consult for PSA regarding the Print Collection. The physical move will take place in September, will take about 3 days including inventory of the collection. PSA will use Tom McCreary, EPSA, as its chief inventory person.
3
One of the more weird sporting events is competitive ice climbing. Largely a Euro-
pean sport with North American offshoots, it is practiced by a wide variety of adher-
ents. Men and women, young and middle-aged shinny up icicles for the fun of it.
The sport is entirely untainted by any commercial association or media attention.
Participants shell out big bucks from their own pockets to enjoy the dubious pleas-
ure.
Ouray, Colorado, is home to one of the better known events of the sort. Every Janu-
ary, climbers from several countries converge on the slot canyon there, where mil-
lions of gallons of water are dumped over a cliff every night to make an ice park. In
January, four of the club's members spent two days documenting the sport.
Bob Bozarth and Kay Williams
This program will be composed of photos from a recent trip to
Australia and New Zealand. I selected my favorite images, with-
out regard to creating a seamless narrative of the trip. So although
this program will not be a travelogue in the strictest sense, I hope
it will give the viewer a flavor of both countries. I will sum up by
making a few suggestions about travel photography.
Program - Sept. 10: Australia/ New Zealand by Robert Green
Scored “15” by Kay Williams & Bob Bozarth
Program - Sept. 24: You got to cover your Ice
by Charles Taylor , APSA
Duck
Kay Williams
This photo was made at Callaway Gardens
near Columbus, GA; the Gardens have daily
raptor shows. As George and I were going to
the show in Feb. of last year, we passed some
mallards feeding in the shallow water of the
lake. I use a Sony A77 with a 170 to 500
lens set at 500. The ISO was 800, F-stop was
f/6.3 and exposure time was 1/500 sec. I was
on foot when I took this shot. It was com-
posed in the camera, not cropped.
The photo Maria was made in Chichicastenango Guate-
mala. I have visited Guatemala many times and always
make it to Chichi at least once on the trip. If you ever have
the chance, go on Thursday or Sunday, these are the mar-
ket days where you see the most colorful and interesting
people. I photographed Maria there with a Canon 10D and
75-300 lens.
Guatemala is a great place to visit for a photographer be-
cause of the people and beautiful country. I would recom-
mend anyone to check Google it to see the many images on
line.
Maria
Bob Bozarth
Sydney Bridge
Teaser Losin’ It
4
Volume 70 , Issue 3
This was a color image created from HDR of three images with a selec-
tion of HDR NIK 007 - bright. Then it was converted to a monochrome
image using NIK silver efex pro 2 with a selection of 015 - high dynamic
and changing sliders of amplify white and a few spot corrections. I
cropped to a 16 x 20 image. I also removed a small building on the left by
the trees. I added a layer to lighten the grass in the foreground and the
front of the barn slightly. Then I added a black stroke for an edge.
Because I Want to Remember this Moment
Scored “15” by Carol McCreary, APSA, EPSA
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”
. . . Henry David Thoreau
Barn in Need of Repair
HDR
Barn in Need of Repair
Final Image
Cross on Water
Cathie Flanagan
Enchanted Forest
Leda Mancon
Leda, our member in Italy, and her husband
where walking in the evening when she recog-
nized this picture. With a great deal of excite-
ment, she immediately found her camera to re-
cord the moment.
Cathie and her husband were driving along the
shore line of lake Overholser late one evening,
just at sundown. They stopped to view the sun-
set when Cathie fell in love with this view,
found her camera and made several images to
record the moment.
5
“The world is round so that
friendship may encircle it.”
~ Teilhard de Chardin
Competition Images
Club Visitor
August 13, 2013: Mary Hines [email protected]
visited the club meeting. Having been here before, Mary
returned for a visit. She has interests in photographing
nature and people. Mary, with these areas of interest, you
will fit in well; welcome and please return .
Jellies
Jennifer D’Agostino
Purple Phacelia
Doug Finch, APSA
Barn Museum
Carol McCreary,
APSA, EPSA
Concentration and Skill
Jennifer D’Agostino
Barn in Need of Repair
Carol McCreary, APSA, EPSA
6
Competition Photos
Oregon Coastline
Tom McCreary, EPSA
Mystery Jockey Rides Again
J. D. McClung
Warm Smile
Carol McCreary,
APSA, EPSA
Tower Framed in Blue
J. D. McClung
Soccer Celebration
Carol McCreary,
APSA, EPSA
Faded Red on Green
Tom McCreary, EPSA
Taking a Break
J. D. McClung
7
Workshops:
Beginning Image Workshop: No meeting in Sept.
Next Meeting: Thursday, Oct. 19 (third Thursday
of the month) at Jan & Wally Lee’s home, 751-
8179. While workshop focus on Photoshop Ele-
ments, bring any questions or pictures you would
like to discuss. Nonmembers are always welcome.
Hands - On Workshop: The next Table Top Photo
shoot will be conducted in Nov, date and time to
be announced. If you have an interest in participat-
ing, contact Tom or Carol McCreary at 634-
1817 or [email protected].
Photoshop Workshop: Thursday, October 3, (first
Thursday of the month) hosted by Garline
Wheatley in her home. Workshop focuses exclu-
sively on Photoshop; if you have an interest, con-
tact Garline at [email protected].
September 10:
Print Competition: Open Mono A & B, Open
Color A & B, Nature & PJ
Judges: Sterling Ranne, Brad Smith, Jim
McIntosh
Program: Australia/New Zealand, Robert
Green
Refreshments: George & Kay Williams
September 24:
Projected Image Competition: Color A & B, Crea-
tive, Nature, Mono & PJ
Judges: Carol McCreary, Tom McCreary,
Claude Klutts
Program: You got to cover your Ice, Charles
Taylor, APSA
Refreshments: Lee & Dale Donlon
OCC Board of Directors
President: Randy Carr
1st Vice President: Jaci Finch, APSA
2nd Vice President: Aloma Anderson
Treasure: Brad Smith
Secretary: Wally Lee, APSA, PPSA
Directors:
1 yr. Sterling Ranne
1 yr. Ward Conaway
2 yr. Inge Vautrin
2 yr. John R. Key
50th and N. May Ave.
Central Presbyterian Church
Oklahoma City, OK
Meetings: 7:30 pm
2nd and 4th Tuesdays
For club information, contact
HypoCheck Editors:
Doug Finch, APSA
Jaci Finch, APSA
For more information:
We are on the web
Oklahomacameraclub.com
Club Meetings and Workshops
Meetings: 7:30 pm
2nd & 4th Tuesdays
50th and N. May Ave.
Central Presbyterian Church
For Club Information Contact
For Club Dues Contact
The Club Board meets on the third Wednesday of the month at
Randy Carr’s home. Everyone is welcome.
Please email Randy at [email protected] for address & directions.
Oklahoma Camera
Club, Inc.