Thursday, July 14, 2005
A forgotten gem
When one is packing for a camping trip, and has packed the digital camera and the SLR in anticipation of pouring rain pristine skies, here are a couple of handy hints.
1) Make sure you have a spare battery (or the recharger) for the digital camera, as despite having recharged the battery before leaving, it will run out before the trip is over (usually when the kids are at their cutest).
2) When packing the SLR, do check that there are more than three shots left on the roll, or make sure you have a spare film, otherwise just as you are ready to do your photomosaic of the heart of the galaxy the film will run out.
Well, the trip wasn't quite the astrophotography feast I was hoping it could be, but when I put my film in to be developed, it turned out that I had taken a large number of shots of comet Macholz near the Pleiades in January this year, and completely forgotten about them. The shots aren't so hot as suburban skyglow messed things up a bit, but still you can see Macholz (arrowed) glide past the stars of the Pleiades (the pictures were shot using a Pentax KM using cable release with a 10 second exposure using Kodak Max 400 ASA film, the scanned on a generic scanner and cropped in paintshop with 1.5 gamma correction).
Of course my dark sky photos didn't get printed, because unlike the suburban ones, there is no sky glow, so it looks to the casual eye as if they are blank. A quick check revealed the Southern Cross, so I'm going to get them printed tomorrow.
The trip was fun, and I'll write about it in instalments. Not too much astronomy due to the rain/fog/mist etc., but I'll work some astronomy into most of it (otherwise it will just turn into one of those nightmare sessions with Aunty Joan and her interninable photos of her trip to the Gold Coast/Torqay/Florida showing you 40 minutely different shots of herself at the Big Pineapple).
1) Make sure you have a spare battery (or the recharger) for the digital camera, as despite having recharged the battery before leaving, it will run out before the trip is over (usually when the kids are at their cutest).
2) When packing the SLR, do check that there are more than three shots left on the roll, or make sure you have a spare film, otherwise just as you are ready to do your photomosaic of the heart of the galaxy the film will run out.
Well, the trip wasn't quite the astrophotography feast I was hoping it could be, but when I put my film in to be developed, it turned out that I had taken a large number of shots of comet Macholz near the Pleiades in January this year, and completely forgotten about them. The shots aren't so hot as suburban skyglow messed things up a bit, but still you can see Macholz (arrowed) glide past the stars of the Pleiades (the pictures were shot using a Pentax KM using cable release with a 10 second exposure using Kodak Max 400 ASA film, the scanned on a generic scanner and cropped in paintshop with 1.5 gamma correction).
Of course my dark sky photos didn't get printed, because unlike the suburban ones, there is no sky glow, so it looks to the casual eye as if they are blank. A quick check revealed the Southern Cross, so I'm going to get them printed tomorrow.
The trip was fun, and I'll write about it in instalments. Not too much astronomy due to the rain/fog/mist etc., but I'll work some astronomy into most of it (otherwise it will just turn into one of those nightmare sessions with Aunty Joan and her interninable photos of her trip to the Gold Coast/Torqay/Florida showing you 40 minutely different shots of herself at the Big Pineapple).
# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 11:11 pm 
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Digital cameras are a right pain when it comes to batteries so you have my sympathies. Still, I liked the shots of Comet Macholz from January.
I also liked the comments about relatives and holiday snaps not least because I do actually have an Aunty Jean who now lives on the Gold Coast.
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I also liked the comments about relatives and holiday snaps not least because I do actually have an Aunty Jean who now lives on the Gold Coast.
# posted by 
: 1:41 am
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