Well, today we are really on a roll. I finally got tired of the WordPress generic domain. I’ve seen the “Free domain for a year” offer popping up a lot and finally clicked it (mostly out of curiosity as to whether astrophotonic.com was available) So of course it was and that led me to theContinue reading “Custom domain!”
Author Archives: Astro Photonic
My own image as the banner!
So when I started this blog, I hadn’t been able to make a single astro image (well, there is one but it was definitely not one I would want to put as the main banner of the blog) So i searched and found someone else’s (with correct open-source license of course) Obviously, it’s been aContinue reading “My own image as the banner!”
Pac-Man ! (AKA NGC-281)
Tonight, we may finally have a few hours of clear-skies and I am a bit sick of working with Andromeda (M31). We’ve been stuck under a layer of obnoxious smoke for the last few weeks from the huge fires in Oregon and California. Finally, we had some (torrential) rain that cleared the smoke… and broughtContinue reading “Pac-Man ! (AKA NGC-281)”
Bizarre star issue
So I have no idea what happened here, but I had a very very odd star issue recently when shooting M31. I was using the Nikon D5300 and 70-300MM lens. Got everything dialed in and shot 60 subs of 60 seconds each. Initially I was planning to take the bias frames and call it aContinue reading “Bizarre star issue”
Burned Out
No, not that kind. Maybe the title should have been “Smoked out” ? Obviously the many people affected by the fires, some of whom have lost their lives is far far more important than my little photos of the night sky. However, it looks like a huge portion of September will be a bust forContinue reading “Burned Out”
Ahhhhhh! (APT and “1:1” mode)
So I was really irritated with my failure the other night and stewing over it. While doing that, I wanted to verify if the USB hub was the culprit for the slow data transfer. I took a shot with the 60MM lens with APT and sure enough, pretty fast. The image was completely black thoughContinue reading “Ahhhhhh! (APT and “1:1” mode)”
A tough night of failure
Well, last night did not go the way I had hoped and expected. I didn’t expect to do any imaging, but I did want to try out the 2x tele-converter on the Nikon 60MM lens to see if I could get M31 (Andromeda) into view and also see if the 70-300MM would be at allContinue reading “A tough night of failure”
MARS
This is going to be the year and the time of year to get an awesome view of Mars! It’s not going to be in opposition until October 13th of 2020 but it’s going to get bigger and bigger in our skies until then. This doesn’t happen every year, so I am super excited HereContinue reading “MARS”
Rent-a-scope!
Just saw that the galactic hunter has a video up about renting a telescope for imaging. Well, not the scope directly but renting time on a remote telescope that images for you! This is fascinating and I had no idea it was within reach of my kind of budget. I thought it was reserved forContinue reading “Rent-a-scope!”
Setting up the D5300
Setting up a DSLR for astrophotography essentially means turning off approximately every feature that most users of these cameras are so excited to have. Anything that alters or processes the image, anything that displays images (chance of ruining shots or dark-adjusted vision), anything that beeps, sings or dances etc. This includes autofocus as most DSLRsContinue reading “Setting up the D5300”
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