Milky Way

More 6D Wide-Field Shots

 in Blog  tagged canon 6d / Dark Horse / Milky Way / wide field

Eventually, I’ll have to get serious about using the Canon 6D for astro-photography.  Specifically, I’ve only done exposures up to 30 seconds, the maximum the camera will do by itself (without a computer or other device controlling the camera).  The results have been mixed (I’m only showing you the ones that worked out well), but with longer exposures and lower ISO settings I think it can produce some spectacular results, both with wide angle lenses and telescopes. But until then (and “then” could be a while, given the usual weather patterns here this time of year), I’ll share a couple […]

Saturn Visits the Edge of the Milky Way

 in Blog  tagged antares / dslr / M4 / Milky Way / Rho Ophiuchi / Saturn

Another photo from last weekend’s star party: You might recognize the area in the lower right corner from earlier photos I’ve posted.  The large yellow/red blob is the star Antares (bloated by its extreme brightness), to its right is the globular cluster M4, and above that, surrounded by blue dust, is the Rho Ophiuchi complex.  But this very wide field image (more than 25 degrees across) shows how this area resides at the edge of the Milky Way.  The dense stars and dust of the Milky Way appear as glowing red and black on the left edge, gradually fading to […]

Night Hike

 in Blog  tagged hike / hiking / light pollution / Milky Way

For several years now I have been wanting to take a “night sky” photo from my favorite local hike, Silver Star Mountain.  I recently got the chance, and got a few interesting photos, although the main lesson from this experience is that you really have to make your plans around light pollution: This is more or less the image I had planned.  It would have been a bit better if I had waited a couple of hours so that the Milky Way came up to the right of the peak, but it was probably going to get cloudy by then.  […]

The Milky Way Over Maupin

 in Blog  tagged Maupin / Milky Way / panorama

I just got back from the first star party of the year (for me), in Maupin, Oregon.  Yes, it is rather late, but I’m not sorry!  It was only 3 nights and one of those was cut short by clouds, but the sky was excellent the other 2 nights.  I captured several deep-space targets with both large and small telescopes, but haven’t processed any of those images yet. But I also got to test the Canon 6D full-frame camera and 24mm f/1.4 lens, which produced this shot of the Milky Way over the star party.  The red lights you see […]