Weather Gods Conspire

Back in New Mexico for vacation.  Started this chronicle from here just about a year ago now.  On that trip I was thwarted by cloudy skies most of the nights so this year I thought I'd ratchet down the gear requirements while also doing something that worked with the weather.  Something that would be interesting come rain or shine.

That something would be time lapse - and as I quickly discovered - full of it's own set of crazy hair shirt intricacies and rituals.  Maybe more on that later.  For now I just want to complain about the weather.

I have two simple requests of the weather gods.  I need:  1.) completely clear (night) skies for some decent astrophotography, astrolanscape photography or time lapse astrophotography -or- 2.) full on raging thunderstorms, lightning, and rain for some cool daytime timelapse.

Request denied.  It's been clear as a bell in the mornings giving way to clouds and dull overcast skies in the afternoon and evening.  No thunderstorms to mention.  A few drops of rain.  pffffffft.  So far I've been pretty much skunked for photography (but just being here is wondrous enough).

Hey at least we came a couple weeks after the states largest forest fire ever which choked the skies with smoke and haze.  A real disaster and hardship which makes my complaining seem pathetic by comparison.

So as I wait for the skies to cooperate I did manage to get one nice picture.  Hopefully many more to come.

Scorpio escaping the clutches of Cerro Pedernal.

Stars over Pedernal

Taken at Ghost Ranch, NM  July 28, 2011
Canon T2i (stock),  Canon EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM @ f/1.4
Manfrotto Tripod
5sec exposure @ ISO800
color adjusted Adobe RAW

Montebello Summer Time Lapse

I spent the night of July 5 testing CCD gear.  I wanted to come home with more than some test frames so I set up the Canon with an interval timer and took 1hr 45min worth of images.  I started the exposures shortly after dusk at 9:30pm as the evening twilight gave way to darkness.

You can see many planes on their approach to SFO and a couple entering the frame from the right (headed south down the Pacific coast) on their way to destinations unknown.  Odd to think that each brief streak of light is a aluminum tube holding a hundred or more people.  Also visible are a couple meteors and some high clouds which briefly threatened to make it a short evening.  I also think there is a geostationary satellite in the mix.  It's a bit hard impossible to make it out in the postage stamp sized inline version that blogger provides.  You can double click on the video to see it at YouTube (HD even) but I'm also disappointed quality of the playback there.  It is very smooth in native playback on my laptop ... after upload to YouTube the playback is annoyingly jerky.  I'll have figure this one out.

Update:  Click here to watch it on flickr.  Much better.

 

In order to pan the field I use my Astrotrac tangent drive mounted horizontally and in "Southern Hemisphere" mode.  This causes the camera to pan opposite the earths rotation so I can get a very slow pan. You will notice near the end -  the panning stopped when the batteries died.

Montebello Milky Way

Taken at Montebello Open Space, CA  July 5, 2011
Canon T2i (stock),  Canon EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM @ f/2.8
Manfrotto Tripod with Astrotrac mounted horizontal for pannning
398 10sec exposures @ ISO1600,  5sec interval
no calibration, color adjusted in Pixinsight
Timelapse generated in QuickTime Player 7

OK back. New Gear.

Sorry, been busy.

Work, illness, weather, etc etc.  Life stuff.  But it's not like I've been idle.  No sir.  In a fit of pique I turned my back on my beloved T2i DSLR and purchased a bright shiny new QSI 583.  I finally got frustrated with 1.) lack of red sensitivity (I never modded the camera) and 2.) headaches of "one-shot color".  The latter which includes a variety of sub issues like dealing with bayer/de-bayering, color balance, and taking good quality flats with very small focal length (<100mm) lenses.  A full explanation would  take a multi-part post which I may yet write up ... someday.  Let's just say I fought the good fight, learned a great deal in 7 months, and decided to change one hair-shirt for another.

The DSLR will retain it's place for "regular" photography and astro-landscapes.  But for deep sky work count me a convert to the new challenges of CCD.  There are some great KAF8300 CCD chip cameras out there but I selected the QSI for a couple reasons.  The integrated filter wheel is the bees knees.  I wanted something compact for continuing work on the Astrotrac.  And I loved the idea of the off-axis guider with the pickoff mirror *before* the filter wheel for those times when I image with the refractor.  The camera is fully compatible with all my EOS lenses so I was good to go out of the box (purchased with the EOS adapter of course).  Note that the off-axis guider does not work with camera lenses ... back focus issues ... but the camera design is flexible enough to remove the OAG with just a few screws and replace with a thinner coverplate.  Nifty.

I'm not taking responsibility for all the planet's "end-times" weather and natural disasters but the new gear / bad weather correlation sure seems to hold.  If it was me, my apologies to humanity.  What is certain is that there have been precious few clear moonless nights to play with my new toy.  The down time was useful to do some serious gear-fu and I'll post a few pics of the progress below.

New QSI 583 with Canon 200mm EF-L f/2.8

I really wanted to address the challenge of frame rotation.  One attaches the camera by the 1/4-20 holes in the body (which requires some kind of ungainly ball head for rotation) or by telescope rings holding the camera lens.  The latter allows for free rotation but requires one to loosen the tube rings, rotate, tighten tube rings, check framing, then say bad words.  I wanted to avoid the saying bad words part.

My solution was to purchase a Canon tripod lens mount - the white thingy in the picture above.  I was concerned about how firmly it would hold everything but I can report it is rock solid.  Just loosen the white knob, rotate in place, re-tighten.  The center of the frame remains, uh, centered.  It really works.  Just be sure you don't cheap out and buy an aftermarket lens mount.  Close your eyes, spend the $ and get the official Canon one.  My bet is you will end up buying one anyway after your e-bay knockoff fails to please.

Micro focus gizmo

I've written before about the trials and tribulations of achieving good focus.  And if once achieved keeping it.  At short f ratio, if a mosquito lands on the focus ring one is doomed.  Above is my version of the venerable micrometer/spring/hoseclamp solution.  The unique holder is a piece of curtain rod mounting plate that was floating around the garage.  I can report that it too works great.  My only complaint is that the ease of rotation mentioned above is offset by the hassle of loosening the hoseclamp and spring, rotating, and reattaching back into place.  It is a small price to pay for the joy of fine focus control and then holding it for the duration.

Mounted on the Astrotrac

Here we are mounted on the Astrotrac.  The dovetail rig is replicated on my AP900 mount so it is a simple task to move between mounts.  I also attached a red-dot finder to the side of the QSI to help with locating objects when on the Astrotrac.

All ready for some clear skies.  Waiting ... waiting ... waiting ...

Truth in advertising ... I have yet to field test the above.  I have taken some images on the AP900 and I'll show you that arrangement in a post to come.  Enough gear jiggering for now ... time for the weather to clear!

Lunar Citizens Brace for Super Earth Event

POX News Exclusive:  Dateline Clavius Crater.

This weekend's new earth cycle will bring our globe closer to earth than anytime since, well, almost an entire decade ago.  Morbix Leaxiue, prominent astrologer and anti-vaccination activist, predicts this "Super Earth" event will trigger massive moonquakes, mare basalt flows, crater wall landslides and the general overall end of everything we hold dear.  "We've got the earth pulling on one side of us, Saturn and Tyche pulling on the other side of us ... it's like being quartered on a planetary scale!"

He urges all lunar citizens to immediately evacuate to the far side of the moon because, as he states, "Well, its farther away from earth right?  What we can't see won't hurt us."


Hysterical lunar citizens around the volatile "ring of not-much-happening here" Mare Serenitatis region have been seen in local bigbox stores stocking up on emergency supplies, hard hats, and rare water ice crystals thought to bring divine protection.  One fear gripped shopper said,  "My cousin sent me this email all about the SuperEarth.  I didn't believe it at first but then I checked the internet and finally the cable news channels and was shocked to see the reports.  I mean, if it's on cable news it must be true!" [emphasis ours].


While prominent credible scientists stress this "Super Earth" event will not trigger any natural disasters that won't stop us from reporting the voices of fringe groups and pseudo-scientists in the interest of fair and balanced reporting.

Tune in to POX News for this and other Live Breaking News recycled every hour.

Go Long! (in focal length)

Been a bit since I've posted - not for lack of trying.  I've been pounding sand trying to get my head around image processing ultrawide field images.  That would be an essay for another day ... suffice it to say that it has been, ah, challenging.

By ultrawide field I am talking about 24mm or less (lens f.l.).  Unless you are in the Atacama desert there are challenging light pollution gradients to deal with.  That and a whole host of other processing details I've been largely unsuccessful at dealing with - largely related to DSLR imaging.

So I decided to take a break and go "long".  For me that is all the way back to 100mm f.l.  Taking in mere degrees of sky feels like drinking from a teacup.  But oh how much easier it is to process the images!  I imaged Orion's belt and sword for much of the outing and then took just 30min of the M46, M47 region to finish off the night. 

M46 and M47 and a host of Open Clusters.  Click for ginormous* or here for flickr.

* ginormous - a favorite word of mine.  I come to find out that it is now (as of 2007) officially recognized by Merriam Webster dictionary.  For international visitors, it is a neologism - a word made from a combination of two words.  In this case "gigantic" and "enormous".  I will now feel free to use it frequently and without shame.

One of my observing pals, Dan, had M46 centered up in his 10" Meade outfitted with a binoviewer.  A visual treat with the little planetary nebula floating inside the spray of open cluster stars.   Been a while since I've actually done any visual observing and I'm glad I have friends to keep me honest.

So naturally, after he left, my dark imaging nature took over and I decided to try and take a picture of it.  I figured there was little chance of capturing the planetary at the image scale I was working at but if you drill down, sure enough, there it is.

Click image and look for the tiny green-blue dot in the upper cluster (M46).  That's the planetary nebula.  Cool.

This whole area is littered with open clusters.  Other than some admittedly spectacular exceptions I was never fond of looking at open clusters visually.  Taking pictures of them are somewhat more fun - at least they seem easier to pick out from the background stars.  Below is an annotated version.

click for full size or here for flickr

I may have to re-think my strategy for shooting ultra-wide.  I thought I would save time and effort by shooting single frames with a wide angle lens but I think I am now going to pursue doing mosaics.  That will bring it's own set of, ah, challenges, but I don't call this place Cilice for nothing.

Taken at Montebello Open Space Preserve, CA  January 27, 2011
Canon T2i (stock), Canon 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM @ f/4
Astrotrac Travel System Mount
15 120sec exposures @ ISO800
32 darks
no flatfielding, vignetting and gradients removed in PixInsight
128 bias frames
calibration, registration and post-processed in PixInsight

Cassiopeia to Taurus

Here is another widefield taken back in October at the Calstar event.  One great thing about astrophotography is that you can take data quicker than you I can process it.  This provides endless hours of "fun" back home when the rain clouds come or the moon visits.

Of course this can be mitigated with a proper understanding of the underlying principles of detector physics and processing methodology.  Combine this understanding with a smooth efficient workflow and now you can drastically shorten the time from camera to presentable image.  I'm not anywhere near that point yet so, well, there you go.

The more I learn the more how much I realize I dont' know.  Being curious by nature (and not a little bit obsessive) this drive me nuts.  So many variables and branch points along the way.  So many ways to attack the problem and so much equipment and software tools to throw at it.  Science, hardware, software, art, wonder, ... what's not to like!

This was taken with the 10-22mm EF-S lens at 14mm and stopped down to f5 to mitigate the worst of the vignetting and corner aberrations.  My camera isn't modified to have the IR cut filter removed so the hydrogen alpha regions are muted but even so there is a hint of what lies in those star clouds.  Also evident is intersteller de-blueing (or intersteller reddening if you like) which results in stars located in the dense Milky Way arm appearing redder than they actually are .  Open clusters galore and a couple of our closest galactic neighbors.

There is even a very special guest appearance by Comet Hartley-2 which was visited by the re-missioned Deep Impact (EPOXI) probe not long ago.  Here is a extra credit question for the nerds out there.  Can you guess the date the image was taken by the location of the comet?  Answer below in the image info.  We'll see Hartley-2 again in 2017 as he continues his rounds of the solar system.

Cassiopeia to Taurus.  Click image to see at full res.  Click here for flickr.

If you want to see a version without yellow text all over the place click here.

I have a couple more widefields yet to process along with a couple hours of M33 data sitting in a unopened folder.  Moon?  Rainclouds?  I can get my astronomy fix with or without you!

Taken at Lake San Antonio, CA  October 9, 2010
Canon T2i (stock), Canon EF-S 10-22mm @ 14mm  f5
Astrotrac Travel System Mount
33 120sec exposures @ ISO1600
128 dark frames from my library
no flatfielding, vignetting and gradients removed in PixInsight
128 bias frames
calibration, registration and post-processed in PixInsight

Brain Virus

Hey it's the end of the year and time for some reflection 6 months into this crazy pusuit.

I have some wonderful observing friends to blame thank for all of this hair-shirting.  You see,  I was going to miss an observing trip because it coincided with our annual family vacation to New Mexico.  Hmmmm,  new moon ... dark skies ... I thought I could at least vicariously participate with them by doing some astrophotography.

Only one issue.  I didn't do astrophotography.

"Yeah,  I'll get a camera and some kind of lightweight mount I can ship out to New Mexico and do some killer astrophotography".  From such naive beginnings began this storyline arc.

I remember the exact moment this pernicious virus infected my brain.  April 4, 2010 at about 10:15am.

You see I was in the waiting room at the doctors office trying not to think about my appointment when it came to me.  In the 15minutes before I was called in I imagined myself peacefully taking pictures of the heavens under wonderful skies churning out stunning mosaics.  My observing pals floored with admiration.

Distraction accomplished.  Didn't matter that it was a far cry from reality.

The blog started as a way to share images with those guys while on vacation.  By then I already knew enough about astrophotography to give it this rather odd name - Cilice.  Hair-shirt ....

Here is my very first astrophoto.  June 20, 2010

Lyra.  Vega dead center.  One pixel in there is M57.

A stack of 5x30sec images, f/5.6, ISO1600, taken with the 18-55mm kit lens that came with the then 12hr old Canon T2i.  New camera smell still pungent in the warm summer air.  No flats, no darks.  I was thrilled, if not a little concerned at how hard it was to focus.  Ahhhhh, the first hint at the pain challenges to come.  But hey ... there were stars there ... and a recognizable constellation. 

Next came the real lens ... the "big gun" I was going to take to New Mexico.  The venerable 200mm EF-L.  First light on July 3, 2010.

M13.  200ml EF-L lens.  Center crop from the full T2i frame. 

Hey, this time I even used dark frames!  But ... this processing stuff sure takes a long time.  And Photoshop?  WTF?   Sigh ... this may be harder than I was expecting.  But look Ma!  There's a lot of stars there!

A couple days later I met one of my dear friends (and partner in imaging pain) at a Bay Area "dark" site.  Here was my very first big boy picture.  Darks, flats, flat-darks,  the training run for New Mexico. 

I *still* don't know where all the blue-green in the Lagoon is coming from.

This one is 40x60sec, ISO800 at f4.  Hmmmm ... once you are done fratzing with your equipment in the field you get to pound your head against the wall for hours with processing.  Then it still doesn't look like you expect or think it should.  And color?  Enough to make converting everything to grayscale the first step in processing.  But my, what fun it is.

The blog starts up later in July with a 2 week trip to legendary New Mexico dark skies.  And this is what it looked like most of the time.

Beautiful but hardly astronomy friendly.

If you care you can pick up the story from the earliest posts in the blog.  Might give you some comfort and cheer while you are calibrating your light frames or contemplating what to throw when you realize you forgot to shoot flat frames.

I have suffered the good hair-shirt fight and it has all been worthwhile.  I've improved my skill and my images are getting better.  I've had something new to throw myself into at a time when I needed distraction.  I've enjoyed writing about the journey and have shared parts of it it with nearly 1000 people from 50 countries.  That's pretty neat.

I've met a few new friends and grown closer to the four who just had to go out observing when I was on vacation.  Thanks gents.  Securis in corde meo est.

Now for next year I have some really amazing ideas ....