Last weekend I was on an astrotrip to a nice spot in Germany with nice dark skies. The main goal of the weekend was to test all my new equipment and to see if imaging with the duo setup would work properly with the Lacerta MGEN controlling two camera’s. As a subject I chose the beautiful Leo Triplet, which is one of my favourite galaxy ‘groups. The three galaxies all show much detail and are…
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Yesterday we actually got the chance to witness the aurora from my ‘regular dark spot’ near my hometown, which is located at 52 degrees north. Pretty rare to be able to see and capture the northern lights from this location! The light pollution from the towns and cities did make it harder to witness the aurora, but I think it actually made a pretty colourful picture with the bright orange glow 😉 It was also…
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The Lacerta MGEN is a great standalone autoguider that offers you the ability to control your DSLR with a timer of the MGEN. This enables you to use the dithering function of the MGEN, since it will know when your camera is in between exposures. But what if you use a duo setup where you use two camera’s at the same time? You’ll have to make sure both camera’s are in between exposures for the…
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The topic of the possibility of light from the viewfinder falling on your dslr sensor seems to be a topic that is either unclear/controversial or overlooked altogether. However, it is something everyone should be aware of! Light leaking through the viewfinder; Nikon D5100 When testing the thermal noise in dark frames on the Nikon D5100 vs Nikon D7000 vs Nikon D600 (more on that later ;)) I ran into the issue of having a clear…
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Interview 4: DSLR astrophotography with Hafsteinn Kröyer Eiðsson For this interview we will have an inside look into a different type of photography; Aurora Borealis photography! Hafsteinn Kröyer might be fairly new to astrophotography, he has been entertaining a lot of people already with his amazing pictures of the Aurora Borealis from Iceland. He knows how to capture the mesmerising effect of these dancing lights in the sky and turn them in to amazing pictures. Make…
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Astrophotography in itself can be quite challenging, especially when you’re doing deep sky photography. Because of this we tend to focus on all the technical details and aspects of astrophotography; aligning your mount, balancing equipment, flexure, telescopes, guiding, camera’s, processing the image etc. For some people this is also what makes astrophotography fun, and they are less interested in the end result. For the majority however, the goal is to make an interesting and beautiful…
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Quite a while ago I wrote a short test on the little cheap gem amongst the Nikon lenses; the 50mm F1.8 D. This looked promising enough to test the lens for real under the stars. Let’s look at how this lens is performing with astro photo’s. Using the Nikkor 50mm F1.8 for astrophotography In the test I noticed that the lens seems to be sharpest when used at F2.8 so I used this setting to…
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Interview 3: DSLR astrophotography with Fritz Helmut Hemmerich If you are an astrophotograhy enthusiast and are on Facebook you will know Fritz and his outstanding photography work. Being situated on Tenerife and having his own observatory and a travel kit to go up the vulcano to go above the clouds, he seems to be able to output new material almost on a daily basis. And amazing output that is. With the ideal combination of dark skies, excellent…
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Update: Got a reaction from the press contact from Nikon on a view questions; “So far, the reaction I have seen has been generally positive for the camera, and for using the high resolution sensor.” “The H-alpha sensitivity is 4 times great than a standard D-SLR” “For future products, Nikon does not comment on any future products or speculation” —————- There were rumours for a few days already, but now it’s official; Nikon has made…
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INTRODUCTION It had been almost a full year since I last went out for some astrophotography, other than the trips to La Palma and Hohen Woos (Germany). Finally the circumstances looked to be good to capture the comet LoveJoy, that was making a spectacular show passing by the Pleiades. Clouds were coming in, but I was able to capture 40 frames of 2 minutes each which allowed me to capture the comet’s impressive tail. Photographing…
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