Astorphotography, TMX, HC110 and ???

OK. I am going to take a huge shot at astrophotography and this is what I have thus far.

Minolta XG-1 w/ 200mm zoom and 2x teleconveter.
Tripod and cable release.
Kodak TMax 400 (TMX).
HC110 developer.

Now, I should be able to make photographs of Mars (magnitude +4) with an effective aperture of f/11 at a shutter speed of 1/250.

More distant stars and deep space objects will require much more exposure. However, due to the reduced field of view and the movement of the subject I cannot make exposures much longer than one second. Each decrease in magnitude equates to about 2.7 stops of exposure which gets e down quickly.

I have recipes for intensifiers. But I would like recommendations for this type of photography. I would like to get ideas as to superproportionate intensifiers which drastically increase density where there is the slightest.

Once I have decided on an intensifier, where in the process does it fit? How will it affect grain? All question I would like to have a little bit of answering to before I move forward.

Is there something newer or simpler than an intensifier?

I appreciate everything you all have done in the past and in the future as well.

I'm not sure what your exactly trying to do but one is not going to be able to make detailed planet images with 200 to 400 mm fl especially on a tripod. Planets require large aperture, long focal tracking telescopes, around 2000mm fl. and up and exposures on fine grain film up to and exceding a second or more. Perhaps your mean a wide field shot that you could point to a brighter dot as a planet but still this will require a tracked exposure for at least many seconds to a minute or more. See Michael Covington's "Astrophotography for the Amateur." Film is long dead for planet astrophotography superceded by webcams for the job with infinitely superior results. Honestly, under the circumstance I wouldn't waste your time. Get a tracking telescope then go!

Regards,

Todd

So, the textbook way to do this now, I think, is to shoot many frames and to scan and register them with software (registax). That will lift detail out of the noise & grain and allow you to take a series of shorter (but correctly exposed) frames. I agree that unless you do that, such a short focal length and large aperture isn't going to give you much of a chance. I mean, somewhere I have some vague images of some planets with a 500mm and a 2x tc on 645 format at ISO 1600. The effective aperture was ~f/11 as I recall.

I am also worried that intensifier is just going to make a lot of noise & grain. Also I don't know how tmax will respond to it, not well I am guessing. So why not try it without first. *idea* Say, got any hydrogen?

It just occured to me that what you should try since you have the astrophotography bug at the moment and no telesope and tracking mount is to do a classic tripod shot of the summer Milky Way. You got to be at a dark site to image the faint galactic Milky Way light. Tmax 3200 or the like, even Tri-X pushed are used to take a 30 sec. exposure with a 50mm lens or smaller, aperature wide open (i.e. f/1.5) on a tripod aimed south with the bridge of the Milky Way going across the sky. Of course aperture wide open will get aberrated stars toward the edge of field but our galaxy with its dense stellar glow,star clouds, star clusters and some nebula will clearly be captured on film.

Todd

An SRT-101 or 102 would be a better choice than an XG-1. You want a camera that you can set to bulb or T and let the shutter sit open for star fields. The battery in the XG-1 will not last long doing that.

Look for "Astrophotography for the Amatuer" by Covington.

Have fun, I wish I had more time for astrophotography. And clearer skies, too!

Yes, I do quite a bit of astro work, though mainly with digital as this is one area where a digital workflow really does work. Using software such as ImagesPlus it's possible to stack multiple images to create some amazingly high quality results. I have used Kodak E200 and Fuji Provia 400X for long exposures of nebulae and constellations. I use a130mm aperture refractor telescope with a f/l of 910mm and it's mounted on a Losmandy tracking mount. 910mm is way too short a f/l for shooting Mars so 400mm is a non-starter, I'm afraid. At 910mm Mars is a very small blob, maybe 100 pixels across. You really need greater than 2000mm f/l to get a decent shot of Mars.

You could shoot the moon and that can be very enjoyable. Exposures are short, depending on how full the moon is, and you can record fantastic detail. Just remember that the atmosphere is never still and you will have to take a number of shots to get one that shows crisp detail or you'll have to digitally stack a number of shots to create one good image.

For deepsky stuff you'll need very long exposures and black and white film's reciprocity failure makes it a pretty poor choice. You could try using Fuji Acros though I'm not sure that its frequency response would pick up all deepsky targets. And, of course, if you're exposing for several minutes you'll need a german equatorial mount for your camera and you'll still need to manually guide or auto-guide the mount to reduce errors.

Even shots of constellations using a 105-200mm lens will require perhaps 30 seconds to 1 minute exposures wide open to capture areas of nebulosity such as M42 or galaxies such as M31. You'll still, therefore, need a guided mount in most cases though with a wider lens, say 28mm, you could get away with an unguided shot for about 30 seconds without the stars appearing too elongated.

Michael Covington's book is OK but it's a little out of date and there's much more relevant information on the web. Check out Jerry Lodriguss' website as an example. And for total insipration check out Johanes Schedler's Panther Observatory site.

Hope that helps.

Barry

Size of Mars (at it's current angular size of 5.5 arcseconds) on film with a 200mm lens is 0.00533mm, and with a 400mm lens it's 0.01067mm. I'm fairly certain that a typical 200mm zoom and doubler won't resolve 100 lines per mm, so your optics won't even have the resolution to show Mars as a disk, distinct from a star if you're shooting in the next couple of months.

This coming January 27, 2010, Mars will be at its closest to earth on this pass, and it will have an apparent diameter of 14.105 arcseconds and will be 2.56 times larger on film than it is now, 0.02735 mm across on film with 400mm focal length. Probably not much larger in diameter than your optics can resolve.

This is why folks have told you much longer focal lengths are necessary for planetary work. I'd suggest wide field work like constellations or the moon as beginning targets. Fast primes are better than zooms, and doublers are not commonly used because of the loss of aperture and loss of optical quality. A star field will reveal a lot about the quality of your lenses.

I'm not trying to discourage you, but you'll be frustrated unnecessarily and disappointed if you don't read up a bit on techniques specific to astrophotography. See if there's an astronomy club near you with active astrophotographers. They can be a great source of information and instruction. Books are good too. Michael Covington and Robert Reeves are some of the best I've seen, and both have film and digital books out, although Reeves' film book may be out of print.

Lee

Wirelessly posted (BBBold: BlackBerry9000/4.6.0.167 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102 UP.Link/6.3.0.0.0)

Then off to the book reading I go. This really helped. Kinda what was niggling the back of my mind anyway.

Don't underrate the wide field work, by the way. Have a look at some of the amazing shots of Orion, for example, that are on the web. There is amazing detail in the sky that the naked eye cannot record.

The Andromeda Galaxy is larger than the full moon - most people do not know that. It is much larger, in fact. However, much of it is too dim for the naked eye to see.

A basic telescope with an equatorial mount and a clock drive / tracking mount will be a big help to making long exposures.

Also, consider star trails. They only require a tripod and some patience. They can be quite amazing.

One other correction. Mars is currently magnitude 1, not magnitude 4. It will be magnitude -1.28 at closest approach in late January.

Lee

Wirelessly posted (BBBold: BlackBerry9000/4.6.0.167 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102 UP.Link/6.3.0.0.0)

Thanks, Lee. Just going by some free software I downloaded last night. I'll dispatch, read my field guide and two more books on the way.

Christopher Walrath said:

Thanks, Lee. Just going by some free software I downloaded last night.

Click to expand...

Which software? I may be able to come up with some better suggestions.

Lee

MyStars is a good program if you want to know what's in the sky above.....

Peter

MyStars! is crippled (# of stars shown, etc.) unless you pay $20. There are better programs for free.

Hallo! Northern Sky http://www.hnsky.org/software.htm (which does include the whole sky), runs on M$ boxes or under WINE in linux

Stellarium http://www.stellarium.org/ (prettiest graphics) linux, Mac, M$

Both have huge catalogs installable for free, and you can customize your own object catalogs.

KStars if you run linux. Expandable object catalogs, will drive your telescope if you hook up a compatible drive. Free, and you have the right to get and modify the code if you want to.

There are others, but these are all free and comprehensive.

I have friends who like Voyager on the Mac, and it also runs on M$ Vista, but they have their employer pay for it. See Carina software.

Celestia is also very cool, and lets you fly around in space. Free. You can write scripts for this as well, but it's not so much a traditional sky map program. linux, Mac, or M$

Lee

Thanks Lee for the postings !
I know MyStars for a long time and never looked anywhere else and yes I paid the $20,- which is not too bad for the program that covers both hemospheres.

More links are welcome as far as I am concerned !

Peter

Well, I have ordered more reading as mentioned above. I'll probably stick to shooting constellations and perhaps a couple of clusters (ie. Pleiades, et al). I'm not gonna sink into a double barrel scope/motor setup anytime soon. Hardly have room to store my enlarger out of the way in the corner of the living room. ;p

Christopher, You might research "barn door" mounts, which are very simple, small devices to allow a camera to track for maybe half an hour. No motors, and costs about $5 for parts. I suggest a fine-grained film might show more stars, as a coarse grain may allow star images to fall between the grain clumps. Acros might be very good, as the reciprocity failure is very minimal for moderate exposures [up to 1,000 seconds ~ 16 minutes]. I've been happy with it for night exposures, but have not used it specifically on stars.