Astrophotography

15 May 2018 12:42

ZackG wrote:
Heres the image of M31 I took last year. and M42 at late winter.

Nice photos! I love the colors of Andromeda galaxy.

12 Jun 2018 08:42

the photo guy · 28 Jun 2018 20:11

god I wish I had a camera that can do this stuff. I'm too poor

27 Jul 2018 17:35

Took some images of the Lunar Eclipse:

With Mars

27 Jul 2018 18:40

Nice shots, Bambus!

28 Jul 2018 02:55

Wow, is the last photo HDR?

I tried to make a photo, but observing conditions was very poor: Moon is low above horizon, clouds and haze, and crazy light pollution. Camera is also not perfect.

vlad01 · 28 Jul 2018 03:30

I wish I still had the ones I took with my brother's DSLR but I must not of saved it to any of my PCs. I was able to get geminid meteor shower, Orion nebula, Andromeda galaxy plus a lot of other good shots. Was the first time I had used a SLR type camera.

I do have some ok ones I took with a 6?Mp point and click $60 kodak camera lol, back in 2011.

28 Jul 2018 03:34

BambusDude, great shots!

vlad01 · 28 Jul 2018 06:19

FastFourierTransform wrote:
I'm just amazed of what my mobile just did!

I've captured from Madrid the Orion constellation near dawn with my phone. I putted ISO to 1600 and obturation time to 1/2 sec. This is what I got:

After that I used the digital zoom of the phone and took this close-up of the orion belt:

Do you see that in the middle of the frame? Have a closer, look zooming in the same image:

That blob is the Orion Nebula!!!!
I really couldn't believe it, so I took several pictures like this one to see if it was just a random fluke a little stronger than the sorrounding noise of the image but the same structure apperead in all the photos. Also the position is perfect match if you compare with a celestial chart.

I've imaged the orion nebula hand helding my phone, without telescope nor any extra component. Just my phone

Maybe is not that amazing but for me it has been an emotional rollercoaster.

I think the lower blob in the image is Iota Orionis and the upper the nebula itself

Reminds me of the time I got the ISS somewhat resolvable on an iphone 3, they as far as I have tested were the last apple phone to be capable of seeing in IR, also the last apple phone capable of any night time photography (barely, but newer ones have 0 capability at all).

This? I have no idea what satellite this is but download the imagine and zoom in, holy ***, I can't even remember taking this, I am impressed! I can't even detect the brightest stars on my iphone 6 camera, can barley show up Venus or even the moon, yet an iphone 3 can see details on a freaking satellite!

28 Jul 2018 07:23

Thank you all!

SpaceEngineer wrote:
Wow, is the last photo HDR?

nope
also while watching the lunar eclipse i took this (stacked of 15 images):

midtskogen · 02 Aug 2018 00:20

We had some noctilucent clouds again last night. I missed it so I only have something from one of my meteor cameras. We're having more of these clouds now. They seem to be more common late in summer, not just because it's darker and they become easier to see.

02 Aug 2018 02:18

Very neat. I hope I get to see them again here (and hopefully get better shots).

midtskogen · 02 Aug 2018 15:18

Not only noctilucent clouds last night, but also an exploding meteor bright enough to create a halo. Could it be the ice crystals of the nocilucent clouds? Or just in ordinary high altitude haze.

EDIT: This was a Perseid.

03 Aug 2018 02:00

That is very cool! I don't think I've ever seen an example of that before.

midtskogen wrote:
Source of the post Could it be the ice crystals of the nocilucent clouds? Or just in ordinary high altitude haze.

The meteor must of course be higher than the ice layer to make a halo like that. Noctilucent clouds form between 75-85km altitude, and the meteor's explosion might very well be higher than that. But since the light source is quite close, the rays coming from it are far from parallel when they hit the cloud layer, compared to sunlight or even moonlight. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think that means it should decrease the size of the halo.

Suppose the fireball is 100km high (a little optimistic perhaps), and the ice crystals are generating the classic 22° halo. Then if I'm thinking about the geometry correctly, typical cirrus clouds at about 6km should produce a halo still more than 20°, while noctilucent clouds at 80km should make the halo only about 5°.

midtskogen · 03 Aug 2018 03:51

I got data from several cameras, so the path can be calculated:

: a.jpg (72.93 KiB) Viewed 2766 times

And it's altitude:

: b.jpg (24.1 KiB) Viewed 2766 times

Finally it's orbit:

Summary: [table][tr][td]Start height:	115,5 km
End height:	83.3 km
Start position:	60.365N 11.212E
End position:	60.067N 10.626E
Direction:	224.6°
Incidence:	34.9°
Entry speed:	57,7 km/s
Radiant rectascension:	02:18 (34.7°)
Radiant declination:	51.4°
Associated swarm:	Perseids

[/td]
Orbital elements:
[td]Perifocal distance:

0.933 AU
Eccentrisity:	0.628
Inclination:	116.1°
Longitude of ascending node:	129.3°
Argument of perihelion:	142.3°
Mean anomaly:	7.1°
Epoch:	2018 AUG 01

[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

So this is clearly a Perseid. The high speed of 58 km/s make these brief meteors which tend to explode at high altitude. In this case at roughly 95 km altitude! Slow meteors have barely become visible at that altitude. The meteor totally disintegrates above noctilucent clouds.

Watsisname wrote:
Source of the post But since the light source is quite close, the rays coming from it are far from parallel when they hit the cloud layer, compared to sunlight or even moonlight. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think that means it should decrease the size of the halo.

The halo is formed when light gets deflected through countless ice crystal, and the minimum deflection is just under 22 degrees, regardless of the distance to the light source. Like the rainbow, distance to the light source doesn't matter. But I think the ice crystals of noctilucent clouds are different. Perhaps such halos wont form through these crystals. Perhaps we don't know. I'll ask an expert for his opinion.

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