Tractor

I agree, but I don't give a rats ass about much and am a war pig and military channel viewer. I want some new material to watch:-) Evan

Go for it. That pic didn't take a lot of expensive gear. Just a good camera with a shutter release cable (to lock the shutter open) and a mount that can track the stars (you could make one or buy one good enough for that type of shot pretty easily.) Other than that its a clear, dark sky, and a lot of time taking the shot and processing in photoshop. I have about 7 hours total in it and I'm still not finished with a full res printable version. What I really wish I could get is something like a 70-400mm or so lens with a lower F number like around F2. This F5.6 @ 300mm isn't fun. Evan

LOL! I can't believe they make crap like this and people watch it or advertisers pay for airtime between segments. Maybe Maury should have a show about that:-) Evan

This one is a very large nebula in the summer sky. So big my telescope can't see it all in one frame so.... I took the pic using only the canon 40D and an EF 75-300mm lens at 300mm. Its 40 1.5 minute exposers combined into a single 1 hour shot and processed like crazy to get any detail to show up. I'm actually impressed that it even worked. http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f185/EWhytsell/6992resizedweb.jpg Evan

Hehe If that was a boy then he's already got an ear ring and they are working on his mullet:-) Evan

I wonder if setting the white balance to daylight would have provided a more real look? I'm not an expert on lightning photography for sure since I've only tried a couple times, but from where I was standing the lightning had a red tint to it and your looks like maybe the camera selected a color temp closer to tungsten. Evan

Was that storm down at groveport or up in columbus? I was trying to take some pics of it as well, but only got one keeper out of the bunch. I was at my house in marengo and could see it low over the south-southwest. Evan

well if I was in a room full of people with weapons I don't think I'd draw and attempt to rob one guy. I think I'd just wait somewhere alone and get the small easy target. Not to many robbers attempt to rob and are betting they will fail. Evan

For those who carry what are you gonna do about criminals who want to rob you and the rest of the family when we get to the point that enough people carry that criminals will also carry as a norm? If I wanted to rob someone in a place where most people I run into would be carrying weapons I think I'd just shoot first then steal their stuff. I'm not giving you a chance to draw your weapon I"m just blasting the lot of you and counting my booty. The reason I ask is that by honest people carrying weapons it kind of starts to make criminals more dangerous for those of us who see no need to carry any. Of course the same problem arises out of a total gun ban as well which would be completely pointless. Evan

In the past few months I've had 2 guys in cars draw fire arms on me while driving down I-71. I'm kinda hoping that that sort of thing stops soon or I'm gonna spin the next guy out and keep on driving. Both times it was the hot head zig zagging up through traffic really fast during the day. The one I watched coming for a few minutes while he caught up and I got in the way (not in a dangerous manner he just wanted in my spot and swerved at me and I stood my ground) next thing I know he's waiving a pistol around. The other one they guy was pointing a damn pistol at me because he almost hit me after he tried to cut across 2 lanes in front of a semi. I hope these guys robbed banks or something because if people are seriously driving around with guns and waving them at people that sucks. Evan

You bet there photoshopped. I spent about 4 hours on that image in PS trying to bring it out of the dark. For anyone who knows about pictures or photoshop. The histogram for the original stack of images is just a tiny sliver on the far left and you use levels and curves over and over to keep moving it farther to the right and stretching it out across the spectrum. Then after a few repeats you have to apply noise reduction filters then keep using levels/curves some more. Then once your all done you can adjust down the background to as dark as possible and adjust the white level until the color is right. Very annoying yet rewarding. Evan

Lots of people have much better pictures then mine, but at least mine are getting to the point were I'm not embarrassed to post them on astrophotography forums. As for the moon. I took a pic of it and its in this thread from a week or so ago. http://www.columbusracing.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53391 For shooting the planets I'd need a totally different process and a cheap web cam. I may try it once I get bored enough with deep space objects. Evan

Thanks for the link Matt. That was exactly what I needed. Anyone else needing to do things like this should download it. Works great. Evan

Here's a pic of my scope, mount, and its attached computer. Add in a computer, camera, and about a million more wires and you get what I have to work around in the dark. That jump starter is nice, when I'm out away from 110volt power I can run a laptop, camera, and telescope drive system for 8-10 hours. http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f185/EWhytsell/IMG_2213.jpg Evan

Heres a couple more images. First one is M20 -Trifid Nebula the other one is M27 - Dumbell Nebula. I didn't get enough good data on the last one so I couldn't process in more detail. The first for some reason I was able to do a pretty good job on considering its only 3.5 minutes of data. http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f185/EWhytsell/M20Webversion.jpg http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f185/EWhytsell/M27WebVersion.jpg Evan

I try when I see one, but they never wanna let me take pics. Evan

Thats awesome that it let your wife hold it like that. I can never get any closer then 7-10 feet from them when trying to take pics. Pretty sad when I need a telephoto to get one and I haven't even gotten a shot that large yet. Evan

Thats a powerful scope to get the moon campfire scene:-) But seriously I guess there are shots floating around with the shadows of some of the equipment left on the moon. I'm guessing you'd have to get it at the right time just as the equipment was crossing the light/dark terminator. I've never seen the shots, only heard of them so who knows. Evan

Read about briefcase in help. Not really what I'm looking for, but will probably start it up and see if there are any custom options or anything. Evan

I want to have the same files saves on 2 or 3 computers on my network and want to be able to update the list once a week, month, whatever. If this were DOS and not a network I'd just use XCOPY with a few switches to make it copy changed or new files. From windows XP so far all I can do is have it overwrite all files then wait over an hour for it to move them. Kinda annoying when its many gigs of data and thousands of files everytime Any ideas? Evan

35mm at f2 would be a nice one for wide field milky way shots. When I use the 28-135 at 28 its still f3.5 so it does work, but I have to use longer exposers to get the same shot so more noise gets worked in. Evan

You use a t-adapter to connect the camera body to the telescope in place of the eye piece. In my scope currently that is a full frame image, I'm hoping the wife lets me get a focal reducer. It will enable me to go from F10 to F6.3 so the magnification will be reduced by around 40%. Thorne I can send you a full res TIFF file thats 3.64MB 942 x 648 pixels instead of the 1mb limit that photobucket resizes to or I can make another from the original that will be around 40-50MB of data at 3888x2592 pixels. Evan

I shot this one a couple weeks ago and just finally got around to processing it. It was through my telescope so it was done at 2032mm F10 for the photogs. Oh and 2 frames stacked to offset any atmospheric distortion though a little still appears near the north pole. http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f185/EWhytsell/webmoon.jpg Evan

I have a canon 40D, Lens are canon 28-135 USM IS, and a canon 75-300mm. The 75-300 is considered pretty bad by most people and I don't use it much, but the pics I have taken I haven't considered bad image quality. Actually I have one of a rabbit in my yard that is about as sharp as any I've seen before any post processing. I'm not yet really into daytime photography enough to buy really good glass since the primary reason I got a 40D is astrophotography. The next lens I'll probably get will be one of those 50mm F1.8 lenses everyone is always raving about due to price/quality. Evan

Hey just noticed this. I'd enjoy learning some stuff. I try reading things, but really I just need to be out using the camera. I was at franklin park all day today taking shots of the plants and critters that are around there. Tried some different things and shot almost entirely in RAW to learn some other processing stuff. Evan