Are there any other kinds...
No!!! You are right there my friend... Let me see.... I am such an doofis.... It took so long for me to find this...
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What Did You Do Today???
- Thread starter Tony
- Start date
No!!! You are right there my friend... Let me see.... I am such an doofis.... It took so long for me to find this...
RandyDSok
Well-Known Member
Well... I'm pretty happy now. I got some upgrades to a couple of my photo processing programs that have some nice new features. The one that is the most exciting ( for now ) uses AI to help remove noise from the photo. I went back to some shots I had taken back in 2007 from a now really old camera and grabbed one I loved but the noise in it bothered me to no end. I loved it because it was of a hummingbird looking back at me while I was taking the photo... Almost all decent photo programs have some sort of noise reduction but I've never seen one this capable.
Here is the original ( cropped in some )
Here is the same shot... with the noise finally taken out and a bit more contrast added...
I can now see I'm going to be looking at a lot of old shots to see if I can help them out with just this one feature ( not to mention any other features I come across that may help ).
Here is the original ( cropped in some )
Here is the same shot... with the noise finally taken out and a bit more contrast added...
I can now see I'm going to be looking at a lot of old shots to see if I can help them out with just this one feature ( not to mention any other features I come across that may help ).
Rob Lancaster
Active Member
Hi guy's
Here's a composite photo of the lunar eclipse last week. It was taken by my friend in my local meteor club. Good ole Ort, he did it again...
It was done in Photoshop. Ort used Photopills app to get him the path of the Moon. Then he took the foreground photo using ultrawide lens at max eclipse. Then used foreground as 1st layer, path as 2nd layer, then he shrunk 17 moon photos and added them to the photo one by one.
I have a good crew! And that includes you guys! Yeah babee!!
Here's a composite photo of the lunar eclipse last week. It was taken by my friend in my local meteor club. Good ole Ort, he did it again...
It was done in Photoshop. Ort used Photopills app to get him the path of the Moon. Then he took the foreground photo using ultrawide lens at max eclipse. Then used foreground as 1st layer, path as 2nd layer, then he shrunk 17 moon photos and added them to the photo one by one.
I have a good crew! And that includes you guys! Yeah babee!!
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Daniel Migneault
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Because flying season is over, helis are in great shape and resting, i'm into diorama.
RandyDSok
Well-Known Member
Still playing around with my new graphics/photo programs... Just browsing around at random at the moment... but later I'm going to go back through the pics that I've got up on my personal website which will be quite the chore since I have over 400 shots up there ... and reprocess them from raw again to get them noise free and use the latest stuff to process with. I also need to whittle down the number of shots I've taken on certain shoots, for instance I have a lot of good lightning shots all taken the same night, I just couldn't pick a favorite so I put more up than I should have. That alone will be challenging. I'll also not be scaling them down as much, back when I started, it was typical to go with the sizes I uploaded, now most everyone has higher definition monitors and my website software will still scale them down for phone and small tablet users.
As I've been going through what I've done, many of them have some areas of color that are off from what they were when I took the shots... some of that just happens when converting to a JPEG type of picture since it compresses the image and is lossy.
Here is one I came across tonight I'd forgotten about.... and shouldn't have. A nice morning sunrise...
As I've been going through what I've done, many of them have some areas of color that are off from what they were when I took the shots... some of that just happens when converting to a JPEG type of picture since it compresses the image and is lossy.
Here is one I came across tonight I'd forgotten about.... and shouldn't have. A nice morning sunrise...
Rob Lancaster
Active Member
Hey Randy, are you going to try to photograph comet Lenard? I think I fixed ALL the bad connections on my scope. So maybe I'll get a look. I hope so, I want to see some action.
Rob Lancaster
Active Member
Ahhh,,, the humming bird. I call them the Hughes 500's of the bird world. cool... I wish we had them here.
RandyDSok
Well-Known Member
That's a million dollar question. Comet photos are hit and miss with the majority being a miss unless you are using a telescope and can also track the stars/sky often taking several pics and then stacking them together to increase the brightness and detail. In addition, post processing any night sky object is an art form that I only get lucky on occasion with. From what I've read, the best time for me will be around the 18th of Dec. when it's an early evening object ( currently it's in the northern sky but it's also only a 11th magnitude object which isn't very bright ).
Comet Neowise that came in 2020, was also a southern sky object and I was able to capture it... but the shot had everything going against it. It was better for someone more south of me and I've seen good clear shots of it by other photographers. I had a lot of haze in the sky and it was close to the horizon making a good shot for me, nearly impossible with my equipment ( and a skill level at post processing these that I always struggle with ). If I recall correctly, this was one of the brighter comets I've tried taking a pic of and yet... I had to take pics, then post process them just to be able to find it in the sky. Even that didn't result in a good shot in the end although I can see the tail, which is a small win in my book for comet pics.
Here is a shot of it zoomed in, cropped down and then resized down... I'm pretty sure the green color in this shot of the comet was a by product of the post processing when I compare my shot with others I've seen. I've attempted to actually remove that green color, but then the tail also disappears even more. I could mask everything but the head of the comet and then remove the color which would save the rest of the tail, but it isn't good enough of a pic for the additional trouble it would take. The original background started out as a muddy yellowish brown, think of a coffee with a little creamer in it. Basically that brownish color is a mix of a high ISO setting and the humidity in the sky reflecting back the sodium street light pollution. I get rid of it by dropping down the middle highlights, shadows, blacks and then playing with the light curves to "stretch" the available good light so the dimmer stuff we want to see shows up.
Comet Lovejoy from 2015... was even tougher to shoot. Again, it was a matter of finding it using the take a pic and then post process it so I could get a good location to point the camera at for the next shots. The only saving feature of that shoot, was that Pleiades was close by so at least I had a cool shot although it was still far from perfect.
The post processing on this shot is on the heavy side... ie there is a lot of of it ( for me ). The upside was this was also the first time I got the blue nebula around the Pleiades star cluster to even show up and I've tried many times to capture that before and after this. You'll find the Pleiades on the far left side and on the far right, is Comet Lovejoy, it's the fuzzy green dot which has no tail to speak of. This time, the green was the actual color of the comet and not a by product of my post processing.
Wow!!! That is freakin' cool!!! I have a cheap telescope I played around with some. It would track the stars, etc. I never got that deep into it, but I had it tracking the moon for hours. Amazing what you can see on it. I have a terrestrial eye piece for it, and it is crazy what you can see... miles away... I even have an interface for a computer I have never used.
You would like it here. The only streetlight is in my front yard. Looking to the southeast, it is pitch black less the stars and moon.
You would like it here. The only streetlight is in my front yard. Looking to the southeast, it is pitch black less the stars and moon.
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RandyDSok
Well-Known Member
Careful about what you watch about Comet Leonard in the media... I've already seen one just hyping it out of realistic forecasts... and yet another that gives a very good and realistic outlook of what you may see ( as well as what the guy hopes to see if lucky ).... PS, I forgot to take into account what the Moon may be doing, so the early evening may not be the best time but it'd still be better for me since I seldom get up early enough for an early morning view before the sun rises.
Here is the good YT video about some things you could possibly expect ( emphasis on possibly ) ....
Here is the good YT video about some things you could possibly expect ( emphasis on possibly ) ....
Rob Lancaster
Active Member
Yes sr.! There's always much hype about all this stuff. In reality, you win some and you loose some. Yah just have to be in the right place at the right time, and bingo or bust. I really wish I had the scrips to get a Mead LX 200 12 incher! Oh and we may as well throw in an auto guider, killer CCD imager, auto focuser, and anything else I might of forgot. Fun to dream, HA! LOL!!
Thanks for the video, I defiantly need to take a closer look at it and study, study..... Good luck everybody!
RandyDSok
Well-Known Member
A 12" SC scope is nice... until you have to haul it around a few times. In fact, I did my share of complaining about setting up my old 6" SC and it's really not that bad ( I'm just bitchy about workin when I'm playing ... lol ). If I had the funds and time to do it again/some more... I'd go with an 8" most likely and at the very most a 10" scope. In any case, budget in a hernia operation, just to play it safe with the budget... lol.
You also have to take into account the space you have to carry it to a field ( if traveling to darker skies ). If going a little more budget friendly and you picked a Newtonian type instead of a pricey Schmidt Cassegrain... you have to make sure you have room for whatever diameter you can afford to fit in the back of your bed, trunk or trailer along with the mount to set it up with.
Oh one last thing... these days CMOS sensor imagers are the way to go. In fact, if going full on amature photog on it... Look up the process called "lucky imaging" and if done right, you can almost get large telescope results using a really small telescope. Basically, lucky imaging is taking hundreds if not thousands of images, then throwing out the ones with atmospheric distortions in them and stacking the remaining ones to achieve really great results. Reminds me of the meme, ain't nobody got time for that... but it does result in some great shots and a lot of satisfaction that you took them.
You also have to take into account the space you have to carry it to a field ( if traveling to darker skies ). If going a little more budget friendly and you picked a Newtonian type instead of a pricey Schmidt Cassegrain... you have to make sure you have room for whatever diameter you can afford to fit in the back of your bed, trunk or trailer along with the mount to set it up with.
Oh one last thing... these days CMOS sensor imagers are the way to go. In fact, if going full on amature photog on it... Look up the process called "lucky imaging" and if done right, you can almost get large telescope results using a really small telescope. Basically, lucky imaging is taking hundreds if not thousands of images, then throwing out the ones with atmospheric distortions in them and stacking the remaining ones to achieve really great results. Reminds me of the meme, ain't nobody got time for that... but it does result in some great shots and a lot of satisfaction that you took them.
Rob Lancaster
Active Member
I know what you mean. That's kinda why I wanted to step down from my 16 incher to a 12 incher... Nah, nah, just joking, lol!
But seriously, when I look at the tripod for that babee, that should tell you a lot... I'll need a couple of soleies, (Samoan's) to accompany me to the fields. Their also great for security too lol!
Yup the digital and mechanical capability of today's scopes are really great.
RandyDSok
Well-Known Member
I actually have a ( now very old and in need of a lot of repairs ) Meade 16" Newtonian and clock driven alt-as mount. I did eventually figure out how to set it up by myself, but typically waited until I also had a friend with me also. I got mine back in the late 70's to early 80's when I was still working for the phone company and the scopes were no where near the price they are today. The stand on it is now rusted out too much to fix, the mirror has rainbowed and would require being completely remirrored again. Neither are things that would fit my current budget so won't happen.