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NerfMonkey
sage
Reged: 06/12/08
Posts: 204
Loc: NE Ohio
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I've taken a bunch of pictures of the sky with my new film camera but the first batch was terrible as expected so the last time I got them developed I paid a few extra dollars for a CD with the pictures on it in the hopes of opening them in GIMP and tweaking them a bit. I didn't expect to be able to do much with it and figured the pictures would still suck, but with 30 seconds of adjusting the brightness and contrast the picture went from this (upside down, NGC 7000 just visible right of center):
to this:
It's still not great but considering I bought the camera at a flea market for $10, the film for about $7 and got the pictures developed and put on a CD for $13 it's not terrible either. I didn't use a barn door tracker or anything and just took a single 15 or 20 sec exposure; the star trails aren't too bad in this smallish version. I also took a picture of Cassiopeia and Lyra but have yet to try any tweaking on those.
Let me know what you think and don't be afraid to tell me it sucks.
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Mike
71 Messiers
155 total DSOs
6 planets
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tommyhawk13
sage
Reged: 09/28/07
Posts: 492
Loc: Jacksonville, Fl
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20 sec? You must have been using some fast film!
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Meade Starfinder 8,Meade SN-8 OTA, Orion Atlas, and a handfull of film cameras
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s58y
Post Laureate
Reged: 12/12/04
Posts: 4850
Loc: Eastern NY
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This is a much better than my first fixed-tripod astrophotos, and I was using a DSLR, which is a whole lot easier.
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Hutech 30D, SBIG ST-402 autoguider
SV80S, SV66 guidescope
AP900, G-11, Barndoor tracker
http://www.pbase.com/s58y
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NerfMonkey
sage
Reged: 06/12/08
Posts: 204
Loc: NE Ohio
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Thanks for the nice comments.
I'm only guessing because 20 seconds is about the longest I'm comfortable with since the stars will start trailing after much longer. However, this was taken at my grandparents' house where the sky is darker so it may have been a longer exposure since I wasn't as worried about unwanted light creeping in.
The film was 400 speed.
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Mike
71 Messiers
155 total DSOs
6 planets
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microbes
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 12/12/04
Posts: 1192
Loc: Romulus, Sector 12
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Quote:
still not great but considering I bought the camera at a flea market for $10
I like to see people do good things with cheap equipment. 
I bought both my 35mm cameras like that, I gave $5 for a fixed lens Kodak Pony and $20 for a Yashika FX/2 SLR. I've used them both for wide field shots.
You must be shooting a fairly low focal length to keep from having star trails with no tracking. Even 50mm is going to start showing star trails in 20 seconds.
Quote:
20 sec? You must have been using some fast film!
And a fast f/ratio. I've gotten some decent 20 second shots shooting at f/1.9 with 800 speed Fuji Superia.
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Dirt Cheap Astronomy
Voyager 114X900 Newt EQ2 * Sky Chief 60X700 EQ1 * Cometron 62X300 EQ1
Sears Ultra Wide 7X50 Binos * Vintage 16X50 Binos EQ1
Books, Barlows, Eyepieces, Camera Adaptors & Other Esoteric Junk.
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Nebhunter
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 10/04/03
Posts: 1010
Loc: Frostbite Falls
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No, your pictures do not suck. Mine do, but you have a good start. We all start at the bottom and slowly - and I mean slowly, move up the ladder with the experience. Consider the effort and time taken for that first roll. Apply what you have learned to the next roll, and so forth.
I've gone thru 3 rolls of 120 film, and have been hit by every conceivable law from the "Murphy Chapters". I have nothing to show for it other than determination and frustration.
It is not a steep learning curve using film. It's a gentle grade - about 1,000 miles long.
Igor
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Handle me with Care - The Traveling Wilburys.
TEC 140 "Katyusha" - Tec field flattener. Equinox 80 -
Atlas EQ6 SynScan GPS ADM conversion. ST-4 guider.
PENTAX 67 - 400 EDif - 300 - 200 - 135 - 90 lenses.
OM-1 300 Tamron - Konica 35-100 Varifocal STI Pro Stiletto.
http://nightfly.zoomshare.com/
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justabob
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 05/05/07
Posts: 1089
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I know nothing about film ap. But a gave your shot a quick run through ps. Alot of signal there.
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http://www.pbase.com/rkn/astro&page=all
Vixen Sphinx SXW LXD55
Self modded 350d
DSI PRO II
73 DE W9HS
Bob
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NerfMonkey
sage
Reged: 06/12/08
Posts: 204
Loc: NE Ohio
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Well I don't know what signal means or if it's bad but I'm really not looking to get into astrophotography. I just like taking pictures of the constellations and will stick with my cheap SLR and Kodak film. I just wanted to see what some people's opinions were.
But while this thread's active I'll post my other two constellation pictures in here.
Cassiopeia taken from my house instead of the semi-rural site where the Cygnus one's from:
And Lyra from my back yard:
Those are much worse because of the light pollution, or maybe they just seem like it because there's nothing interesting to look at.
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Mike
71 Messiers
155 total DSOs
6 planets
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Bob Clift
member
Reged: 03/22/05
Posts: 82
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Signal is good  it's half of "Signal : Noise", signal is the stuff you DO want in your picture (stars, black sky, that kind of thing), noise is everything else that's ended up in there too that you DON'T want - grain, light pollution, satellites and aircraft, uneven lighting due to lens errors, that sort of thing. All of which can be sorted out with the right tricks. (And since you said you'd had the pics put onto CD, you can probably add scanning errors to the list, unless you *really* lucked out you'll have a LOT more info on your negs than came out on the scans, they're usually done at fairly low resolution)
And I'll add to all the compliments, very nice work Mike, definitely in the non-sucky category
Here's your Cass + 15 seconds work in Photoshop (duplicate layer, invert, 20 pixel gaussian blur, layer mode: colour burn, flatten layers, which is only a quick-and-dirty method)
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