456 replies to this topic

[Joko]

A couple of images from this past week. Each in original form and then with a grayscale edit. 

 

https://www.cloudyni...an-and-pelican/

https://www.cloudyni...ican-grayscale/

https://www.cloudyni...a-cygni-region/

https://www.cloudyni...gion-grayscale/

Nice pics.

Are they still handheld or do you now use a smartphone adapter for your iphone 11 ?

Edited by Joko, 24 October 2022 - 07:10 AM.

[Speedy1985]

Nice pics.

Are they still handheld or do you now use a smartphone adapter for your iphone 11 ?

Thank you.

 

I have a sandmarc phone case with threads over the camera and a threaded adapter that connects the phone case right to the PVS14. It requires removing the eyecup retaining ring to connect. 

[Joko]

Last year I took 2 pictures with an old smartphone on a 40" telescope. The exposure was set to 2 seconds, I didn't control the gain or anything else. That was my only real experience with phonetography.

 

A few weeks ago I decided to experiment more and bought a new smartphone (Xiaomi 11 Ultra) and a few days ago I got an equatorial platform for my 16" Dobsonian telescope.

 

Last night was perfect to try out this new setup.

The pictures were taken through the NV binoviewer with my new smartphone and after adjusting the speed of the equatorial platform.

It is clearly perfectible but I am happy with these first pics.

You can recognize M27 (Dumbell nebula), NGC 7000 (North America) and NGC 6992/6995 (the Veil nebula). ISO at 50 and exposure at 8 and 10 seconds.

 

 

 

[Howard Fink]

Set up my 12.5" f/5 portaball on the roof.  I live on the upper west side of Manhattan, population density 150,000 per square mile.  Two thousand people live on each block.  

 

PVS-14 attached to 55mm televue converted to 67mm.  This was mounted in a homemade .7 focal reducer and a 6nm H-alpha filter. 

16.7x magnification and 2.4 degree field of view.  Mounted iphone in a frame; iphone was a bit too far from the  eyepiece, but still managed to get something.  Cropped out the Crescent nebula and converted to grayscale and adjusted levels in photoshop.  Used ReeXpose camera app; this might be a one second single frame exposure.  

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Edited by Howard Fink, 02 November 2022 - 10:33 PM.

[patindaytona]

Last year I took 2 pictures with an old smartphone on a 40" telescope. The exposure was set to 2 seconds, I didn't control the gain or anything else. That was my only real experience with phonetography.

 

A few weeks ago I decided to experiment more and bought a new smartphone (Xiaomi 11 Ultra) and a few days ago I got an equatorial platform for my 16" Dobsonian telescope.

 

Last night was perfect to try out this new setup.

The pictures were taken through the NV binoviewer with my new smartphone and after adjusting the speed of the equatorial platform.

It is clearly perfectible but I am happy with these first pics.

You can recognize M27 (Dumbell nebula), NGC 7000 (North America) and NGC 6992/6995 (the Veil nebula). ISO at 50 and exposure at 8 and 10 seconds.

 

312896076_854421542588544_3965350337584956650_n.jpg

312735373_2929680393992298_4803133253138698499_n.jpg

312706554_379342597657176_4036651727130480524_n.jpg

Those are nice pics. I wish I could do that quality. Can you give me advice on a equatorial platform for a 12" dob? I don't want to get myself in trouble buying a ton of things to find out it won't work well here since I also have bortle 7/8 skies. Are you doing alot of editting (stacking etc)?
 

[Joko]

Those are nice pics. I wish I could do that quality. Can you give me advice on a equatorial platform for a 12" dob? I don't want to get myself in trouble buying a ton of things to find out it won't work well here since I also have bortle 7/8 skies. Are you doing alot of editting (stacking etc)?
 

Hi Pat, 

There is no stacking in my pics. They are just one raw pic per target with ISO 50 and Expostion time 8 seconds (and 10 seconds for other pic).

With my phone i took pics in black and white instead of colour.

These are my first photos and I can do much better when I get used to taking photos.

 

My eq platform is from Dieter Martini, a manufacturer in Germany : https://www.dieterma...e/platform.html

Thanks to google I translated his website in French.

[havieair]

I usually don’t take NV pictures but wanted to show off at work the next day. These were taken from a bortle 4 site. Considering I don’t have tracking or goto I thought they came out pretty cool. 
 

Telescope: New Moon Telescope - 16" F/4
Filter: Baader H-alpha 7nm
iPhone 12 mini defaulting to I think a 3-second exposure. I mounted the phone to the lens with a Ulanzi phone case. 

Night Vision Device: Mod3C L3 Harris unfilmed white phosphor (mounted afocal to a Televue 67mm plossl)

 

 

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[GOLGO13]

I usually don’t take NV pictures but wanted to show off at work the next day. These were taken from a bortle 4 site. Considering I don’t have tracking or goto I thought they came out pretty cool.

Telescope: New Moon Telescope - 16" F/4
Filter: Baader H-alpha 7nm
iPhone 12 mini defaulting to I think a 3-second exposure. I mounted the phone to the lens with a Ulanzi phone case.
Night Vision Device: Mod3C L3 Harris unfilmed white phosphor (mounted afocal to a Televue 67mm plossl)

Really good

[Gavster]

In the last 12 months I’ve had a lot of fun with my night vision astro kit. Here’s a video montage of some of (I think!) my best phone pics. Most of them have an exposure time of 20-30 seconds and 100 or lower iso. Taken with a range of scopes from 92mm refractor to 16 inch dob.

 

https://youtu.be/ML_LYZmGado

Edited by Gavster, 31 January 2023 - 04:22 AM.

[Joko]

In the last 12 months I’ve had a lot of fun with my night vision astro kit. Here’s a video montage of some of (I think!) my best phone pics. Most of them have an exposure time of 20-30 seconds and 100 or lower iso. Taken with a range of scopes from 92mm refractor to 16 inch dob.

 

https://youtu.be/ML_LYZmGado

Still incredibe pics ! Congratulations for your work.

Edited by Joko, 31 January 2023 - 04:27 AM.

[Speedy1985]

M42 last night with my 12" dob, 20mm Stellarvue Optimus eyepiece, PVS-14, and 685nm IR filter. I really like how the different levels of bright and darker areas were captured in this one, even if the Trapezium is blown out.

 

[Joko]

Last week I received a Celestron Comet Catcher telescope. It's an 140mm F/3.6 Schmidt Newtonian manufactured in the 80's and my goal is to use it for visual observations at extremely wide field with my NV eyepieces. I also took some pics using the NVD in prime + Nebula Filter + Smartphone Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra. From an urban sky Bortle 7. Not the best pics in the world but i like them  
Horsehead Nebula (B33) 1 x 30 seconds raw exposure and ISO 500
Orion Nebula (M42) 1 x 30 seconds raw exposure and ISO 50
Flame Nebula (NGC2024) 1 x 30 seconds raw exposure and ISO 250
Rosette Nebula (NGC2237) 1 x 30 seconds raw exposure and ISO 500

 

[Celestro21]

One of my favorite. Pvs 14 with attached hydrogen alpha filter

 

Orion between the trees

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[Celestro21]

Elephant trunk nebula taken through c11, hydrogen alpha filter while attached to a pvs 14

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[Joko]

I've always been a visual observer and it's only my 5th night taking pics with NV. Since last week I start to play with the camera settings of my smartphone. It's better but there is a real loss in resolution while posting on CN.

I use a small Comet Catcher that you can see in my post : www.cloudynights.com/topic/864830-comet-catcher-mod-for-nv-use

Edited by Joko, 21 February 2023 - 03:08 AM.

[patindaytona]

Bortle 7 or so here. 12" dobsonian.

Iphone 12.  I agree that if you post pics from the iphone the quality goes way down. Not sure why though.

I tend to get to involved with taking pics rather than just appreicating live views. Need to start doing that more often.

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[GeezerGazer]

I have used NightCap with my iPhones for NV photos since 2018, but earlier this year, I became a beta tester for a new iPhone camera app called AstroShader (AS).  It is available in the App Store for free.  The developer has done a lot of work to create it and continues to make improvements, with 5 updates since last November.  Where NightCap averages multiple 1 second photos over a user-selected period of time, AS does the same, but then takes it a step further, by aligning and stacking multiple averaged images, automatically, within the app.  AS also has some powerful editing tools for processing the image on the phone.  Results are quite good, but take a little longer to produce than NightCap.  

 

Essentially, AS is an EAA app for phones, but is made much more powerful with NV.  Here are two image examples, both taken with NV in prime focus with my 8" f:4 Newt with a 2x Barlow lens element ahead of the NV sensor, making it an f:8 system, and iPhone 12 ProMax attached to the NV ocular.  For these two images, I used an ISO of 974, with a stack of 60 - 5s subs.  Processed in AS, cropped in Photos on the phone.  So all processing was done on the phone.  Original images were saved to PNG (with file size of ~25MB), processed and then saved as a JPEG (~2MB) to save space.  I also took photos of M81-82 and M65-66.  All came out quite good, requiring very little processing.  The images below were severely compressed to fit here and are each less than 50 KB, so much of the detail is lost to post here.  In the original PNG images, the dust lane in front of NGC 4565 is quite distinct with visible structure.  

 

The AS app isn't perfect... yet.  Stars are not always well aligned, resulting in some star bloat or elongation, but detail on complex structure is often revealed better than NightCap.  I still prefer NightCap for globulars, and I have yet to use AS with NV for nebulae, but that will come with summer nights.                                                                                                                                                                                               

Ray

 

NGC 4565 Needle galaxy

 

M51 Whirlpool galaxy

Edited by GeezerGazer, 19 April 2023 - 02:22 AM.

[Joko]

I have used NightCap with my iPhones for NV photos since 2018, but earlier this year, I became a beta tester for a new iPhone camera app called AstroShader (AS).  It is available in the App Store for free.  The developer has done a lot of work to create it and continues to make improvements, with 5 updates since last November.  Where NightCap averages multiple 1 second photos over a user-selected period of time, AS does the same, but then takes it a step further, by aligning and stacking multiple averaged images, automatically, within the app.  AS also has some powerful editing tools for processing the image on the phone.  Results are quite good, but take a little longer to produce than NightCap.  

 

Essentially, AS is an EAA app for phones, but is made much more powerful with NV.  Here are two image examples, both taken with NV in prime focus with my 8" f:4 Newt with a 2x Barlow lens element ahead of the NV sensor, making it an f:8 system, and iPhone 12 ProMax attached to the NV ocular.  For these two images, I used an ISO of 974, with a stack of 60 - 5s subs.  Processed in AS, cropped in Photos on the phone.  So all processing was done on the phone.  Original images were saved to PNG (with file size of ~25MB), processed and then saved as a JPEG (~2MB) to save space.  I also took photos of M81-82 and M65-66.  All came out quite good, requiring very little processing.  The images below were severely compressed to fit here and are each less than 50 KB, so much of the detail is lost to post here.  In the original PNG images, the dust lane in front of NGC 4565 is quite distinct with visible structure.  

 

The AS app isn't perfect... yet.  Stars are not always well aligned, resulting in some star bloat or elongation, but detail on complex structure is often revealed better than NightCap.  I still prefer NightCap for globulars, and I have yet to use AS with NV for nebulae, but that will come with summer nights.                                                                                                                                                                                               

Ray

Nice pics and the AS app is very promising.

[WheezyGod]

Yup I finally got it work as well. Can’t wait to try it again. It’s perfect for those of us with an untracked dob. I’m not going to bother posting pictures since CN reduces the quality somehow worse than my local astronomy club but you can get results that resemble and exceed what you can see live.

I plan to take 30sec low exposure photos of objects untracked to resemble and document what I can see with NV and then 30sec higher exposure photos.

It’s kind of an annoyance going from one object to the next visually and then with a mounted phone but I plan to devote most of each night to observing objects and then photograph some of the ones I observed visually.

Fixed the photos using an app Gavster recommended for resizing.

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Edited by WheezyGod, 25 April 2023 - 07:04 AM.

[a__l]

Use google drive. 15 GB free.

Your personal storage for any kind of files (text, video, photo, table etc) with the possibility of unlimited access to other users (if you allow access to a particular file).

Here it will be enough for you to give a link.

Edited by a__l, 24 April 2023 - 11:13 PM.

[WheezyGod]

Use google drive. 15 GB free.
Your personal storage for any kind of files (text, video, photo, table etc) with the possibility of unlimited access to other users (if you allow access to a particular file).
Here it will be enough for you to give a link.

Looks like it’s CN’s ability to resize photos that’s the problem. Used an app Gavster recommended and now things are better.

The first resembles what I see live without the giant artifact caused by changing the file type. The second is enhanced of course, the 3rd is very nearly how bright I see M53 with some darkening to the background sky.

Edited by WheezyGod, 25 April 2023 - 07:21 AM.

[lessrahkmin]

With my c11, 0.75x reducer and 55mm plossl (afocal) I really enjoy observing brighter galaxies. Here are some smartphone images of my favourites, 6 second exposures and unfiltered from an sqm 21 site.

Here are m51 (whirlpool), needle galaxy (with ngc4562 also visible), m81/82 and the Leo triplet (with lovely dark lane visible in the fainter third galaxy).

Gorgeous! I am very new to this and been looking around this forum.  So does it look like this at all if you don't stack or take longer exposures? I am trying to figure out what you'd would look like just through the eyepiece and NV device? 

[lessrahkmin]

I have used NightCap with my iPhones for NV photos since 2018, but earlier this year, I became a beta tester for a new iPhone camera app called AstroShader (AS).  It is available in the App Store for free.  The developer has done a lot of work to create it and continues to make improvements, with 5 updates since last November.  Where NightCap averages multiple 1 second photos over a user-selected period of time, AS does the same, but then takes it a step further, by aligning and stacking multiple averaged images, automatically, within the app.  AS also has some powerful editing tools for processing the image on the phone.  Results are quite good, but take a little longer to produce than NightCap.  

 

Essentially, AS is an EAA app for phones, but is made much more powerful with NV.  Here are two image examples, both taken with NV in prime focus with my 8" f:4 Newt with a 2x Barlow lens element ahead of the NV sensor, making it an f:8 system, and iPhone 12 ProMax attached to the NV ocular.  For these two images, I used an ISO of 974, with a stack of 60 - 5s subs.  Processed in AS, cropped in Photos on the phone.  So all processing was done on the phone.  Original images were saved to PNG (with file size of ~25MB), processed and then saved as a JPEG (~2MB) to save space.  I also took photos of M81-82 and M65-66.  All came out quite good, requiring very little processing.  The images below were severely compressed to fit here and are each less than 50 KB, so much of the detail is lost to post here.  In the original PNG images, the dust lane in front of NGC 4565 is quite distinct with visible structure.  

 

The AS app isn't perfect... yet.  Stars are not always well aligned, resulting in some star bloat or elongation, but detail on complex structure is often revealed better than NightCap.  I still prefer NightCap for globulars, and I have yet to use AS with NV for nebulae, but that will come with summer nights.                                                                                                                                                                                               

Ray

 

NGC 4565 Needle galaxy

IMG_9149.JPG

 

M51 Whirlpool galaxy

IMG_9001.jpeg

So what do these generally look like without stacking nor long exposures? Trying to get an idea of what they look like with just the NV device alone to your eye.  

[Mazerski]

less,

 

Here's a few photos with Mod 3 or PVS7 (white phosphor) with 8" or 12.5' scope. Phone used = iPhone 7, Exposure = 0 (I just take a photo), photo software used = none.

 

M104, M17, M22 (I think), M8 -- the actual view looks better with eye then with straight photo as many NV users will attest:

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[WheezyGod]

Gorgeous! I am very new to this and been looking around this forum. So does it look like this at all if you don't stack or take longer exposures? I am trying to figure out what you'd would look like just through the eyepiece and NV device?

The first and the last in my post are a good resemblance of what you’d see with a 10in dob with a 26mm equivalent eyepiece or in prime. The last is slightly brighter and is a 7.6mag globular cluster. M13, M5, M22 would have stars that are just as bright and larger.

Maz’s is also a good representation.

Keep in mind NV doesn’t give as much of a boost to galaxies, strong boost to globular clusters, and very strong boost to nebula.

Edited by WheezyGod, 19 May 2023 - 05:16 PM.