2. Night Sky

Sky at Night

Look into the night sky and you look back in time. The sky at night is a vastness beyond comprehension, full of celestial objects like galaxies, stars, planets and the Moon. Gaze into a clear night sky and you get drawn into another world, a world as it was in the past. In this collection I am sharing my favourite night sky images and collections. All have been photographed in a natural environment and are real images. Many of my images tell a story, whether the subject matter or process of composition.
All photos captured with OM System.
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    StarTrail, Dec 9/10 th 2013. Star trail shot with the Olympus E-M1 & 12mm prime (post firmware update). 2-3hrs of 10s exposures shot continuous (no in-camera noise reduction dark frame subtraction), F2.0 ISO 250. 4.5 hrs from a single battery (BLN-1) shooting continuous which is excellent. Approx 1000 No exposures combined with stacking software (StarStax) to produce the final composite showing Earths spin through the stars. How did I capture it? - Camera on tripod with setting above. Manual focus set to infinity I framed the tree ensuring polaris (north star) around which all other stars spin was located at top right of trees. The first shot was captured/exposed through the lcd screen and then using the remote cable (set to lock) and turning off lcd (maximise battery) I depressed shutter. This allowed the camera to shoot continuous for many hours (until the battery died). The trees were paint lit by simply shining a strong torch for a few seconds. To prevent the lens from fogging/dew forming I strapped my DIY dew shield around the lens (Zippo hand warmer). Once the camera battery had died I transferred all images (High res JPEG) to MAC and imported/stacked in StarStax software. Plane trails removed using Pixelmator software. Voila :-)
    Festive StarTrail, Dec 4th 2013. First star trail shot with the Olympus E-M1 & 12mm prime (post firmware update). Just over 4hrs of 10s exposures shot continuous (no in-camera noise reduction dark frame subtraction), F2.0 ISO 250. 4.5 hrs from a single battery (BLN-1) shooting continuous which is excellent. Approx 1400 No exposures combined with stacking software (StarStax) to produce the final composite showing Earths spin through the stars. Must say I'm very impressed with the low light/noise quality of the image.Yes it's only 10s and ISO 250 but no noise reduction and very clean. I'd say leaps better than E5 and on a par with E-M5 compared to similar images taken with both. The hardest work on this image was removing the plane trails.... How did I capture it? - Camera on tripod with setting above. Manual focus set to infinity I framed the property (my home) knowing the polaris (north star) around which all other stars spin was located above roof far right. The first shot was captured/exposed through the lcd screen and then using the remote cable (set to lock) and turning off lcd (maximise battery) I depressed shutter. This allowed the camera to shoot continuous all night (at least until the battery died). To prevent the lens from fogging/dew forming I strapped my DIY dew shield around the lens (Zippo hand warmer). Once the camera battery had died I transferred all images (High res JPEG) to MAC and imported/stacked in StarStax software. Plane trail removed using Pixelmator software. Voila :-)
    16 Oct 2013. iss flyby 1920 hrs. Composite image of very bright pass. Iridium flare chucked in for good measure :-)