Testing our skies

I was out last night till 2am taking images with a Canon 300D (thanks Jouke) hoping to catch a few meteors. I had the camera set up at ISO1600 and tracking perfectly on a mount. I just checked the images and what a blow out they are. I had the F ratio set way to high and did not even know it(NO USER MANUAL.....THANKS JOUKE :lol: )
Anyway, I was thinking as a test of all our observation sites we could have a mini challange. All with a digital camera (Hi Seanie) could take say 10x30 second exposures at ISO 800 F5.5, stack them and with no processing then post them to compare the results. Target Cygnus.

OK I'm bored but it would still be interesting to see what comes up.

I know what would happen me. Light pollution would wash everything out! Mind you ... I really do need to figure out how to do infinite exposures on my Nikon D40. Now where did I put that manual .....

I know what would happen me. Light pollution would wash everything out! Mind you ... I really do need to figure out how to do infinite exposures on my Nikon D40. Now where did I put that manual .....

We could take all the images and do some photometry on them to work out the limiting mag and produce a light pollution map of our own.

Just looked at the IFAS club map. We are missing a quarter of the country. No clubs in the Sligo/Donegal region?

I was thinking as a test of all our observation sites we could have a mini challange. All with a digital camera (Hi Seanie) could take say 10x30 second exposures at ISO 800 F5.5, stack them and with no processing then post them to compare the results. Target Cygnus.

OK I'm bored but it would still be interesting to see what comes up.

I can tell you now what would come up,.... alot of pictures of clouds!

There was an article in Kiss&Tel a few months ago about how to do exactly this. The author gave some details of how to harmonise the data from different cameras with different sensitivities. I'll see if I can find it if you like.

Phil.