Holmes and a few startrails.

I was on the way home from a friends house last night
and when I got clear of the city I realized the sky was totally clear
and very dark.
About halfway between Limerick City and Bunratty I
turned off the dual carriageway onto a by road to see what the conditions
were like.

Turned out it was pretty damn good.




I was on the points of jumping back into the jeep and heading
down to the coast but, just to be safe I checked the latest satelite
images form www.metoffice.gov.uk/satpics/latest_IR.html
on my phone.
Glad I did, it showed a band of cloud about an hour away.

Anyway, as luck would have it I had my camera gear & binos
in the jeep still from last week.
So I set up and took a few star trail shots while taking advantage of the
good conditions with the binos.





Along with some of the fainter objects the best were
as usual, M42, Pleiadies, Double in Perseus & The Beehive.
I really like to just plain old 'star gaze' a lot of the time,
so while the camera was recording the trails I leaned back against
the bonnet of the Jeep (more for heat than stability, it was -2!)
The Milky Way was very obvious and almost looked like a cloud.
(I've a lot of shots to sift through to process, handy for those cloudy nights)
Saw 2 meteors but strangely enough I didn't see one satellite!?
Even on the 90 odd shots I took, none had any satellite trails!?



By the time I got home an hour or so later the rain came in.

Frank,

Those are wonderful images. I particularly like the first two showing the trees as an interesting contrast with the sky backround. The beautiful green tree foreground with the deeper dark blue sky.

1. What exposures were they?
2. What magnitude threhhold of stars could you achieve in a dark sky if you were using sidearal tracking. eg,The Burren?

Eamonn A

MPC J62
www.kingslandobservatory.com

The first image is just fantastic, I love shots like that which show the sky and the landscape.

Don't suppose you have the gorey technical details for htat shot?

Bart.

Thanks .

They were a bit rushed so with better
planning I reckon I could have selected more interesting foregrounds.
(My first time at that particular site)

The details are;
Image 1 - Tv 30s, Av 4.0, ISO - 1600, FL 18mm.
Image 2 - Tv 332s, Av 6.3, ISO - 400, FL 18mm.
Image 3 - Tv 1043, Av 10.0, ISO - 100, FL 18mm.

All three were put thru the ringers in Photoshop to get rid of the LP.
(something I didn't notice the much from the site but I guess the camera never lies!)

As for what mag stars is achievable from the likes of the Burren,
I'd have to say I honestly don't know.

I plan on shooting the upcoming Lunar Eclipse from the Dolmin site
so I guess I'll be in a better position to answer that by the end of the month.
(Weather permitting!)

Battery issues prevent me from mounting the camera piggyback on the ETX but I will be getting an Astrotrac in March and so I guess
the best place to test it out is there.
(Or Kieth G's back garden! )

The details are;
Image 1 - Tv 30s, Av 4.0, ISO - 1600, FL 18mm.

the only thing I can make sense of these if ISO and FL, that's Tv and Av?

Bart.

Hey Bart you may like these two if you are into landscape and sky images i took them a few nights ago at Loughcrew Co Meath.


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