The Stars at Night

[MarkBarbieri]

They may be big and bright deep in the heart of Texas, but they were also very lovely here in Colorado last night. We went into Rockie Mountain National Park to do a little star gazing. It was an almost perfectly clear, moonless night. We saw the Milky Way, satellites, and shooting stars. I took a few shots, but I'm way out of practice with star shooting.

Taken at twilight. 15mm fisheye, f/2.8, ISO 1600, 10 seconds.
http://photos.barbierifamily.org/photos/966203672_gacSY-L.jpg

A view of the Milky Way. The horizon light is not the sunset. It is light from the nearby town of Estes Park. 15mm fisheye, ISO 3200, f/2.8, 81 seconds.
http://photos.barbierifamily.org/photos/966203738_Hwofk-L.jpg

Shooting star. 15mm fisheye, ISO 1600, f/2.8, 72 seconds. Cropped.
http://photos.barbierifamily.org/photos/966203789_vSsbb-L.jpg

The Milky Way. 85mm, ISO 1600, f/1.2, 10 seconds.
http://photos.barbierifamily.org/photos/966203837_JaM9Q-L.jpg

[campinggal]

Ahhh...nothing like some Barbieri photos to get one out of "lurkdom"!

:thumbsup2 Nice job- especially the Estes Park/fish eye one and the shooting star one. Made me feel like I was in a planetarium!

[bdtracey]

GORGEOUS! I've been wanting to get out and do some night shooting myself lately but it's been cloudy every single night here.

[photo_chick]

Nice!

I don't see much of the stars here. I'm too close to Dallas.

[Marlton Mom]

Ack, ack, ack!!! I'm so jealous. :upsidedow

At midnight last night my son and I took a ride to some open space in Medford NJ to see the Persiods but it was still too light polluted to see the shooting stars. It didn't help that at that hour they were still kinda low on the horizon, right where the lights reflect up the most. We'll probably try again tonight.

Thursday at 8pm is supposed to be the peak as far as volume is concerned but they really recommend viewing at 2am, low on the north eastern horizon. It's supposed to be crappy here with cloud cover then so go figure! Last year it was the bright moon... Ack! Ack, Ack!!!!!

If you never hear from me again the Jersey Devil got me. He used to be popular before the Vampire and Zombie Craze hit. He's probably got a publicist working to buff his profile so his victim count needs an uptick.

My best ever star viewing was when DH and I went to Duck N.C. in September (years ago) and I saw the milky way for the first time. Truly awe inspiring!

:magnify:

Marlton Mom

[princess-lola]

Those are some beautiful shots!! :cloud9:

[RBennett]

Ok, so dumb question: how do you find the Milky Way? If we live in the Milky Way, wouldn't any stars you see (more than likely) fit the bill? I mean I LOVE that shot Mark, but from someone that is wanting to try this out soon I would love to know the difference! :thumbsup2

[MarkBarbieri]

You are right that pretty much everything you see is part of the Milky Way.

Think of the galaxy is a large, relatively flat spiral shaped disk. We live out on one of the spiral arms. When you look at the sky on a really dark and clear night, you'll see a band across the sky that looks almost "milky" white, almost like a cloud. That is the main portion of the galaxy. You are looking from our place out near the edge of the disk back towards the middle. It has so many stars that they blend together.

[RBennett]

:idea:

[Shutterbug]

great pics. last time I was at place where I could see so many stars was Telluride about 3 years. Unfortunately I did not have a camera at the time capable to capture it.

How do you set your focus point? Manually set it to infinity? On my Tamron 17-50mm I have found that to get clear stars I have to set it just short of infinity.

[MarkBarbieri]

I used manual focus and judged focus in Live View using 10x magnification. When I have a tripod and time, that is my preferred focus method.

You can't really focus based on barrel markings because they aren't accurate enough. That's not a knock on any lens maker. I've been told that infinity focus tends to change as your glass temperature changes.

Before I had LiveView, I would try to get the AF to lock onto the horizon, the moon, a planet, or even a star. That would often work. Once you had a lock you were good until you bumped the lens.