The Galactic Core of our galaxy is at the very bottom center of this image. Captured from some of the darkest skies in the SE USA at Shired Island, Florida. This image is 4 x 30s ISO1600 f/3.5 using a Canon 6Da tracked with an iOptron SkyGuider Pro.
The Galactic Core of our galaxy is at the very bottom center of this image. Captured from some of the darkest skies in the SE USA at Shired Island, Florida. This image is 4 x 30s ISO1600 f/3.5 using a Canon 6Da tracked with an iOptron SkyGuider Pro.
Incredible
I hope one day to make such a good photo
Thank you!
awesome, many thanks! I'm now going into my 4th year doing astro photography and just made a beautiful 13x20 print of this. AP brought me into portraits / daytime photography and helped me launch my photo business. Crazy way to start, I think I went backwards from the normal process.
Wow. I live in central Florida and had no idea this was possible in FL. I looked up that location and it's only a 2-hour drive from my home.
Yes I have camped / slept in my car at many different places in Florida and found this to be the ultimate spot. $7/night with power and restrooms. Keep it a secret!!
Big Cypress S of Naples is also excellent as is Flamingo at the SW tip of Florida, but beware pythons, crocodiles, panthers and insane mosquitoes there.
Did you see the 150 degree high resolution pano I made the same night?
I had a blast on January 3 and 6th going down to the Everglades on a New Moon to take shots. It was a first attempt and honestly I didn't get the results I wanted, but practice makes perfect. Now I have a nice 10mm lens to try for next time and hopefully I'll get the shot I want. On the 3rd we got to a destination only to find the camera foot for my tripod was...still at home. 3 nights later we tried again. Much better results but shooting on a D3400 means I don't have the sensor to pull it off.
I have my raw files to try and get the best of what was shot and you can see the milky way but not like in this shot.
Chris you live in TX? I have wanted to go to Marathon... there is an astro motel there with pads. SUPER dark, Milky Way in 3D to the unaided eye!
I'm in Texas, New York, Chicago and So Florida. If you go out to Marfa, you'll have a blast taking photos. Go out to the Chisos mountains and lose yourself in awesomeness. I use the dark sky app and love seeing the pure grey areas of Texas on the map for miles and miles.
I did see the pano!
I’ve been to Flamingo for late afternoon photography and yes, the mosquitoes are INSANE. I think they actually like the flavor of bug spray.
Nice! Do you have any advice on how to setup and use the iOptron polar scope? I tried using it for the first time and I thought it was really difficult. When I look through it, I see a few stars and cant tell which one is Polaris. And its really hard to see the stars also, because the red reticle is brighter than the stars. To make matters worse, trying to move the reticle into position (up-down, left-right) is really hard.
Yes, this is my routine.
30 min after sunset only the brightest stars (Vega, Deneb, Altair, Capella, Polaris) will be visible and because of this it will be easier to spot Polaris. You can use an app like SkySafari to see what the sky should look like NW to NE at your location and time. The Big Dipper and or Cassiopia may be visible, Polaris will be between the two. It’s really easy if the Big Dipper is visible as it points right at Polaris.
Set altitude on the wedge to your current latitude, which you can find in the iOptron polar scope app. This should be ballpark, but you may still need to raise or lower the altitude a bit.
Next I balance the camera and lens on the SGPro, and rotate the RA upside down so the polar scope turns on. I use medium brightness setting, you can change it up or down with the arrows.
Here is the important part. Put Polaris all the way on the edge of the horizontal axis, then move it all the way to the other side. Do you want Polaris to track straight across that horizontal line and not be above or below it on the other side. If it is then slightly rotate your RA to correct it. You can also focus the polar scope by rotating the end of it, it should be very sharp and not fuzzy. Good luck!
The horizontal line from 3 o’clock to 9 o’clock extends much further out in each direction on the polar scope. Put Polaris at the outer edge of this line and move all the way back and forth to make sure you have the polar scope perfectly centered in the SGPro.