M57

When a star explodes , all material will be pushed away around that star . Next image is the result of such an event , a star exploded and around the star is still a “ring” ( in fact a kind of shield around ) visible . Next image taken with a C8 , no filters , no barlows . I must admit focussing was not at its best :p   The ring nebula M57 is easy to find and now at midnight almost right above your head .

Macro

A sunny day over here , awesome ! A day off and in between I grabbed my camera and for this case I attached the kitlens @ 50mm + macro extension tube 21 mm . I felt like a bug between the grass with my camera on my knees   But the result is nice , I like all those little creeps , but patience is and will be the keyword .

[ click on image to enlarge in full resolution ]

Wonderful catch

Another Dragonfly , this nymphe ( on Dutch : Platbuik ) just came out of the water and the Dragonfly came out of it . It took a while till the chitine hardens a bit , so it could fly .

By the way : pictures taken with standard kitlens !

Timer interval shooting —– timelapse photography

Sunrise , never saw those nice movies , the sun comes up quickly , clouds are running across the screen and it all takes a couple of minutes . Canon DSLR has one disadvantage : timer interval shooting is not possible with the “naked” camera . What you can do is buying a intervalometer . This toy is able to release the shutter for a certain time and between the shots you can also determine how long this time should be .

Another solution is using the EOS utility . But in this case the camera must stay connected to the compu or laptop . So , startup EOS Utilities ( same as what’s described in remote shooting ) and a remote shooting window will open .

EOS Utility shooting menu window

click on the interval timer . Now you are able to control the camera remotely and also you can set the time between the shots and a delay .

interval shooting menu

Because I am interested in this kind of photography I did the following : delay 00:00 seconds , interval time 30 seconds and 300 shots . I pointed the camera ( on a tripod !!! ) to the overcasted sky and started the session . Because it was a tryout I took the pictures in the lowest resolution and after all shots were taken and stored in a folder , I combined all images to a movie with makeAVI , a small free program . After this , I compressed the movie from 300Mb down to 190 Mb , to make uploads to the web faster . And it works !!! Well , I have to adjust some things ( compression , software ) , but my next goal is make a movie with 20 seconds exposures from the nightsky . Then , satellite and aircraft trials will be visible , even meteors and the movement of the stars . Wonderful .

Another gimmick I saw on the web : place your camera on a rail and slide the camera ( by hand or with stepper drive ) some centimeters between the shots . Make sure there is an object nearby on the pictures and you will get a kind of 3d effect : the foreground object is moving faster compared with the background . Awesome !

Closeup

Nearby the little pond in the garden I took this shot of a medium format spider . Searching the web I found out it is a wolf spider , quit common in this area , but as lots of discoveries last years , who is aware of all the insects around us ? Since I am imaging those little creeps , it feels always like a little discovery …

The wulf spider is a hunter . Males should be careful : if they don’t offer a little present ( a coccooned insect ) for the nice lady , she is pissed off and he will be eaten instead of the little present ……. God bless humans are different   Female also carry the eggs with them in a little coccoon and even when the little spiders are “born” they will stay for a while with mammie . There are almost 3000 kinds of this spider . Above image was taken with the standard kitlens , ISO 160 , 1/80 seconds . Beauty of nature !

Celestron C8 SCT

SCT stands for Schmit Cassegrain Telescope . It means the light comes in through a corrector plate , which closes the optical tube for dust and corrects the shortcomings of the primary mirror . Then the light is reflected by the primary mirror , an 8 inch parabolic mirror . The reflected light will now be reflected by a small mirror , which is mounted in the centre of the corrector plate and finally this reflected leaves the optical tube trough a “hole” in the back , were an eyepiece is mounted for viewing . As you see , the light path is folded an the 2 meters of focal lenght is now in an optical tube of approx 50 cm long . Wonderful . I own this “workhorse” for almost ten years now and to be honest : optically is this a good compromise between costs , dimensions , performance and magnification .

But , there is a but ….. with this design , focussing is done by moving the primary mirror forward or backwards . The sketch below explains it better ( just click on it ) :

And due to this design , the focus knob is attached to a screw , which moves the mirror . Not nice is during focussing there is almost always a “mirror shift” . Moving the mirror forward it’s ok , but when you move the mirror back again , it “drops” for some mm and ….. this wil kill your good focussing : you have to redo the hole ten miles again . Another point : turning the focus knob causes sometimes vibrations , but that is now not so terrible with the new sturdy mount I have now (NEQ6) .

I found an interesting website about this : http://jan.eaglecreekobservatory.org/focuser.html , but for myself I have already ordered another solution : set the mirror back and attach an optional focusser at the SCT thread at the back of the optical tube . Gives also good fine adjustment , and that’s what I want , especially for imaging !

Dragonfly , the last stadium

It just came out of the water this morning and I had the luck I just saw it . The little one crawls out of the former “skin” and is drying in the sunshine . The last stage .