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Re: [OM] Astrophotography

Subject: Re: [OM] Astrophotography
From: Grant <GB1029@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 01:39:04 -0500

Hi Chris,

The moon rises approx 1 hr later than the previous evening.

I just returned from attempting some meteor shots.
It was a bit muggy & cloudy though.  I did spot 3-4
faint streaks across the sky in a 15 min period (through some thick haze).
Here's a good meteor calender page that should help you
hunt down some showers.  Take note of the expected peak
dates for the showers (Maximum).  This is the date when you should
see the most meteors in any given period of time.
http://comets.amsmeteors.org/meteors/calendar.html

As far as catching some on film:
As Michael said, you should stop your
lens down a bit.  Usually 1-2 stops will do.
Also, because a meteor is moving fast, the film emulsion
will very quickly be exposed to the meteor. Therefore, you might want to try some med-fast film. This will of course also help compensate for stopping the lens down. Or... you could always go the other way with it. Throw in some 100 spd, open the lens up, and deal
with a bit of vignetting and distortion.  Working a f ratios less than
f/4 should definitely snag some meteors.

Here's my thoughts on a couple zuiko's:
My 28/2.8 performs pretty well stopped down
1 stop.  Even wide open is acceptable.
A 50/1.8 does an excellent job stopped down 1-2 stops.
The stars are near pinpoints all the way out to the edge of
the frame.  One lens I do NOT recommend, is the 50/1.4.
Yeh, its fast...and sharp. But with star like pinpoints... Even stopped down to f/4,
the stars appear distorted toward the edge of the frame.  Try it if you like,
as different versions of the 1.4 may perform better.  Oh and.. max exposure
time will vary considerably depending on how dark your skies are.
If your skies are dark, you may be able to expose long enough to catch lots
of meteors in 1 shot!  Well, that was a mouthful!  Good luck!  You'll find
shooting meteors and star trails is awfully addictive.

Grant





At 11:33 PM 8/11/01 -0600, you wrote:
Interesting!  We went-out the last time there were meteor showers (was
it January???), and saw a few but didn't get any pictures.  Maybe we
should try again!

Uhhh....  is there a way to find-out when the moon sets in one's locale?
I checked our local paper, and didn't see anything.  Is there a web site
somewhere with this info?

Thanks!

Chris


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