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Re: [OM] Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2016

Subject: Re: [OM] Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2016
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:31:09 -0700
On 9/23/2016 6:34 AM, Ralf Loi wrote:
<<
Wow. Every time I consider playing with astrophotography, I see stuff like
this, and think maybe not. I know that my results will be disappointing
compared to what I'm used to seeing, especially the beauty that has come
from Hubble.

Yes and no. You'll proud of what you can accomplish, given you need
at least a dark sky,

Not necessarily:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On 8/12/2016 3:04 PM, Moose wrote:
On 8/12/2016 12:00 PM, Lawrence Woods wrote:
. . .  I was in my backyard 14 miles NW of Boston MA, a few hundred feet from a 
well-lit main road.
I used a 12-40 f/2.8 m.Zuiko set to 2.8 and 12mm on an E-M5, original mark I model. I had the camera on a tripod, used the 2-second anti-shock shutter delay, manual exposure mode, and had image stabilization turned off. The light pollution was so severe that to maintain any semblance of a dark sky over a 20 second exposure, I had to crank the ISO down to 200.

This is an example of what I got: 
http://zone-10.com/tope2/main.php?g2_itemId=20573
Lowering the ISO took its toll.  The meteor trail to my eye was brighter than 
an ember in a fireworks display.
These pictures have no post-processing. I'm probably doing something wrong, but when I tried to darken the sky, the stars and trails got dimmer as well.

He did say that post-processing is necessary. Then he says he uses LR, which is probably why he needs to get so far from urban light and still has ambient light in his images. (He is not as expert as he might be. Look at the big halos around the trees in his fisheye example.)

Getting what I think you want is fairly straightforward in PS. <http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/Others/Woods/perseid_2016.htm>

The first three steps are to take care of the light pollution.

- Before doing any of this kind of stuff to a JPEG, convert to 16 bit.

1. Levels to kill the low level light. That also loses the meteorite, but wait 
. . .
2. Different use of Levels to bring out the lights in the sky.
3. A graduated mask over 2. Shows the best of both. (See, I don't know if this 
is advanced PS. It's darn simple.)
4. Raise Brightness to really bring up the Meteorite. Next step takes care of 
background.
5. Use Select Color to select all the dark stuff, invert the selection and 
apply as a mask.

Voila! Bright stars and meteorite in a velvet black sky. :-)

It's interesting how spending a lot of $ on hardware and a lot of time/money on travel to an area with little light pollution all makes sense, but spending much less on the right post tool and a little time learning how to use it for the purpose seems like too many $ and too much trouble. Can't have taken me ten minutes to eliminate the light pollution and perk up the little lights. Longer to explain and illustrate what I did, though.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

and patience - lot of :-)

Yup

Post Processed Light Moose

--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
--
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