Orion's Belt and Sword

Orion's Belt and Sword
Originally uploaded by cyber-photography

My first attempt with my Haig mount. I've got to cut that altitude rod so I can lower the sidereal platform down as I am at my limit on the threaded rod. You can see a double image where the board which is resting on the altitude rod takes a bit for the load to transfer to the sidereal knob. Once the load transfers it seems to do a good job. I need to head to some dark skies now as 30" is my max exposure time in the city lights. :(

Comet Holmes

30" exposure at f2.4 w/ 70mm lens.
Color overlay on high contrast black and white layer.

More photos in the full article.

Taken on a very cheap tripod from my local "mart" store.

I think it's time to make a scotch/haig/barn-door mount if I want to produce better quality images.

Star Trails

I decided at the last minute to go outside and at least look at the sky.

I decided I would try out the multi-exposure mode and took this shot which I had to butcher in post to get the tree a natural color.


In camera multi-exposure consisting of 9 30 second exposures at f2.4. This is not just a long exposure, it is a multi exposure consisting of 9 frames.

Pentax K10D with 70mm f2.4 Limited. Auto EV compensation turned on.

Color corrected as best I could in photoshop.

I'm going to shoot some of these from some darker skies this winter. This was taken from my back yard with several street lights and house lights providing a lot of pollution. Correcting for sodium lights was a pain which threw off the star colors. But I like the results.