Cinematography, photography & astrophotography
It seems that the new season comes quickly. A few days ago my observatory was covered with a 50cm layer of ice and show. Right now as it became more accessible I enjoy taking the first pictures since autumn. I decided to try to catch the quickly escaping Orion constellation and pointed towards the Horsehead and Flame nebula.
It seems that the new season comes quickly. A few days ago my observatory was covered with a 50cm layer of ice and show.
Altummundi observatory in wintertime
Right now as it became more accessible I enjoy taking the first pictures since autumn. I decided to try to catch the quickly escaping Orion constellation and pointed towards the Horsehead and Flame nebula. The image below was captured during 2 nights on 2010/02/25 and 2010/02/27, giving a total of 4.5h exposure in H-alpha band. It will not be easy to catch color for this image this year. QSI Imaging gave me a very favorable present this birthday with their new QSI 583 WSG firmware update, which allows me to reduce focusing time more than 3 times (50sec instead of almost 3 minutes).
Horse Head and Flame nebula in H-alpha
Let me update you on my Timelapse equipment that I am completing at the moment. I have recently got a new motorized head for my timelapse work. The new Meade DS2000 based timelapse setup is missing only a dolly right now and some more lenses. The new Sigma 20mm 1.8 is on its way and I’ll be able to get it on monday! The new Samyang 14mm F2.8 is also coming and I look forward to get it as soon as it is released. And about the dolly – I designed with a modular approach, it will be made of 3 parts, each of them 1.5m long. The dolly is based on a lightweight aluminium truss and will be driven by Meade 494 controller and motors taken from my old DS80 mount. So I need to wait for the parts to come.
The power issues seems to be finally solved. The whole rig is powered by a portable 12V/12Ah gel accu and my 5DMKII is powered using a custom made adapter and a canon BP-970 battery. This is a lightweight and highly portable solution givin me more than 7500 mAh of power. Enough for long tiemlapses I hope. As a backup I am also planning on building a custom 12V»7.4V stabilized power adapter to be able to power up 5D right from the accu.
At last, let me share some shots on my observatory working. These were done mainly yesterday, I used also some older stuff. These are rough drafts just to check how the DS2000 and portable power performs. I think I understand how to avoid jerky playback, but still need to understand programming speed a bit more. Please
Altummundi Observatory – February update from Patryk Kizny on Vimeo.
