Wide Field Astro: Fujifilm XT-1

We recently spent a few nights at St Andrews Beach in Victoria Australia. This provided me with some nice dark skies to try out my new "wide field" technique.
My new Fujifilm camera has a low noise sensor, this allows me to use a fixed tripod instead of a tracking motor drive.  As field rotation is now in play, your exposure time is of course limited, I can use around 7 secs with a 28mm lens, probably more depending on where your camera is pointed, near or far from the Celestial pole. The nearer the pole the less rotational movement.

I was quite surprised how well this one turned out.

Eta Carina Nebula Approx 8000 light years away and 450 light years across.

Fuji XT-1 Camera. 12800 ASA. Noise reduction -2
38° 25' 45.5628'' S  144° 50' 44.3040'' E

Takumar 200mm f4.  15 x 2 second exposures. Stacked with Regim, Post Processed with "Gimp" . On a Fixed Tripod.
 Cropped and compressed.

Milky Way (part of it)

The big black thing in the foreground is a tree.

FujiFilm XT-1 and Pentax M 35mm f2.8 lens at f3.3 15 x 6 sec exposures .

Stacked in "Regim" post processed in "Gimp"  

Same settings as for 200mm above but at 25600 ASA. The stars begin to elongate sooner the further away from the celestial pole that you point your camera.

 M42 Nebula in Orion.

Wide Field Astro-Photography

For a couple of years now I've been dabbling in "Wide Field" Astro-photography.

What's all that about you might ask, quite simply it's taking pictures of the night sky without a telescope.

In Wide Field we use a Digital or Film Camera and generally a "Normal" or "Wide Angle" lens.
We then take multiple exposures of the same area of sky and using freely available software use a technique known as "stacking" to generate an image of lower noise and higher clarity.

With the camera I had, I also needed a motorised "Equatorial" Mount, which you would also need if you used a film camera.
Once you point a camera at the night sky and take a few long exposures you realise how fast the Earth is spinning, 1670 km/h or 0.5 km/sec at the equator,  you need to compensate for this rotation with your mount.
As the sensitivity of my camera was not very high, I needed to take exposures of around 40 seconds for each frame, this adds considerable complexity to the whole process.

You Need

1. Somewhere away from city lights, so you may need to use batteries for everything.
2. A motorised EQ mount correctly aligned, pain in the backside.
3. An external power source for the camera, as the camera will chew through batteries in no time.
4. Most likely a programmable remote trigger for the camera, so you can set it and walk away.
5. A computer with free stacking and image editing software, the easy bit.

Big note: If you have a modern high ISO camera you don't need much at all.

I'm very happy to say I now have a new camera, a Fujifilm XT-1 which has a very sensitive and sharp sensor, also a built in exposure timer, and the list goes on.
Through the use of an adaptor I'm still using my collection of excellent vintage Pentax Prime lenses. I cannot speak highly enough of this camera. More on this camera soon.

In most cases I can now get away with just the camera, a tripod and a few spare batteries, making it a lot easier when I come across some dark skies.


This is an old picture of my home made mount. The camera is my old trusty Pentax fitted with a Pentax M 135mm f3.5 telephoto.
The Aluminium box contains a 6.5v regulator to power the camera and stepper motor driver and oscillator electronics to make it all go. It all runs off a 12volt gel cell battery.
The "Sector Drive" as they are sometimes known, is mounted on a modified "Meade" Tripod.

The example below was taken in Beechworth, Vic, Australia.
36° 21' 49.4820'' S   146° 40' 43.6872'' E
Southern Cross and Eta Carina Nebula NGC 3372

 Using a Pentax K100d Super and a Pentax K 50mm f1.4 @ f2.8  400asa 20 x 40 sec exposures

 On my home made EQ mount. Stacked with "DeepSkyStacker"

Below was taken at Pt Lonsdale, Vic Australia. 

Southern Cross and Eta Carinae Nebula
You will notice the stars look elongated at the edges of the image, this is caused by Lens "Coma" I have yet to use a lens wide open that doesn’t  exibit some amount, it would have been gone at f 2.8.

Pentax M 50mm F1.4 @ f2 400asa 40 sec 10 exposures

The picture following is an example of very bad coma. This may not be representative of this model lens.

An example of very bad "coma" 35mm f2 Takumar @ f2

The following is a composite of 5 images from Lady Elliot island. On the night I remember the view was in fact rotated 90 degrees to the right, or from the Horizon to the Zenith. It's a very big picture heavily compressed for web viewing,  Same setup as above, but 800asa 20 second exposures. The bright cluster just in the top corner of the topmost frame, is Omega Centauri NGC 5139 about 10 million stars and 15,800 light years away. A "light year" is the distance travelled by light in a year, or  9.4605284 × 10 to power of 12  kilometers.

Lady Elliot Island

24° 6' 55.6236'' S   152° 42' 56.5992'' E

The image below is my first impromptu attempt at using just the XT-1 camera and tripod.
It's quite heavily compressed for web viewing.
Still playing around with camera settings, but you get the idea. More to follow.

This one is taken at Walhalla Vic Australia (Very Dark)

with the Fuji XT-1 Pentax K 28mm f3.5

 6 x 5 sec exposures at 12800 ASA stacked with DeepSkyStacker

Its summer now, so time to look at "Orion". This is know as M42 a nebular in Orion.
The following is taken from our back garden in Melbourne Australia. Light pollution is 

A big problem at this location.

 Takumar 200mm f 4 lens on my wonderful Fuji XT-1. 
15 x 1 sec exposures at 12800asa at f4. on a fixed tripod. stacked using

Regim a Java based Astro Program

Followed up with some Wavelet Noise reduction in "Gimp"

When the Moon's so bright it spoils things for you, take a picture of it.
  

Fuji XT-1 200mm Takumar. 200 ASA. f8. 1/170 sec Cropped

Guitar Modifications, Reversed

Like a lot of my experiments, they sometimes end up back where they started, but that's OK "nothing ventured nothing gained"

My Ibanez guitar has had all its "mods" removed and is back to original, with the exception
of a set of Acoustic strings .011-.052 sounds great.
Even the distortion pedal is back to normal, well sort off, where ever it ended up in terms of mods I don't really know, so I have probably missed some, but is sounds nice.