Astrophotography: Melbourne, Australia, My Back Yard

Light Pollution limits what you can do in the city, but it's worth having a go.
It's been clear most nights in Melbourne recently, time to do just that.

The first pic "M42 Nebular" in "Orion" is a "stack" of just 4 shots.
I had no real plan, so the exposure time for each shot varies from 8 sec to 20 sec, my stacking technique ignores exposure time, so no problem there.

I used my recently modified and untested (I made it smaller) "Sector Drive" mount, which I can now say works quite well.

Taken with a fuji XT1 at 3200asa through a Pentax M 135mm f3.5 lens at f4.
Looking at the bright star toward the top of the picture tells us this lens is "stopped down" and has an 8 blade iris.

I've been out most nights trying different targets and different lenses, the following images are the result.

Orion Nebula M42 Fuji XT1 Pentax 135mm f3.5 at f4, Cropped

Takumar 200mm f5.6 6400asa 8 sec single image.
 M42 going down over next doors nectarine tree.
 Clouds began rolling in, time to come inside.

"Eta Carinae Nebula"and the"Southern Pleiades" 
Pentax M 135mm 10sec 10 stack f4 Fuji XT1.

I've just received and repaired a Carl Zeiss Jena 135mm f3.5 M42 lens.

This is a great lens and I intend to do a detailed review soon. For the moment, here is a quickly put together Astro picture from last night. 

ETA Carinae Nebula Carl Zeiss Jena 135mm at f4.8 6400asa 10sec stack of 9 Fuji XT1.Cropped
8th March 2017 10:00pm

As you can see below, a longer lens (Tak 200mm) and a tighter crop really does help.
All my images are "stacked" on a Mac and post processed on the Mac using "Gimp" or "Rawtherapee" both free and available for Mac.

The aligning and stacking is done using some "command line" tools included with the application "Hugin" Panorama Creator.

"Eta Carinae" 200mm Takumar at f5.6 6400 asa 8 sec exposure stack of 11images, Cropped. Fuji Xt1

"ETA Carina Nebular" 300mm Takumar @f4.8 6400asa 15sec. stack of 11 shots Cropped.
Post processed in "RawTherappee"
Sat 15th April 2017 10:23pm

"Omega Centauri"  NGC 5139 .Takumar 200mm f5.6 3sec 12800asa stack of 5 images,
 cropped. This Globular Cluster consists of about 10,000,000 stars. 
I's quite hard to find from our back yard, but perseverance paid off.

"Jewel Box" Star Cluster. This is very close to the Southern Cross and not too hard to find.
Takumar 200mm f 5.6 lens. 6.5sec, 6400 asa. Stack of 5 images, heavily cropped. Fuji XT1

This Is a wide angle view South from our back yard.
 Clearly light pollution is a big problem anywhere low in the sky.
I was looking for the "Large Magallenic Cloud" and as luck would have it I found it.
It's the light area next to the tree, amongst the orange glow of light pollution.
 I'm pretty happy I found it.
Fujinon XF18mm f2.0. 4 secs 2500asa

Following on from the previous image.
 I pointed a 50mm lens at it, and with a lot of post processing managed
 to dig it out of the murk, a bit. 
"Large Magallenic Cloud" 
160,000 light years away

This image was captured the following night.
 Here I used my "CZJ" 135mm lens at f5.6.
6400asa 8 secs.
This image may be as good as it gets from the Back Yard. 
This was taken about an hour earlier than the previous ones, so it was
 a little higher in the sky.
"Large Magallenic Cloud" 

Pentax SMC K 28mm f3.5 Lens Review

The Pentax K 28mm f3.5 Wide Angle lens is quite rare, you don't see too many coming up on Ebay.
It is very well received by most reviewers and some believe it to be one of the best lenses Pentax ever made, not sure if I agree, still a very good lens.

I had, and sold the M version of this lens. The optical formula is different for the two lenses but I have to say that I couldn't see a lot of difference in images that I took. I suppose with lenses, it all about how hard you look and what you're looking for. I kept this one, and it certainly is the rarer of the two.
As with all the Pentax lenses I have, or have had, the build quality is excellent, with very smooth focus. It's quite heavy, but feels very nice in use. This lens is of course "Super Multi Coated" resulting in better transmission of light.

• Focal Length:     28mm
• Aperture:            f3.5 thru f22 in half stops up to f16 5 blades
• Focus Throw:     50 degrees approx
• Min Focu:           30cm
• Filter Treads:      52mm
• Weight:               286 gm
• Elements:           8 in 7 groups

F3.5 Close Focus

F3.5 Bokeh

"Out House" Valhalla Vic

Rubbish day in our street

Pentax 100mm f4 Macro lens Review

Another great manual focal Pentax lens from thirty odd years ago. Many positive comments regarding this lens can be read over on the "Pentax Lens Forum"

Pentax 100mm f4 macro lens

This lens uses a "Heliar" optical design.

• Focal Length:     100mm
• Aperture Range: f4 thru f32 half stops thru to f22  6 blades
• Focus Travel:      350 degrees
• Close Focus:       45cm
• Filter threads:      49mm
• Weight;                370gm

Beautifully smooth focus ring, nicely damped, great lens.

Pentax 100mm f4 macro lens Close Focused

This is a great lens if you like taking shots of insects. Its focal length allows a bit of clearance between you and your living subject, they tend to run or fly away given the chance.
Like its little brother the 50mm it exhibits no aberrations that I can see, no purple fringing no chromatic or general distortions. This lens at f4 does display a small amount of "Coma" at the edge of the frame, it disappears from f5.6 as shown in the picture below.

Pentax K100d 100mm macro at f5.6

 No Coma visible

Eta Carina Region taken with Pentax 100mm f4 Macro Lens

As well as being a close up lens it's also a 100mm telephoto, so if you have an "aps-c" sized sensor in your camera, you get a field of view equivalent to 150mm on "full frame".

Pentax 100mm F4 Macro 100% Crop

Pentax 100mm f4 Macro

more pics to follow

Pentax M 50mm f4 Macro Lens Review

You can read about the Pentax 50mm f4 Macro lens on the "Pentax Lens Forum" , and It's well worth the read.
This lens is over 35 years old, and In my view, it's a little ripper.

Pentax 50mm f4 macro lens

It's a very simple lens in that it's based on the Zeiss "Tessar" optical design. Four elements in three groups. The Tessar design lends itself to a sharp and distortion free lens, but this comes at the expense of speed.
You won't find a really "fast" Tessar lens from any company, Zeiss made some at f2.8 actually millions of them. I don't call that fast, I'd like to try one though, think I will.

• Focal Length:    50mm
• Aperture range: f4 thru f32  5 blades  half stops up to f22
• Filter Threads:   49mm
• Weight:             169gm 
• Close Focus:     23.4cm
• Focus throw:     350 degrees approx

The Lens assembly is set so far back from the front you don't need a lens hood with this little fella either.

Pentax 50mm f4 macro lens close focused

You might say "A bit slow at f4" but who cares, once you step outside into the sun you start at f4, or f8
Being wide open at f4 also allows for some nice "bokeh" as you can focus very close to your subject and have an "iris blade free" background blur.

Pentax 50mm f4 macro lens Bokeh

The only down side I have found is at the far end of things, as you approach infinity the focus travel gets rather small, so nailing focus at that end takes a bit more patience.

As the saying goes "a picture is worth a thousand words" so some pictures.
 

All taken with Fujifilm XT-1 Camera

One of those weeds at f4 and 

100% crop at the right.

Nice flower and

100% crop

As you can see very sharp, and as I believe also free from distortion. No only a great close up lens, but also great as a walk around lens as well.

The following two are straight from the camera, not cropped, just compressed a bit.

The bike is a colour shot

Probably f8.Focused on the motor.

Most likely f8 

Flinders St Station, Melbourne, Victoria