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Re: APOD: A Summer Night's Dream (2011 Aug 05)

Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2011 5:04 pm
by mtbdudex
neptunium wrote:
Ann wrote:Yes, well - many of the stars we can see in the sky follow their own paths, away from the midplane of the Milky Way. Like Arcturus. (Is Arcturus in the picture? Beats me, because I'm horribly bad at identifying stars from star trails.)
Well, I can make out the stars of the Big Dipper to the upper left of center, so Arcturus would be off the left side.

I have to say, though, that this is one of the best pictures APOD has displayed.
Here's one of the 370+ images, this one about 45 minutes into the total 2+ hours, hard to make out sky detail
Image

This link is to a 640pix image, more detail seen
(this site restricts image display to 400pix?)
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-uvcU ... 525202.jpg

Re: APOD: A Summer Night's Dream (2011 Aug 05)

Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:27 am
by mtbdudex
Some of the blogs on the web took liberty (without email or contacting me) with what Mr Robert Nemiroff and Mr Jerry Bonnell wrote up and published on the NASA APOD site, therefore I've compiled the below.

I'd like to add this image came out of my multiple attempts at capturing fireflies last Summer in a pleasing way, not by accident!

We have 2+ acres, and front is 1 acre of wildflowers, so lots of insects/butterflies/spiders/etc live there + wildlife (deer/etc) go thru there.

That's why we have fireflies there, we choose to be more natural/green instead of lawn.

Facts/History behind this shot:

Summer of 2010 I attempted the single exposure for firefly capture, just a few green dots in single 20 sec exposure:
June-16-2010 attempts these 2 :
Image
Can you see the fireflies?? well neither can I...but all part of the learning trial/error process
Image

Then July-11-2010 my 1st stacked attempt gave so-so results, but showed some possibility for neat shot:
Image


This 2nd stacked attempt of 8 second images from July 14-2010 had more promise:
Image

What I learned is the time of evening/dusk to begin shooting at, taking trial shots to balance exposure/capture of fireflies vs over bright sky, etc.

Then I backed up more for this multi-exposure shot taken July-16-2010, which included star trails.
In my mind, this was where it was at, fireflies + star trails, so that was my mindset for next future attempt .
Image

Moving to the bottom of the driveway for more wide field view and rules of 1/3 was learned by this July-16-2010 capture in portrait orientation - with fireflies
Image

and winter star trails image taken Feb-4-2011 here in landscape orientation:
Image


Therefore, when my wife asked me to capture the fireflies on July-20-2011, I took all the above lessons learned:
-multiple captures over time
-composition rules of 1/3 for the scene
-choose landscape over portrait
-special software to process the image

and also got lucky with timing to capture the rising moon in the garage 2 window reflection.
Which, as some may have noticed there is a ladder leaning against the garage side.
I was doing the 5 year loghome re-staining, so the window screens were off, thereby letting the rising moon light reflect and be captured in each 20 sec exposure.
IF I was not re-staining chances are the relative brightness of the moon's reflection would not be apparent off the screen covered windows.

Lots of things came together to make the August 5, 2011 APOD shot; chance + learned skills.

Re: APOD: A Summer Night's Dream (2011 Aug 05)

Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2011 3:57 am
by geckzilla
Nice photos, mtb. Thanks for posting them.

Re: APOD: A Summer Night's Dream (2011 Aug 05)

Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2011 8:53 pm
by mtbdudex
Hey gang, yesterday I was phone interviewed by local newspaper writer for "Livingston Press and Argus", and today (Wed 9/28) both in hard copy (paper) and online he wrote an article.
http://www.livingstondaily.com/article/ ... |Frontpage

Word quickly spread at work, my facebook friends, etc....14 minutes and 58 seconds of fame ...thx NASA and APOD people.

Re: APOD: A Summer Night's Dream (2011 Aug 05)

Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2011 10:49 am
by Indigo_Sunrise
Hey mtbdudex - it looks like you got your 15 minutes of fame extended to 20! :lol:

Now, when does the next 'innovative image' come out?

:ssmile:

Re: APOD: A Summer Night's Dream (2011 Aug 05)

Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2011 10:24 am
by mtbdudex
Indigo_Sunrise wrote:Hey mtbdudex - it looks like you got your 15 minutes of fame extended to 20! :lol:

Now, when does the next 'innovative image' come out?

:ssmile:
There are a few more widefield type image concepts I am playing with right now with that involve combination of long exposure on EQ mount + stationary/stacked images, when one of those "make the grade" I will submit it as consideration for APOD.
(I got my 1st scope in July-2011, the 8" SCT EdgeHD 800 CGEM, so learning that now to combine with widefield techniques)
Here's me just playing with it on moon shoots/other
Image Image
Yea- I gotta lose that camera strap also....
Peace, there is so much diversity in all the images here,I truly love the visual appeal of them.

Re: APOD: A Summer Night's Dream (2011 Aug 05)

Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2011 7:25 pm
by mtbdudex
I thought interest in my NASA APOD image died, a few days ago I got email from The Wall Street Journal saying they wanted to use it with a book review "How We See the Sky: A Naked-Eye Tour of Day and Night" by Thomas Hockey.
After emails back/forth, and phone discussion, it ran in this Saturday WSJ paper(Nov-19) and online that day, $100 USD for limited usage.

My 1st sale, dinner for the family!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... LS_Books_8

my wife snapped this via iPhone/facebook. (Starbucks sells the WSJ nationwide)
It was actually bigger than I thought it would be.
Image

For the record, I did additional PP on this image:
-removed 40-ish hot red/green pixels spots
-tweaked the image via curves

it has more pop than the original NASA APOD did, that was a quickie dump the 370+ images and process them overnight thing.
I'll have to re-submit that to the editors for the end of year CD.


A sincere "Thanks" to everyone here...

Re: APOD: A Summer Night's Dream (2011 Aug 05)

Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2011 9:31 pm
by BMAONE23
Congrats on being published in the WSJ
AND
For your Second Place finish for APOD of the Month for August

Re: APOD: A Summer Night's Dream (2011 Aug 05)

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 5:49 pm
by mtbdudex
Status update.
Regarding the image I submitted that became APOD for August 5, 2011.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110805.html and my picasa web watermark version https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-S3_t ... trail2.jpg

I've done some slight PP as follows to the master image:
-remove distracting "stuff";
.....red/green hot sensor pixel's (over 45 of them)
.....removed 2 of the major distracting plane trails in the lower RH portion
-slight curve enhancement, just slightly brighter
-1600 pix size instead of 1024 (perfect for onscreen max viewing by most monitors)
-added watermark lower RH corner

I've asked Robert/Jerry can this re-visited image replace the current one for the APOD website and the End of year voting.
I'm sure they are busy so not sure if it can be done.

It truly is a better image now.
Here it is for your comments, newer one on LH, original APOD on RH:
Image Image

Link to full re-visited image 1600pix size
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-5PgL ... 252529.jpg