Topic: Emulating some old Sky & Telescope magazine centerfolds

[astrobeck]

I have wanted to emulate the old centerfolds in Sky & Telescope magazine and gave it another try last night.
My previous attempts have been foiled by airplanes, battery death, clouds, faulty cable releases, bumping the mount and just being a
klutz in the dark.
Even now, the shot from the Zenit suffered a scratch on the negative that I cloned out, so don't mind the extra or missing stars, argh!

I used an old Konica Auto S2 rangefinder with a 45mm Hexanon 1.8 lens
for the first photo and my pet Zenit E with a 50mm Zeiss 1.8 Pancolar lens for the second photo.

Both were made using expired Ilford Delta 400 film and then souped in the caffenol delta recipe for 8 minutes.

Each photo was made using a ten minute exposure.  I made others using different times, but ten minutes was the best of the lot.
Tracking provided courtesy of a Losmandy G8

These are from last night.
enjoy!

[Bryan]

Those are great Becky, they do look like something from an old magazine.  How would they have tracked stars back then?  I'm sure they didn't have a device like your Losmsndy G8, it seems like it would have been difficult to do it by following a target but I suppose it could be done.

[astrobeck]

back in the heyday of the centerfolds of Sky & Telescope magazine, ( 1960 and 70's) they had tracking devices.
Plus, there is a simple device known as a "barn door tracker" that uses a 1/4-20 althread and not that works well for about 15 minutes of watching and turning it...

[Late Developer]

Lovely shots, Beckster!

[jharr]

Very cool shots Becky, made even cooler by the commie surplus camera! :p

[jojonas~]

loving these, becky

[calbisu]

Wow, that´s really infinite focusing 

[hookstrapped]

Beautiful!