Topic: Any lucky shooting and scanning starry night skies?

[original_ann]

For the last 3 weeks, I've spent hours each day working on scanning all of my vacation film and I'm about to give up on trying to scan starry sky shots!  (much less shoot them). 

First of all, after drying my negatives, I couldn't figure out where to cut them!  I was shooting straight up - so no other landmarks to help with identification, though I can see a very crappy bit of milky way in each shot.  My sister mentioned that she just puts them flat on the scanner bed, prescans, makes note of where the frames are, takes them out and cuts that way.  I'm not having any luck seeing anything. 

In fact, I am absolutely unable to discern image frames at all!  There seems to be no delineation between the 'non-image' parts and the 'image' parts.  So yeah, I'm really lightening up the tones so I can try to 'see' what's what, and sure, that's going to make dark skies look very grainy (right??), but it looks to be so 'starry' (dust? grain?) EVERYWHERE, even in the borders.   

So for the last hour, I've been trying to change my scanning settings so that I can see where I'm supposed to draw my marquee and feeling a bit bummed that I may have to just put them away, never to scan. 

Anyone else have luck shooting the milky way? Can you only do it with an extremely sharp lens?  I'm quite certain I did not have anything that was up to par.   I'd love to see examples, find out what film, lens you've gotten results with.  And most of all, if you scan your own negatives, toss me a crumb and tell me how you did it.  It just might save me from impending insanity! 

[Jack Johnson]

I have not had any decent luck. I have a couple of sketchy shots of the aurora on color neg film and the noise and grain really detract from the images.

I've tried monochrome with lenses that were too short, and the stars tend to look like grain.

I think Becky turned me onto a resource that turned me onto a resource that talked about the "sensor size" to lens length ratio, as well as some ballpark rules for shooting the moon, stars, etc. I used those once to take a fantastic moon shot with my wife's crappy point-and-shoot digital (tiny little sensor, huge optical zoom), but I haven't tried any shots of the milky way.

It seems like there are a lot of good digital shots of the milky way (especially as sensors improve) and I've been thinking of mining EXIF data on Flickr to shoot for some baselines to try with film. There's the thing about reciprocity failure to deal with, and there's also the thing about not having enough photons to trip the chemistry, so the noise level on color film might still be annoying, but it seems like I've seen nice slides of the milky way in the past, and I suspect some of the new formulations would do a decent job.

...but I always defer to Becky.

[Francois]

I know that one of the tricks to figure out where to cut the frames is to shoot two consecutive frames where the frame is visible in order to deduce the position of the rest. Normally, the length of the strips should be the same. You can also use a normally exposed negative from the same camera as a guide.

Also for night shots, you're always better with too much exposure than too little... especially when taking pictures of the milky way. Don't forget that reciprocity will poke it's ugly mug in each of the images

[original_ann]

Thanks guys.  I think it may be that I was using a crappy lens and didn't give it enough time.  I've always heard that you're supposed to use a very sharp/fast wide angle lens.  With my medium format, I only have a 40mm and it's non-coated, subject to lens flare, so doesn't convey sharpness whatsoever.  I tried Portra 800, f/4 30sec, 60sec, 1 and 2 mins.  How ridiculous... considering I stumbled upon these wonderful flicker images from someone shooting E6 and getting astounding results!!  And then it dawned on me:  Aha!  The night sky would NOT blend in with the frames and borders on chrome film!  Perhaps I ought to try that out...   (oh, and somehow get myself one of those equatorial mounts so that I can track with the stars) 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12598495@N08/sets/72157619410465766/

[astrobeck]

It's an old trick to shine a flashlight into one of the frames every so often to make note of where the frames are .

F/4 is my usual place on the dial and then I usually expose for at least 20 minutes!  Longer is preferable but there is light pollution to contend with and your sky will go all bad wine looking and turn out browny/purple.
Go look at my husbands website at:
http://www.kor-astro.net/

He has all the details of his exposures in the margin on the left.  He just recently went digital and we are using a CCD camera, but the tried and true E6 stuff is still valid info on his site.

The coating on the lens won't matter too much as you are not going to get much glare and funky stuff unless you start shooting the moon.
Honestly, any camera that has manual and a bulb setting is capable to do astro shots.
I have used my Pentax K1000, my trusty Nikon F2 ( the favorite because it has a mirror lockup) and have even convinced my Holga to take Milky Way shots.  All with 50mm prime lenses.
It does take some patience, a lot actually and good seeing and good transparency of the sky to make a good one.

Hope this helps.
Becky

[astrobeck]

Here's a messy scan of a 3 hour shot done with an old Brownie Six 20 and some 200 speed Kodak Gold film.
The F/stop of this camera is around 11 or something ridiculous like that, but you can see star trails, plus a bunch of people walking through the field with red flashlights on...
btw- the color shift for some films is really blue!

[charles binns]

Try using very slow film.  It might sound counter intuitive but you well get less contamination from light pollution.

[original_ann]

Great site, Becky!  Ok, so I definitely will try again sometime... but to stop the star trails, I'll need one of those equatorial mount gizmos.  I wonder if they can be rented. 

[astrobeck]

Ann, find your local astronomy club and see if they have a "loaner" program.  For the cost of a yearly membership, some clubs will let members borrow equipment for a month at a time.

Even better, you will meet with people that can give you first hand advice and maybe direct you to something for sale cheap.
Every club I have been involved with has always been helpful for people trying to make long exposures at night.  My club in Albuqerque loans out all types of equipment.
There's bound to be some help available for you.

Becky

Great site, Becky!  Ok, so I definitely will try again sometime... but to stop the star trails, I'll need one of those equatorial mount gizmos.  I wonder if they can be rented.

[original_ann]

Thank you Becky, that is very helpful!  I live in a major city, so not sure if there would be a local club (that actually LOOKS at the sky), but perhaps a 'nearby' one! 

[astrobeck]

Hi Ann,
Most cities, even big ones have clubs. They usually have a site out of town for observing, so it's worth a shot!
Good luck!
Have fun, that's the most important part!
:-)
Becky