Hello...
As usual - excellent photographs. Thank you for sharing.
Merry Christmas and a happy NY to you both.
Marco Nero wrote:
EOS M6 + EF-M 32mm f/1.4 lens - a shot of the EOS Ra on my tripod - under the tree I had set up under... with the old Canon EF 135mm f/2 USM lens on it.
EOR Ra + RF 85mm f/1.2L USM lens - three JPEGs stitched together and rotated clockwise. The glow on the left is from Sydney city. The original JPEGs looked flatter and were slightly more subdued in contrast and color. I then edited this panorama by adjusting color, contrast, curves, levels, and saturation ...but then I forgot to eliminate the vignette. No sharpening or Noise Reduction used. I'll chalk this up to being an early test. Auto WB was used and I need to calibrate for a better alternative. The JPEGs used here were three seperate 6 second, unstacked exposures.
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I'm watching the upcoming EOS R6 closely and may consider it for regular terrestrial photography if the price is reasonable. I've been anticipating that model since last year. I would prefer to save my EOS Ra just for Astro work if possible although it's not about shutter-count numbers. According to Canon, both the EOS R and EOS Ra have a 200,000 shutter count life expectancy. This camera will probably outlive me because in three weeks I've only taken about 400 pictures with it... and everyone knows how you get trigger-happy in early days of new gear. I finished tweaking three JPEGS from the camera taken last week (see above) and I've now, after four trips out with it at night, I feel that I've leaned what the camera and lens combo are at least capable of. Eventually I'll use a T-mount to place EOS Ra onto a telescope with tracking. In the meanwhile, I'm stuck doing some landscapes and just simple unguided, unstacked shots.
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Setting up for the first shots and there were already clouds moving in.
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Comet C/2019 (Lemmon) last night...
I've just spent a couple of hours in the dark last night trying to photograph Comet Lemmon (C/2019 U6) in a National Park (in the Sydney Blue Mountains). I tried to set up in my usual spot about 1.5 hours from my home... but when I arrived, there were clouds approaching from the North-West where there the Comet was supposed to be located... and a nearby illuminated advertising sign was spilling light into the lens hood of the camera lens. I got back in my car and drove to a darker location another 30 minutes away in a National Park. I set up under a tree next to my car, took a few shots and returned home ASAP because it was just so darned cold up in the mountains in Winter.
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It's a little eerie to be standing in a remote area with no phone reception. It's literally pitch black out there and you an certainly see the stars and the clouds and the milky way overhead. At one point I heard something behind me and expected to see a feral pic in the torchlight but it was only a possum. It's winter here so the snakes usually don't come out at night at this time of the year. Some clouds were low enough to reflect lights from the cities. Others were high up and simply looked like spaces in the sky devoid of stars. I had to switch on my flashlight between shots so as not to trip over on my camera tripod. I did however drop a $230 NiSi Night Filter while removing it from the RF 85mmL lens... it fell from my fingers as I unscrewed it and landed on rocks. I expected the worst... but as luck would have it, the filter was attached to a step-down ring and the cheap $9 ring took the only impact, leaving a very small mark on the aluminium.
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EOS Ra + RF 85mm f/1.2L lens - a defocused view of Jupiter and Saturn from under my tree.
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I saw two meteors, one of which was on the camera LCD as I counted down for a timer-delay shot. I found that with wide lenses I'll use a 2 second delay but longer lenses can require a 10 second delay to prevent tripod/camera shake. I once found a 2-inch long meteorite right where I was standing to take the picture below - back in 2014.
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Again, a few people asked me why I didn't just buy a tube-type CCD/CMOS camera to plug into the eyepiece of a telescope. Those things can be more expensive than the Ra for a decent model and I don't want to have to deal with laptops and computer driven software either. More importantly, I can't capture landscapes like these with that type of astrocam. The image below was shot at ISO 6400 - which was completely unnecessary. My preference has been to use ISO 4000 and 5000 for some Milky Way shots if shooting at f/1.4 with the 85mm lens.
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EOS Ra + RF 85mm f/1.2L lens - Comet Lemmon is on the left - behind the pesky clouds.
Comet Lemmon - as seen on the Live View of the EOS Ra camera at 30x magnification.
EOS Ra + EF 135mm f/2 USM lens - Comet C/2019 (Lemmon) with a faint, white tail.
EOS Ra + EF 135mm f/2 USM lens - Comet Lemon - out of focus to show the colors.
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The comet wasn't really visible to my eyes. I think it was about magnitude 6.0 when I saw it through the camera lens. I knew it was just above (and to the right of) Sirius. So, when I got out of the car, I simply pointed the camera lens towards the area I thought the comet would be in and took a picture. The comet was visible in the first photograph and then re-framed the scene as needed. A major issue was the moving clouds. The sky had been spotless all day and the sky was rated 9/10 for Stargazing last night. But as soon as I had parked the car and set up the camera on a tripod, I was having to wait for the clouds to move. Eventually the comet dipped closer to the horizon and was fading behind the clouds there (see image above). I took a couple of shots looking over the tops of the branches of the short tree (shrub) I was standing near (see below) and then drove home. I'm not overly moved by these shots but the camera and lens seem okay so far.
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Hot Pixels and Temperatures
I've had a few lazy pixels appear on the sensor when using long exposures, especially with high ISO settings. They generally disappear when I do a sensor clean, much like on my 6D. There are none when shooting in normal conditions with shutter speeds over 1 second. I thought the Ra might have the ability to remap the sensor since it has a Dust Delete Data function. But since the stuck pixels are gone at normal speeds, this is perfectly normal behavior. I only mention it to be thorough on reporting on the camera. There are no dead pixels of course (which is good). I also notice that the camera gets REALLY cold in the night air when the frost arrives but it doesn't get damp (yet) like my EOS 6D does. The Protage lens warmer I've used on these cold nights continues to keep my glass from fogging/frosting up.
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I think I'm about done shooting Astro for a little while. I'm waiting for Andromeda and the Orion nebula to show up in a couple of months. I'll shoot those from a fixed tripod and will later move to an EQ Mount with tracking for future imaging.
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EOS Ra + RF 85mm f/1.2L USM - A defocused Milky Way bokeh from under my tree.
EOS Ra + RF 85mm f/1.2L USM - The color temperature of the stars is easily observed this way.
