32mm f/1.4 - Jupiter Crossing Galactic Core (PIC)

Non-Eventful Astrophotography session...
I left my house at 1am to drive to the mountains last night in a failed attempt to photograph the Eta Aquarid meteor shower - which occurs annually ...every time the Earth passes through the particles left behind by Halley's Comet during its past trips around our sun. It was supposed to be the best view in years due to zero moon and perfectly clear skies. On the way there, I encountered heavy fog and a strange incident where a small stone impacted the roof of my car. It was night time and there were no birds, cars or trees on that road when the object struck. I got out and looked over my car with a flashlight but saw no damage but the noise it made when it hit was extremely loud. No idea what it was. The Earth gains tens of thousands of tons of weight every year from meteorites so I guess it's possible one hit the car. They slow right down to the speed of a golfball if they make it through the atmosphere. I'm wondering if one the size of the head of a pin hit my car. No idea. Would be a pretty odd coincidence if it did.
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I arrived in the mountains at 2:30am, just as the meteor shower was meant to present itself as the region of interest began to rise above the horizon. I'd set up a DSLR on a tripod (see pic below) but saw no meteors at all. It was almost zero degrees so I packed up and drove higher into the mountains. There was no wind where I stopped so I was able to handle the cold for about an hour and a half. Took plenty of long exposures with both cameras but saw nothing on any of the pictures. Gave up at 4am and drove back home again. There's a shot below of the Galactic Core with the 32mm that might be of interest. Jupiter is bright blue. I bumped the contrast and colors of the JPEG around slightly to bring out some of the detail. I imagine this would be a great lens on a tracker. As it is, I can only shoot around 10 to 13 seconds without Star Streaks starting to show. Even at 13 seconds I'm getting a little movement.  I really need to buy a computerized EQ mount... but, as usual, I have other priorities at the moment.   I had so much taking pictures with the EOS M6 + 32mm lens that I forgot the LCD swivels out.  I had need of this when shooting straight up to take the second picture below.  Instead, I was crouching down to check the LCD display between shots.

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32mm - last night's failed attempt to shoot the Eta Aquarids with two cameras.

32mm - Jupiter crossing the Galactic Core at 4am. Forgot to bring my NiSi NN Filter.

Amazing photo!

For only 13 seconds that’s pretty remarkable.  I have to wonder what you could do with a tracking mount and stacking?

AminF wrote:

You took this with the M6 and the 32mm???

Wow, that is a nice photo - amazing result.

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Yes... I rarely bring a DSLR with me for this sort of thing any more.  This lens is bright enough to use for selective astrophotography.  It's great to get shots like that one in a single exposure although I find the Field Of View is fairly narrow.  If you look at the image directly below, you can see how much of the scene gets trimmed at 32mm.  The 11-22mm lens was certainly wide, but it's too dim for effective astro work (by comparison).  I've tried with the 11-22mm lens but the results were far too muddy and soft for me.
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You can see the amount of the background is cropped by the narrow field of view of the 32mm lens compared to 11mm.  The 11mm is certainly wide but it's surprisingly poor for astro work due to the f/4 aperture.

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The lens is certainly sensitive enough.  It's capable of picking up nebulous matter and faint dwarf galaxies like the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.  I think I had stated earlier that the 32mm lens is better for targeting specific celestial events rather than wide-field astrophotography.  The EF-M 22mm f/2 STM lens is still my favorite native M lens for shooting the Milky Way.  It's just wide enough for most shots and it's both crisp and bright.  The 32mm is quite different to handle but it's astoundingly sharp.  The additional magnification over the 22mm lens brings out additional detail and possibly better color isolation.
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32mm - Galactic Core rising over Sydney (2x shot exposure)

32mm - Comet 46P/Wirtanen (December 2018) - 8 shots stacked.

32mm - Looking South with the NiSi Natural Night filter - single exposure

32mm - Comet 46P/Wirtanen is the 'Green Blob' in the Bokeh

HaroldC3 wrote:

For only 13 seconds that’s pretty remarkable. I have to wonder what you could do with a tracking mount and stacking?

It's my wife's birthday shortly so I may never find out.  Every time I save up enough for a quality EQ Mount, either one of my cats needs an emergency visit to the vet or my garage door breaks down etc.  I'm actually curious to see how much more detail and faint nebulous material might be revealed with a tracked shot using this lens + a lower ISO and a smaller aperture.  15 seconds produced star streaks but 13 seconds made for a decent compromise. 10 seconds was better but required ISO changes to get a similar exposure.
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I took some shots of the Galactic Core with the EOS 6D (Full Frame) + EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM lens with 20 second exposures at f/2... and there was still quite a lot of Coma visible.  Which is something else I can appreciate from the 32mm.  It has very little Coma. The difference between these two lenses in that respect, even at f/1.4, is surprising.

32mm - Jupiter crossing the Galactic Core at 4am. Forgot to bring my NiSi NN Filter.

Wow so pretty and looks so good at 3200 ISO, I wonder how could you archive that, Passing 1600 ISO mark, my shots have heavily banding problems.

As Harold said, I wonder how spectacular it would be if you got a tracker, why don't you try a small tracker like iOptron skytracker or Star Adventure mini, they fit the M weight prety well.

zero214 wrote:

Wow so pretty and looks so good at 3200 ISO, I wonder how could you archive that, Passing 1600 ISO mark, my shots have heavily banding problems.

As Harold said, I wonder how spectacular it would be if you got a tracker, why don't you try a small tracker like iOptron skytracker or Star Adventure mini, they fit the M weight prety well.

I didn't even realize I'd posted one at ISO 3200 - I'd previously have some great results at 800 and 1600. For some reason I took these ones at ISO 2500 and 3200.
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I'll try to get one of the ISO 2500 shots up. It looks a bit smoother to my eyes. Check in on this thread in another 12 hours and I ought to have it up.
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I'm tempted by one of those smaller trackers above. The problem I have is that I have no South Polar Alignment star to work with where I set up. Another thought is that I really want to get a couple of higher end telescopes so I've convinced myself to wait until I get a proper mount with All-Star alignment on it. My heart is set on the CGX mount for it's high load capacity.
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M6 + EF-M 22mm f/1.4 STM - I think this lens is underrated for what it can do.
ISO 1600 |  20 Seconds | f/2.2

Now I'm getting interested in Astro photography. Going to the Swiss alps next month, might give a go if the skies are clear enough. Here's a great YouTube channel for the topic:

AstroBackyard

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn3npsPixgoi_xLdCg9J-LQ

Marco Nero wrote:
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I'll try to get one of the ISO 2500 shots up. It looks a bit smoother to my eyes. Check in on this thread in another 12 hours and I ought to have it up.

Correction... I might need more time.  Going to try to re-shoot with (and without) the NiSi Filter in a few minutes.  It's a long drive into the cold.  My wife thinks I ought to hold out for warmer weather.

Incredible stuff Marco

Lens Comparisons with Canon EF-M lenses for shooting single-exposure Astro shots

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I'm going to post this image in its own thread because it might be useful for other members and I don't want to leave it to be buried in the posts of this thread (where I'm likely to loose track of it myself.
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I have some interesting results from the shoot tonight. For one, the 11-22mm lens performance was a little better on the M6 sensor than on the original EOSM camera. Less noise and less color banding with more structure in the shots with high ISO and greater illumination with ISO 5000 than I expected. It's still the least ideal of the four prime lenses.
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I still have to edit the main image I took tonight.  Will have to do it in the morning.  In the meanwhile there's these samples taken earlier this evening as tests.
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32mm - a largely unedited image of the Coalsack Nebula with the Southern Cross Constellation. NiSi Natural Night Filter used for this shot.  So many stars visible.  I lost half of them reducing this image.

32mm - Test shot of the powerlines across the street.  NiSi NN Filter used.
Large Magellanic Cloud in lower left corner.  The red hue is from the red lamp I was using

11-22mm - not ideal - but a wide view from this otherwise not-so-suitable lens.

11-22mm - Another shot from the 11-22mm lens - It looks nicer in this shot than in tests taken with the original EOS M camera.

I think this is interesting:  I was waiting to drive my car onto a Ferry just after sunset yesterday... and I could just make out the Constellation of Orion in the dusk sky from my car window.  So I rested the camera against the the side mirror and took a slightly long exposure at 2.5 seconds with an aperture of f/4 (I have no idea why I had this lens set to f/4).  And I was surprised to see the nebulous matter glowing gently around the Orion Nebula (M42).  It looks like a slightly glowing star with the shot I took...
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I haven't even bothered to try shooting Orion with this lens.  I imagine it's capable of capturing quite a bit more detail away from a street light with a wider aperture and a longer exposure.  Anyone want to give it a try?  I'm not so sure I want to go off to the mountains to try taking a proper shot... but I'm intrigued with the possibilities.
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32mm - last night's shot taken from my car window of Orion.