More tips on C/2023 A3 (tracking, stacking, etc)

[zurubi]

Back with Neowise I just shot single shots, and it was pretty good.

A few years forward and now I have a simple tracker (MSM), know how to stack, etc.

So a couple of questions to the more experienced folks:

1) I more or less eyeballed its size, FOV, etc on Stellarium and I'm going to use a FL somewhere between 100 and 200mm (that's all with my 70-200 zoom). The exposures to avoid trailing are pretty short. I can't really align the tracker to Polaris as it'll be sunset with tons of light. The MSM came with a gadget to mount an iPhone and use one of the many star apps, but that's pretty inaccurate. How would you use a tracker in a case like this? (and I can't align the tracker at night and leave it all day on the tripod ).

2) similar problem with a stacking software (SLS on a Mac for example): there won't be any stars around so the stacking software won't know what to do.

Of course I can do single shots, but it would be great to use either 1 or 2 above.

 

[jforkner]

Not sure you need to track. The attached image was taken last night—15 images stacked with StarryLandscapeStacker. All images taken with Canon R5 & EF24-105 @105mm, f/4, 1/6 sec, 25,600 ISO, processed in PS.

Jack

 

[chriss43]

You may try the stacking software Burst Photo (website at https://burst.photo). It is free and you can download it on the Mac App Store. The stacking of moving objects is not restricted to stars and it is robust against motion in the scene.

 

[zurubi]

Not sure you need to track. The attached image was taken last night—15 images stacked with StarryLandscapeStacker. All images taken with Canon R5 & EF24-105 @105mm, f/4, 1/6 sec, 25,600 ISO, processed in PS.

Jack

Nice! Here in NM we had a thin cloud veil over the horizon around sunset so I didn't see anything.

I do use SLS, and glad to hear that I can use it even when there are no stars...

BTW, I tried aligning the MSM with the phone adapter and a stars app, and all I could do is 2-3X exposure from the stationary case (for FL ~100mm); not accurate at all. That gizmo might work quite well with wide angle lenses as that case is more forgiving.



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Igal
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Igal Brener Photography

Photographer specializing in landscape photography, astrophotography and southwest US scenery

www.igalbrenerphoto.com

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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/igal_photo
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/9516824@N07/

 

[Larry Rexley]

This comet is currently so bright you can shoot it well without a tracker with a fast lens around f2-2.8, iso 100 even. My shots last night with a Canon R8 full frame camera were 2 and 4 seconds at f2 @135mm, ISO 100 with no tracker, just a remote release.

The brightness also means shooting at a low iso gives you relatively low noise. Combine that with good denoise software like DxO photolab with Deep Prime denoise and you can get excellent images where you can push the contrast and tone curve, and get good results.

Stacking becomes much more useful for faint objects or if you are shooting with long focal lengths and higher f numbers like f4 and higher.

I did a stacked image last night with 36 frames (see post below) and also single frame images. Yes the stacked image shows more detail and more stars, but not that much more. The single image is a few posts higher in that thread.

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/67965326

The stacking took hours as I had to remove 1 or more plane trails from nearly every image, shoot darks, flat, dark flats, and bias, then process it all. Good exercise but not that much bang for buck over the single frame that took 15 mins to process!