Starscape

December 13, 2012.

Stars

 

How countlessly they congregate
    O'er our tumultuous snow,
Which flows in shapes as tall as trees
    When wintry winds do blow!--
As if with keeness for our fate,
    Our faltering few steps on
To white rest, and a place of rest
    Invisible at dawn,--
And yet with neither love nor hate,
    Those stars like some snow-white
Minerva's snow-white marble eyes
    Without the gift of sight.

Robert Frost

Stars and Clouds at Dusk

Dreams in the Dusk

Dreams in the dusk,
Only dreams closing the day
And with the day’s close going back
To the gray things, the dark things,
The far, deep things of dreamland.

Dreams, only dreams in the dusk,
Only the old remembered pictures
Of lost days when the day’s loss
Wrote in tears the heart’s loss.

Tears and loss and broken dreams
May find your heart at dusk. 

Carl Sandburg

Another astrophotography shot by popular demand :0) I haven't taken new photos in awhile so I'm reaching back into my photo archives. Hope to have some new shots asap.

"Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky."

In the beginning...

God created the heavens and the earth.

Stars and trees

Astrophotography

This is one of my first attempts at astrophotography. Terry sent
me a link to a webpage about this type of photography because
he thought it might be something I would be interested in, and
he was right. I was surprised at how easy this is to do. The
following are the camera settings I used to capture these stars
in the night sky on December 2nd.

Camera settings

• Program Mode - Set to Manual.

• Autofocus - Turn off, or set to Manual.

• White Balance - Set to Daylight or use a
• custom white balance (especially if your
  
• camera is modified).

• Drive - Set to One Shot.

• ISO - This is discussed in detail in a following section,
  
• but generally should be set to 1600 or 800 for long
  
• exposure deep-sky astrophotos.

• Metering - Generally doesn't matter, but you can try
  
• setting it to Spot if you are shooting the Moon or Sun
  
• (with proper filtration)

• Exposure Compensation - Set to Zero, no exposure
  
• compensation. Doesn't really matter because you are
  
• not using autoexposure.

• Shutter Speed - Set to the exposure you want, up to
  
• 30 seconds can usually be dialed in directly. For longer
  
• than 30 seconds, set to Bulb. On some cameras, Bulb
  
• may be a separate exposure mode setting, or it may be
  
• accessed on the shutter speed dial past the 30 second
  
• setting.

• Self Timer - If you don't have a remote release, you
  
• can use the camera's self-timer to trip the shutter so
  
• you don't have to touch the camera, which will help
  
• reduce vibrations and possible star trailing.