Shooting stars anyone?

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

Exception99 wrote:

> Last winter I tried to take some photos of stars with my Pan. FZ10.....
> problem was that the maximum zoom made the stars nearly invisible. I then
> got a tripod, used longer exposure (well the world goes round but you get
> the idea LOL) and the result was astonishing pictures of some bright star
> (sorry, astronomy is not my field). I've only seen stars through 40-60x
> refractors with dissappointing results, the stars appeared as 'hard to
> catch' little white dots. Using the camera instead, the star appeared much
> bigger, 30 x 30 pixels on a 2304 x 1728 JPEG image. I was pretty amazed and
> I'm definately going to try it again......

Stars are too far away for the average home digicam to resolve anything
more than a point of light. With time exposures you see more stars, but
they don't get bigger :-)

If you're seeing stars at 30x30 pixels, then you're either getting blooming
from overexposure or they're out of focus.

> Am I the only one experimenting with pictures of stars using digital zoom
> cameras?

I tinker with star photography.. I shot the Andromeda galaxy two weeks ago
with my Canon 10D and a 50mm f/1.8 lens..

It was a rough first try. I plan to improve on it using RAW format instead
of JPEG and taking multiple frames then stacking them. But.. since I took the
shot, there have been either clouds or a bright moon getting in my way.

http://www.pbase.com/jim_townsend/image/48240961

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

In article <430f1c5d$0$22510$edfadb0f@dread16.news.tele.dk>,
"Exception99" <sd1000@supermail.uk> wrote:

> Last winter I tried to take some photos of stars with my Pan. FZ10.....
> problem was that the maximum zoom made the stars nearly invisible. I then
> got a tripod, used longer exposure (well the world goes round but you get
> the idea LOL) and the result was astonishing pictures of some bright star
> (sorry, astronomy is not my field). I've only seen stars through 40-60x
> refractors with dissappointing results, the stars appeared as 'hard to
> catch' little white dots. Using the camera instead, the star appeared much
> bigger, 30 x 30 pixels on a 2304 x 1728 JPEG image. I was pretty amazed and
> I'm definately going to try it again......
>
> Am I the only one experimenting with pictures of stars using digital zoom
> cameras?

Stars move so they might look bigger as they move across your field of
view when you have a greater exposure time.

Also digital zoom is only an interpretation of the true image. In other
words, it's useless for your experiment.