Arwen's meanderings

Hi everyone and welcome to my dinghy cruising blog about my John Welsford designed 'navigator' named Arwen. Built over three years, Arwen was launched in August 2007. She is a standing lug yawl 14' 6" in length. This blog records our dinghy cruising voyages together around the coastal waters of SW England.
Arwen has an associated YouTube channel so visit www.YouTube.com/c/plymouthwelshboy to find our most recent cruises and click subscribe.
On this blog you will find posts about dinghy cruising locations, accounts of our voyages, maintenance tips and 'How to's' ranging from rigging standing lug sails and building galley boxes to using 'anchor buddies' and creating 'pilotage notes'. I hope you find something that inspires you to get out on the water in your boat. Drop us a comment and happy sailing.
Steve and Arwen

Monday 22 February 2021

My first ever astrophotography effort

 It is hard work and a very steep learning curve, this astrophotography malarkey. 

Still, here is my very first effort a waxing gibbous moon, taken a bit early in the evening.

Camera details were: 

  • ISO 100
  • F/9
  • 1/125 
  • 200mm lens
  • manual focus
  • RAW
Post editing was in Affinity Photo which I was using for the very first time. I have never used Photoshop or Lightroom so all this is new to me.

As I said....steep learning curve.....but immense fun 😁






9 comments:

Rik_Studio said...

Looks very nice Steve... Can you also get Mars on your camera?

steve said...

Hi Rik - how are you - well and safe I hope in these strange times. This was taken without a telescope. I didnt try for Mars and I suspect it would come out as a red dot! However, when it is attached to my telescope - when that finally arrives - then maybe we might see something different.
in the meantime - how are you?

JP said...

Very nice! How did you get the bluish tint of the second?

I use Affinity Photo for stacking too, very powerful and doesn't need a subscription. Any RAW processing? I use CaptureOne for that, again no subscription required and very powerful

Rik_Studio said...

What is "stacking" JP?
Steve, we are well thank you. digging out of this economic pit will take a while. but we are welcoming more and more tourists again. hopeful by next year somewhere we will start to get to feasible levels of occupation again. meanwhile thank God for the Netherlands and their financial support. we would be at the bottom of the ocean otherwise.

steve said...

JP - shot in raw but have yet to learn about raw processing - so off to investigate captureone - thanks for the tip. The bluish tint i got by altering something in affinity photo - a slier of some form - sorry very vague I know.

Good question Rik - haven't worked out stacking yet either. I'm glad tourists are returning. So many economies rely on sustainable tourism and I cannot begin to imagine how badly they have been hit this year. we had to cancel self drive tours of south west USA and then of Peru, Bolivia and Chile - we were staying in local guest houses etc - we always try to travel that way and put money into local economies directly - good luck and i hope visitors return quickly. How is the vaccination programme going there?

JP said...

Stacking described here:
https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/astrophotography/astrophoto-tips/how-stack-dslr-images-moon/

JP said...

Affinity allows some stacking

Rik_Studio said...

My mom got her first shot today, just now. It is a miracle that since 13 of March 2020 till now, less than one year, the vaccine is in her arm. Great job Western world. I do not care how or who did what, as long as our elderly, and us afterwards, are taken care of.
The Dutch government supplies the vaccines for us and they get flown in in batches. Next batch of about 20.000 are expected in two weeks.
Thank you for asking.

steve said...

Thanks for the tips JP
Rik - glad vaccinations are going well. In the UK we are racing ahead with the programme although in a slightly different way. If everything goes according to plan - all of the UK will be vaccinated by July. we have had our first jabs, our next are in ten weeks time. Mum and dad have now had both their jabs.