Monday, August 18, 2014

18 August 2018

I went out early this morning to Cars Schurz Park to observe the Venus/Jupiter Conjunction. I took all the toys with me so divided my time between observing and photographing. Since there wasn't that much to see after you see the planets, photography probably got the lion's share of my time.

I got there a little earlier than when my planetarium program told me I should and at some point looked up and there were two points of bright light above the Tri-Borough Bridge around where the planets were supposed to be, but the flight path for LaGuardia airport goes around there and I thought they might be early morning flights on final approach. I couldn't see any navigation ligihts on either of them when viewing them in the binocular so convinced myself that it might be the planets and when I got them in the telescope Venus was so bright and blown out it was't worth looking at but Jupiter was obviously round and not a point source of light. I continued to observe them as they and the Sun rose until Jupiter had faded from view.

I made some photographs of the waning gibbous Moon and looked at it briefly in the telescope to see if the Black Cat in the Moon was still there and he was not.

I had mixed results with the photography. I had my Vivitar Series 1 3x telephoto converter to use with the Canon G1 X camera. It worked some and didn't work some. I started out making RAW images at wide angle and then maximum zoom. Then I put the converter on the camera and made an image at that magnification then reset the camera to JPEG and increased magnification to 16x digital zoom. Everything I had learned was that you never want to use digital zoom but when researching these types of lenses (although the reviews I found were for a lens that was over an order of magnitude more expensive than my lens) I found results that showed that digital zoom results were actually better than optical zoom results, with or with out the conversion lens. My results did not agree. I found that with or without the conversion lens, my pictures were better if I manual focused at slightly less than infinity. The conversion lens creates barrel vignetting at all but nearly maximum digital zoom and better which is OK when all you are looking at is two small planets or stars in the center of the FoV and can crop out everything around them. There is chromatic aberration in the lens which reviewers have noted. And I could not get a crisp image at maximum zoom. I also found that after I removed the conversion lens from the camera, the camera would not focus until it had been turned off and back on. The lens barrel on the G1 X is plastic and in two sections and I noted when I was doing birding that adding the conversion lens creates constant flex in the primary camera lens even when they are both cradled in the palm of my hand. The conversion lens is heavy and must be lulling the primary lens down which may be why I am having trouble focusing as well.

I also had the digiscope adapter to attach the camera to the telescope. I figured that since the planets would be taking up so little of the FoV the final image would probably be cropped and the shadow of the central obstruction wouldn't be as visible as it was in the Sun and Moon images I had previously attempted. But I have forgotten how to use that adapter and when I got it all assembled and attached to the telescope I found that my camera lens ran into the back of the eyepiece every time I turned the camera on. No damage was done anywhere. I had had this problem before and don't remember how I had resolved it.

Image #4826
Time051011
FormatRAW
ISO400
Shutter1"
Aperature5.8
Focal Length60.4mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens
Total Focal Length60.4mm

Image #4831
Time051145
FormatJPEG
ISO400
Shutter0.8"
Aperature5.8
Focal Length60.4mm
Digital Zoom16x
Conversion Lens
Total Focal Length241.6mm

Image #4833
Time051407
FormatJPEG
ISO400
Shutter0.8"
Aperature5.6
Focal Length60.4mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens3.5x
Total Focal Length211.4mm

Image #4835
Time051434
FormatJPEG
ISO400
Shutter0.6"
Aperature5.8
Focal Length60.4mm
Digital Zoom16x
Conversion Lens3.5x
Total Focal Length3382.4mm

I turned the camera up to the Moon to see how it would do with the conversion lens on it. I can pick out Tycho, Copernicus, Sinus Iridum and Plato.

Image #4843
Time052824
FormatJPEG
ISO100
Shutter
Aperature
Focal Length60.4mm
Digital Zoom?
Conversion Lens3.5
Total Focal Length845.6mm ?



But the focus isn't there.

Image #4845
Time052855
FormatJPEG
ISO100
Shutter1/20"
Aperature11
Focal Length60.4mm
Digital Zoom16x
Conversion Lens3.5x
Total Focal Length3382.4mm

A 1:1 crop of image 4845

The planets were still hanging on as the Sun began to rise. I didn't notice whatever it was that made the broken diagonal streak left of center. I suspect that it was a meteor since I have never seen a plane flying at that steep an inclination and it was still too early for departures from LGA.

Image #4848
Time053218
FormatJPEG
ISO400
Shutter1/5"
Aperature2.8
Focal Length15.1mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens
Total Focal Length15.1mm

Image #484850
Time053241
FormatJPEG
ISO400
Shutter.05"
Aperature5.8
Focal Length60.4mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens3.5
Total Focal Length211.4mm

The planets don't look too bad with the Vivitar Series 1 High Definition 3.5x Super Telephoto Lens while the camera lens is set to maximum optical zoom.

Image #4852
Time053317
FormatJPEG
ISO400
Shutter0.5"
Aperature5.8
Focal Length60.4mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens3.5x
Total Focal Length211.4mm

But when you crank in the digital zoom to maximum, which is where this lens is intended to be used, there is a lot of chromatic aberration. The lens is heavy and it feels like it is pulling the camera's lens out of alignment which is probably contributing to the planets not looking round and things not being in sharp focus.

Image #4854
Time053350
FormatJPEG
ISO400
Shutter0.5"
Aperature5.8
Focal Length60.4mm
Digital Zoom16x
Conversion Lens3.5x
Total Focal Length3382.4mm

Image #4862
Time054709
FormatRAW
ISO400
Shutter1/15"
Aperature4.5
Focal Length27.313mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens
Total Focal Length27.313mm

'
Image #4865
Time054835
FormatRAW
ISO400
Shutter1/20"
Aperature5.8
Focal Length60.4mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens
Total Focal Length60.4mm

Image #4866
Time054904
FormatRAW
ISO400
Shutter1/15"
Aperature5.8
Focal Length60.4mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens3.5x
Total Focal Length211.4mm

Image #4870
Time054957
FormatJPEG
ISO400
Shutter1/15"
Aperature5.8
Focal Length60.4mm
Digital Zoom16x
Conversion Lens3.5
Total Focal Length3382.4mm

I made a series of images with the camera set in PHD mode then dialed in exposure compensation to see if I could get some detail into the Moon's illuminated surface. To get a better representation of both the sky and Moon an HDR image should probably be made.

Image #4874
Time060742
FormatRAW
ISO400
Shutter1/50"
Aperature5.8
Focal Length60.4mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens3.5
Total Focal Length211.4mm

Image #4875
Time060802
FormatRAW
ISO400
Compensation-1 stop
Shutter1/80"
Aperature5.8
Focal Length60.4mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens3.5
Total Focal Length211.4mm

Image #4876
Time060850
FormatRAW
ISO320
Compensation-2 stops
Shutter1/80"
Aperature5.8
Focal Length60.4mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens3.5
Total Focal Length211.4mm


As the Sun started to rise from behind the bridges I made a series of images just because you are supposed to take sunrise and sunset pictures. All of these images were made handheld.

Image #4879
Time061433
FormatRAW
ISO100
Shutter1/60"
Aperature5.6
Focal Length22.452mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens
Total Focal Length22.452mm

Image #4881
Time061607
FormatRAW
ISO100
Shutter1/60"
Aperature5.6
Focal Length32.464mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens
Total Focal Length32.464mm

Image #4883
Time061839
FormatRAW
ISO100
Shutter1/200"
Aperature5.6
Focal Length36.322mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens
Total Focal Length36.332mm

Image #4884
Time062112
FormatRAW
ISO100
Shutter1/250"
Aperature5.6
Focal Length39.118mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens
Total Focal Length39.118mm

Image #4885
Time062304
FormatRAW
ISO100
Shutter1/320
Aperature5.6
Focal Length24.984mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens
Total Focal Length24.984mm

Image #4889
Time073638
FormatRAW
ISO100
Shutter1/250"
Aperature6.3
Focal Length15.1mm
Digital Zoom
Conversion Lens
Total Focal Length15.1mm

After I figured out that I wasn't going to figure out how to use my digiscope adapter I made a few images with the Series 1 converter and maximum digital zoom to see if the Sun would be big enough to see sunspots but at my losest ISO steeting, fastest shutter speed and slowest aperature there is too much light to make a picture. I want to buy a fairly dense Neutral Density filter for the camera but it will be 58mm diameter and the Series 1 takes 72mm filters. A filter dense enough to do the job would cost more than the lens itself. I could get a 50mm to 72mm step up ring and use the filter on both the camera and the conversion lens for another $10 or so but with the image quality I am getting out of this lens at maximum digital zoom and for a single use it doesn't seem like it will be worth it.

Image #4890
Time073742
FormatJPEG
ISO100
Shutter1/4000
Aperature6.3
Focal Length60.4mm
Digital Zoom16x
Conversion Lens3.5x
Total Focal Length3382.4mm
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