Astrophotography: Night trip to a remote golf course

[Macro_Cosmos]

EDITOR'S NOTE:  07 June 2017.
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I replaced all links so that this topic would load.
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  Seamless view of the night sky, extremely dark and pleasing!

Here's the nearby beach under moonlight. Various tweaks done in Photoshop and Lightroom.

Gerringong Under Moonlight by Daniel Han, on Flickr

The core. 20 exposures stacked in Photoshop to reduce noise.

The Core by Daniel Han, on Flickr

A blend, not the best one. I should redo this one when I have more PS skills.
2 exposures, with and without the red flag.

Goal Acquired by Daniel Han, on Flickr

Weather in the Southern Highlands of Sydney is pretty erratic. When I arrived, there were no visible stars. I thought it was going to be a flop 

Cloudy Night by Daniel Han, on Flickr

Here's a panorama of the arching core.

Arching Milky way by Daniel Han, on Flickr

Peaceful night! Blend of 2 images, foreground and sky.
20170602-DSC_6690-Edit by Daniel Han, on Flickr

4 hours train back to Sydney! Coffee time.
Coffee by Daniel Han, on Flickr

Hope you enjoyed   
Equipment: Nikon D810, Samyang 24mm f/1.4 and Laowa 12mm f/2.8 (first photo). Light painting is used in some shots.

[Akira]

Amazing series, Daniel!

I especially like the pano.  Did you stitch the blended frames?  The four-hour train ride is surely a worthwhile.

[armando_m]

Daniel, wonderful images

[CS]

Nice work, Daniel!

A local friend of mine is traveling to Oregon to capture the upcoming eclipse. He's a rather serious astrophographer, and is taking 4 bodies and 4 tripods (one homemade for the event). He's building 4 power supplies, one for each camera, and he has a 17AH 12v gel-cell to power them and a laptop.

His layout will be a D7200 on a tracker with an 80-400 lens set at the long end.
A D800E with a 20mm 1.8 in a fixed position.
Another D800E will have a 35mm lens mounted and be free to move. He plans to use it to make stitched panos.
Finally, a D5100 with a 10mm lens in a fixed position, and that will be used to make a timelapse movie.

All bodies will be taking bracket bursts for HDR, so the total exposures will be in the thousands, which is why he needs the gel-cell battery.

He bought the 2 D800E's just for this event. Now you know why I say he's rather serious about astrophotography.   

[Øivind Tøien]

Very nice series, Daniel. Did you use a tracker for any of these? The EXIF of the golf course image indicates 506 sec exposure...  Then you must have done some impressive stitching of landscape vs. sky to get the far-away landscape sharp.

[Macro_Cosmos]

Amazing series, Daniel!

I especially like the pano.  Did you stitch the blended frames?  The four-hour train ride is surely a worthwhile.

Yes! The stitching was done in Lightroom.
4 hours train trip and 3.5km of walking. When I arrived, I could see nothing. Clouds were kind enough to clear up after an hour of stay! Definitely worth it! One of my best trips actually.

[Macro_Cosmos]

Daniel, wonderful images

;)Thanks! I love the results too.

[Macro_Cosmos]

Nice work, Daniel!

A local friend of mine is traveling to Oregon to capture the upcoming eclipse. He's a rather serious astrophographer, and is taking 4 bodies and 4 tripods (one homemade for the event). He's building 4 power supplies, one for each camera, and he has a 17AH 12v gel-cell to power them and a laptop.

His layout will be a D7200 on a tracker with an 80-400 lens set at the long end.
A D800E with a 20mm 1.8 in a fixed position.
Another D800E will have a 35mm lens mounted and be free to move. He plans to use it to make stitched panos.
Finally, a D5100 with a 10mm lens in a fixed position, and that will be used to make a timelapse movie.

All bodies will be taking bracket bursts for HDR, so the total exposures will be in the thousands, which is why he needs the gel-cell battery.

He bought the 2 D800E's just for this event. Now you know why I say he's rather serious about astrophotography.   

That is madness! I can already envision the beautiful results! I'm thinking of buying a D610 to get it modified for astro. D810a is too expensive and nowadays it's fairly hard to get one! People call me crazy for lugging a heavy duty tripod and massive ballhead around at 1am in the middle of no where, now I can refer to your friend

[Macro_Cosmos]

Very nice series, Daniel. Did you use a tracker for any of these? The EXIF of the golf course image indicates 506 sec exposure...  Then you must have done some impressive stitching of landscape vs. sky to get the far-away landscape sharp.

No tracker was used, I do have a tracker coming from China though 
The golf course was a blend of 2 exposures, one for the sky and one for the foreground, hence 506 seconds at I believe was f/5.6. I need better PS skills, that flag one has a thin black border around it that needs fixing.

Getting a portable celestron is totally worth it, even kit lenses and deliver beautiful results.
Tracker $600
Good tripod $200
Kit camera kit lens

For less than $2000 (AUD), the person is good to go. So yeah, astro isn't at all expensive to get into 

[armando_m]

;)Thanks! I love the results too.

have you seen this thread ?
http://nikongear.net/revival/index.php/topic,1992.0.html

it has been evolving through a couple of years

[CS]

That is madness! I can already envision the beautiful results! I'm thinking of buying a D610 to get it modified for astro. D810a is too expensive and nowadays it's fairly hard to get one! People call me crazy for lugging a heavy duty tripod and massive ballhead around at 1am in the middle of no where, now I can refer to your friend

I think passion is more descriptive than madness in this case, only because he's bright enough to pull off. Now if it was me attempting all of that then madness would surely apply! 

[Peter Connan]

Excellent work!

[Jan Anne]

Daniel, please update the post with hyperlinks to smaller versions of these amazing images

Wanted to do it myself but the images won't load due to their enormous size.

[Macro_Cosmos]

Daniel, please update the post with hyperlinks to smaller versions of these amazing images

Wanted to do it myself but the images won't load due to their enormous size.

They all load fine for me but yeah I agree, they are massive!
Give me some minutes. I'll update right now.

[Macro_Cosmos]

Daniel, please update the post with hyperlinks to smaller versions of these amazing images

Wanted to do it myself but the images won't load due to their enormous size.

 
Ehh it's already updated by someone else I guess.
My humble apologies, I'll post small ones next time!