A couple of experiments on a cold, clear night - except for one cloud that decides to obscure Mars. I find www.skymaps.com useful.
Orion - chosen since I can recognise the 3 stars in the belt. 55-200mm lens used, tripod and remote controller. Experiment was to try and find a decent light level. Seems that the longer I leave the shutter open, the more 'wobble' affects the image. Perhaps atmospherics, but it was a windy night.
| f5.6, 1 second |  |
| f5.6, 4 seconds |  |
| f5.6, 15 seconds |  |
| f5.0, 30 seconds |  |
I may have caught some of the Quadrantid Meteor Shower (?!) completely by accident, as I was failing to get The Plough into one shot, and captured this with a 5second exposure.
Lessons learnt - photographing space is cold and unforgiving. Automatic focusing is out, and everything has to be manually focused - a few wee dots on a background of other dots, or a dark patch. A still night so as not to cause tripod to wobble. Warm clothing. Have a plan. For some constellations, a wider lens is needed. More warm clothing. Don't do it if you are tired and have to get up early the next day.
So, next time, I'll do some research in to the timings, and see what's around to be photographed. Maybe some sort of map of the sky?
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