Three minute exposure of comet Holmes streaking through perseus with no star trails! This shot was taken at ISO800 with my canon 350xt & tak e-160 telescope. Noise reduction was turned on for this photo.
Thanks for all the feedback! One thing I take for granted that I didn't mention in the original description is that all of my astrophotos, including this one, are guided (tracked) using a losmandy g-11 mount which moves the camera through the sky at the same rate that the stars traverse through the sky (the sideareal rate). If they weren't tracked, then you couldn't get away with much more than a 30 second exposure.
The trick to photographing comets is to keep the exposures short if you have a bright comet. I experimented with everything from 10 seconds to 5 minute exposures, the 5 minute shots were overexposed, the nucleus was indiscernable from the halo.
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You were absolutely robbed by voters who are fixated on the "obvious" approaches to stop-motion. They have no idea how difficult this is to do. Lovely astronomical image, and in my opinion right on-topic to boot.
My first thought when I saw the "stopped motion" challenge was to do an astrophoto. Very appropriate! It's upside down, you have some coma or spherical abberation on your non-APO scope (or you were imaging in hazy conditions and using a newt, assuming the diffraction spikes are real) and the color balance is a bit on the purple side, but otherwise well done. You have great star colors, good tracking, low noise and you exposed the comet well.
OK, you are stretching it here LOL 250,000 mph - if you say so, but the heavens really seem motionless to us on this planet.
Great capture though and still gets a 10.
Yours is the definitely the fastest stopped motion of the bunch but there's no real sense of motion, which I bet will be the downfall (for the challenge) of this super cool astro-photo.
I believe this is jlanoue's work. I have been watching your work as of late, and am so impressed with what you capture, and what you have brought to DPC. I have no idea how much work goes into these shots, but they are just incredible, and I hope more and more of DPC agree. Your equipment is just insance sweet. Beautiful capture, and really love the composition and colors here. Great work!!! 10 from me.
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