Still-Image Portfolio - # - Alan Dyer's "Amazing Sky" Photography at SmugMug

A "greatest hits" sampler of my favourite astrophotos, with images of all types of celestial objects using a variety of shooting techniques.

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February 26, 1979 total solar eclipse
Questar 3.5-inch f/16 Maksutov-Cassegrain
Kodachrome 64 film
1/4 second exposure (longest I did at this eclipse since a longer one would have recorded corona beyond the field of view of the scope)
Tracked at sidereal rate. Taken from site on Highway 1, near Carberry, Manitoba between Brandon and Winnipeg.
A longer exposure showing middle corona. Image is slightly soft from mis-focus (likely caused by temperature shift after initial focusing). Radial Blur filter helped sharpen it up. A black hole mask was added in Photoshop over the Moon's disk to darken lunar disk separate from sky, which was made slightly blue for contrast.

$February 26, 1998 from Curacao, Caribbean 4-inch f/6 apo refractor, 600mm focal length, tracked. Fuji Super G 100 print film single long exposure of ~ 2 second (ie. this is not a composite of several different exposures) However, this is a stack of 3 similar exposures averaged stacked to reduce grain and noise, as per deep sky images. Moon disk darkened with dark mask. Sky color altered to blue as that's the way it really does appear -- the sky is not black behind the totally eclipsed Sun; it only appears that way in short exposures for the inner corona. But in longer exposures like this for the outer corona, the deep blue of the sky background is picked up. Corona detail sharpened with High Pass filter (Radial Blur filter seemed to accentuate film grain). Little done to change contrast from original scan so as not to add stepping and isophotal banding.$

Line of 4 planets in the western sky in May 2002: Venus is bright object, Mars is upper left, and Saturn below Venus, with Mercury lower and to the right. Shot with 105mm lens for close up.

Nov. 23, 2003 total solar eclipse over Antarctica on Qantas/Croydon Travel charter flight out of Melbourne, Australia.

Sony DSC-V1 camera. 1/3 sec, f/2.8, 7mm lens, max wide-angle. ISO100. Tripod mounted. See EXIF data for more info.

Softened background layer added to smooth background noise and dithering of digital camera. Moon disk darkened with dark circle.

$Composite image digitally created in Photoshop of images taken during October 27, 2004 total lunar eclipse, from Alberta Canada. Images taken through 5-inch apo refractor at f/6 with Canon Digital Rebel camera at ISO 200. Eclipse progresses in time through shadow from right to left. Exposures: #1: 1/320s; #2: 1/10s; #3 mid-totality: 8s, #4: 1/4s; #5: 1/640s. Scope at lunar drive rate. 5-image version is composite of #685 (mid @ 9:04pm) + #586 @ 7:21pm, #635 @8:14 + #742 @ 9:57pm, and #790 @ 10:49 pm. 3-image version is: Composite of #0624 @ 8:02pm, #0685 (mid @ 9:04) and #0751 @ 10:06pm. No filtering.$

$Transit of Venus, June 8, 2004, from Luxor, Egypt. A composite image (layered in Photoshop) of individual multiple shots taken from just after 2nd contact to just before 3rd contact. Taken with a Sony DSC-V1 digital camera shooting afocally through a 40mm eyepiece and on a 90mm apochromatic refractor, equatorially mounted and driven. Shot thru a Baader solar filter, which gives a white Sun. Yellow coloration added in Photoshop.$

$Transit of Venus, June 8, 2004, from Luxor, Egypt. A single image taekn during immersion just before 2nd contact showing backlit atmosphere. Taken with a Sony DSC-V1 digital camera shooting afocally through a 40mm eyepiece and on a 90mm apochromatic refractor, equatorially mounted and driven. Shot thru a Baader solar filter, which gives a white Sun. Yellow coloration added in Photoshop.$

Total Solar Eclipse, from a site 130 km south of Tobrouk, Libya; March 29, 2006. 0.8 second exposure with Canon 20D camera and 10-22mm lens at 12mm focal length and f/5 aperture. Exposure set auotmatically. Part of a time-lapse sequence with frames firing every 1s.

Venus is visible at lower right and Mercury is barely recorded on frame half way between Venus and the Sun.

February 26, 1979 total solar eclipse
Questar 3.5-inch f/16 Maksutov-Cassegrain
Kodachrome 64 film
1/4 second exposure (longest I did at this eclipse since a longer one would have recorded corona beyond the field of view of the scope)
Tracked at sidereal rate. Taken from site on Highway 1, near Carberry, Manitoba between Brandon and Winnipeg.
A longer exposure showing middle corona. Image is slightly soft from mis-focus (likely caused by temperature shift after initial focusing). Radial Blur filter helped sharpen it up. A black hole mask was added in Photoshop over the Moon's disk to darken lunar disk separate from sky, which was made slightly blue for contrast.