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tgtaylor
22-Oct-2009, 19:51
1. What's a good B&W film for guided astrophotography?

2. Would Infrared film help to reduce the background "sky glow"?

3. What about color film negative and chrome?

After a too long a hiatus from astronomy I've 'dusted" off the scope and have resolved to get out with it more often. I was what could be classified as a "hard core" observer known to go to the top of the mountain with my scope at the slightest hint of decent observing conditions. Back then, though, I couldn't mount a camera on the top of the scope because I couldn't remove the screws from the top of the mount so I was confined to photographing with a 35mm mounted between the forks on the bottom of the OTA. Meade, bless their hearts, have since fixed that problem (and a couple of others!) for me and I can now mount 35mm, 6x7 and 4x5 - even 8x10! - on top on the mount.

Thanks,

Thomas

I'm thinking of starting off with a piggybacked MF camera (cheaper to experiment with as you get 10 or 16 exposures/roll on my cameras) before moving to prime focus.

Michael Heald
22-Oct-2009, 21:07
TMax 400 is the best B&W film at present, though it looses 2 1/2 to 3 stops for long exposure. Hypered Tech Pan was the best, but I doubt that you'll find it.
Several color films are good, though all had various problems. A couple of books would be good to review - Astrophotography for the Amateur and Wide Field Astrophotography.
Just an aside, why film? You can get a good used digital SLR cheaply that will be easier to work with and give great results. Best regards.

Mike

arca andy
23-Oct-2009, 02:58
Large format astrophotography?...Wow...any body done it? Better still anybody got any photos to show us?

pocketfulladoubles
23-Oct-2009, 07:46
Just curious what size image circle you get with your scope. Can't wait to see some pics.

Drew Bedo
23-Oct-2009, 10:08
I would think that vibration would be a major problem with any camera using bellows. Would a Hobo or Fotoman be workable? Booth have regid bodies and rigid lens mounting . . .not much vibration there.

I would think that about any DSLR would give great results compared to hypered anything.

vinny
23-Oct-2009, 11:31
[QUOTE=Michael Heald;520122]TMax 400 is the best B&W film at present, though it looses 2 1/2 to 3 stops for long exposure. Hypered Tech Pan was the best, but I doubt that you'll find it.

I sold some of my 4x5 tech pan earlier this year to a fell who was going to use it for astrophotography. He mentioned the "Hypered" part, what's that entail and how's it work?

Arne Croell
23-Oct-2009, 11:40
He mentioned the "Hypered" part, what's that entail and how's it work?

The film is "baked" at 40-50°C in forming gas (nitrogen or argon with a few % hydrogen) or occasionally pure hydrogen (be careful) for several hours - days. It increases the speed and reduces reciprocity failure significantly (it also leads to a base fog of 0.3-0.7).

tgtaylor
23-Oct-2009, 12:12
Thanks for the replies everyone!

I purchased my telescope (a 10" Meade SCT) back in the late 1990's from Lumicon in Livermore, Ca. - the original Lumicon before it was acquired by Parks. Back then Jack, the CEO, was advising everyone to start learning the basics of astrophotography with a film camera. He used a Hasselblad and had a door-sized color print he had made from one of his images on the door to his office. I vaguely recall that the image had won some type of award. It was a beautiful image. Back then I was just getting into photography and my only camera was a Pentax K1000 which I mounted between the forks under the OTA. I got a great image of Hale Bopp using a 50 to 250 zoom lens @250 and did a prime focus image of the comet which came out green. I didn't know it at the time (WalMart did all my developing) but if I still have that negative I can print it without the color cast. I recall really nice swirls visible in the comets head.

After all these year I'm going to take Jack's advise and start with a Pentax 67II which incorporates a special power saving function that Pentax incorporated in the camera for astronomical photography so you don't burn-out those expensive lithium batteries. Probably start with wide field views of star fields with the camera and lens piggybacked on top of the mount and, once I get that down, switch to prime focus photography. Which reminds me: I need to get a T-adaptor for the 67.

Fairly recently, maybe on this forum, I read where someone is doing LF astrophotography. I can't recall the details be think that he had to redesign his camera.

According to my scope's manual, it's image scale is .57degree/inch.

I wonder if shooting IR film with a #25 red filter would help keep the background dark? I have 2 rolls of Ilford 200 SFX.

pocketfulladoubles
23-Oct-2009, 12:33
I wonder if shooting IR film with a #25 red filter would help keep the background dark? I have 2 rolls of Ilford 200 SFX.

Efke IR820c with Tiffen #87

Drew Wiley
23-Oct-2009, 13:17
Tech Pan was preferred by many because of its extended red sensitivity. There are
web forums dedicated exclusively to amateur astrophotgraphy which go into these
kind of questions in detail. I know a couple of telescope nuts who were anything but
amused when TechPan was discontinued.

JohnGC
23-Oct-2009, 23:38
We hyper both tmax and fuji for piggyback shots. A light 4x5 (orbit) works good on a Meade, but an larger, heavier 8x10 is going to push the gearing system, and slow the rotation. Tech pan was awesome. That film had great dynamic range for astro work.

Hyper kits are pretty expensive, I don't remember how much. I got mine from the Lumicon, but I don't think they sell them anymore. My tank will handle film up to 4x5. I've never seen a hyper kit for 8x10, but it would just require a larger pressure vessel.

I've never tried IR film but it could be interesting...

Good luck, can't wait to see your results!

konakoa
24-Oct-2009, 11:19
Thomas, I do some wide field astrophotography with medium format and large format on a pretty regular basis. For black and white astrophotography, Tmax 100 was all I used for years; but I've found that Fuji Acros 100 is absolutely amazing for this purpose.

Earlier this summer I did a side-by-side comparison of Tmax 100 and Acros 100 with two identical fifteen minute exposures of the Sagittarius star cloud. With Tmax the "steam" coming out of the "teapot" just barely registered on the film. With Acros the star cloud was very evident and amazingly detailed. The difference between the two films is incredible. Acros 100 seems to have very little reciprocity failure compared to Tmax 100; I'd strongly recommend it for black and white astrophotography.

I haven't tried any infrared films for astrophotography (just a couple of those left - and they're sorta-but-not-really-infrared from what I've read) but I would think they just aren't designed for long exposures. Reciprocity would probably be a real issue. It's not so much that sky glow is a problem for astrophotography as it is light pollution from cities at night.

For color, I use transparency film and there aren't many choices. Even fewer for 4x5. I've used both Kodak E100G and Fuji Provia 100F for 4x5 astrophotography; both work well yet I like E100G as the colors are a bit better with long exposures.

If you can find any, medium format Kodak E200 is really, really good stuff for color astrophotography. Regrettably it seems to have been discontinued in 120 film.

arca andy
2-Nov-2009, 14:24
Come on you astrophotographers.... lets see some photos!:)

tgtaylor
2-Nov-2009, 15:18
The moon is in the way (it's full!) + the World Series is on.

tgtaylor
2-Nov-2009, 15:23
Thomas, I do some wide field astrophotography with medium format and large format on a pretty regular basis. For black and white astrophotography, Tmax 100 was all I used for years; but I've found that Fuji Acros 100 is absolutely amazing for this purpose.


I'm pretty sure you're right about Acros Danny. It's capture time seems about the same as a ccd up to about 15 minutes out.

Joseph O'Neil
3-Nov-2009, 06:35
start here:
http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/postlist.php/Cat/0/Board/Film

Also;

http://www.widefieldastrophotography.com/misc/8x10cam.htm

and...

http://www.willbell.com/ccd/widefieldast.htm

This book is about ten years old, and I suspect "out of date" in that CCDs have much taken over, however, when this book came out, it was cutting edge for film astro-photography. How fast things change. :(

Anyhow, good place to start, as the basics are still there. I also have a credit in that book as a proof reader & advisor. :)

joe

Robert Hughes
3-Nov-2009, 07:26
How fast things change.
Things aren't changing too fast - that's just a marketing scam. Computers are versatile, and they do more stuff now. Think of them as Felix the Cat's magic bag of tricks. Quite handy when you need a plane/boat/saw/camera/phone/pistol. But the original tools still work.

GPS
3-Nov-2009, 11:03
...
http://www.willbell.com/ccd/widefieldast.htm

This book is about ten years old, and I suspect "out of date" in that CCDs have much taken over, however, when this book came out, it was cutting edge for film astro-photography. How fast things change. :(

...
joe

A very good book indeed. You probably know that the same author continues with his astrophotography with CCD and wrote another book about it...

tgtaylor
3-Nov-2009, 12:19
Thanks for the references Joe. The Reeves book looks good and is priced right. I'm going to order it.

In the meantime UPS delivered a 9mm Meade Illuminated guiding eyepiece from OpticsPlanet during the ballgame last night. Unfortunately the soldering contact is bad and I am returning it for a replacement which I should receive late next week. I asked them to check the replacement to see that it works before sending it out.

I'm going to start with Fuji Acros. The reciprocity of that film is so good that I should be able to image the moon, planets and brighter globular clusters before it sets in. M31 from dark skies should also work - probably 20 or 25 minute exposure.

Thomas

bvstaples
3-Nov-2009, 12:51
Tech Pan can still be found on the Bay and other sites, though it might run you $5-10 sheet in 4x5. I've also seen it (and acquired it) in 120 rolls, if you want to give MF a try. I just got 10 rolls and am going to run it through an RB67 this winter. It's really your best choice for B&W, even if you cannot hyper it.

tgtaylor
3-Nov-2009, 19:34
I've heard a lot of good reports about Pan Tech and will give it a try if I run across some. At present I am planning on shooting 35mm thru the scope either at prime focus or eyepiece projection, and medium format piggybacked at dark sky sites. I don't believe the image circle on my scope will justify using MF or larger film sizes other than in a piggyback mode. Some of the newer telescopes will.

OpticsPlanet just E-mailed me the return UPS mailer and I'm sending the guide eyepiece back to them tomorrow morning. For deep space photography I also need to order a focal reducer to reduce the effective FL from f10 to f6.3. This will enable me to reduce the exposure times by as much as 1/2. Down the road I'll probably pick-up a CCD camera along with a newer (and no doubt bigger) telescope. I was very much impressed by the work of a local amateur who captured wide field images using a SBIG CCD camera attached to a 150mm Takumar lens on a guiding mount from backyard metropolitan skies.

Photography, and astrophotography in particular, can be ultra expensive: Just the standard star atlases - Uranometria and the Millennium atlases in my case - ran me ~$400. Both, however, offer priceless rewards that keep paying back with dividends throughout life.

Thomas