The Photographers' Corner - 2021 to ?

[donheff]

This is my latest: The Orion Nebula (M42) with The Running Man Nebula (M43) above it. Orion is often the first nebula people see in their telescopes because it is bright and easy to find. It is also their first introduction to why early astronomers described these mysterious objects as "faint fuzzies." That is how they appear to the eye even with a powerful telescope. You need multiple long exposures to gather enough light data to tease out the color and details.

This was processed in very capable open source SiRil software with final touches in Photoshop. I am currently giving PixInsight a trial run. It is a commercial app that all the big kids use. If I do significantly better after climbing PixInsight's steep learning curve I will be back with a revision.

The first version includes a fair amount of the diffuse nebula surrounding the core. The second is an attempt to use mathematical functions (more powerful in PixInsight) to blend two different versions together but drops some of the surrounding nebula.

 

[Ronstar]

^^Very nice!

 

[street]

^^ very interesting photos. Thanks

 

[Ronstar]

My 2024 calendar photos are all grizzly bears. Here's a couple youngsters.

 

[street]

My 2024 calendar photos are all grizzly bears. Here's a couple youngsters.

Ohh my goodness is that a great picture!!! Thanks for sharing that.

 

[street]

Here is a picture the trail camera took yesterday from the ranch. I thought it is appropriate for turkey day being tomorrow.

 

[Ronstar]

^^Wow - great trail cam photo. Mine barely catches a possum standing still. Yours catches birds in flight.

 

[Gotadimple]

Sunrise at Tiger Mountain, Issaquah WA. Taken 11/20/2023 as frost starts to evaporate. Taken with a Google Pixel 7a and cropped.

 

[street]

^ beautiful!!

 

[Chuckanut]

Can I ask some questions about the different types of Lightroom software?


I am looking for the version that runs on my own computer and stores my photos on my computer. I do not need or want cloud storage.


I found a good deal on Lightroom CC - one year for $74- but I am not sure if that is the desktop version or the cloud version. Both have the same nam



My problem is that there seems to be two versions of Lightroom with the same name. One is the version I want, the other is the cloud storage version. How to I know which version I am buying.



Adobe has confused me so much I am buying nothing, but I do need image software.

 

[Dave J]

Can I ask some questions about the different types of Lightroom software?


I am looking for the version that runs on my own computer and stores my photos on my computer. I do not need or want cloud storage.


I found a good deal on Lightroom CC - one year for $74- but I am not sure if that is the desktop version or the cloud version. Both have the same nam



My problem is that there seems to be two versions of Lightroom with the same name. One is the version I want, the other is the cloud storage version. How to I know which version I am buying.



Adobe has confused me so much I am buying nothing, but I do need image software.

Hi, Adobe has a photographers plan for 9.99 and month that includes both the cloud and desktop versions of Lightroom and Photoshop desktop. So you can have whichever one you need.I don't use photoshop much, but do for a select few things.
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography/compare-plans.html
Hope this helps, Dave

 

[Walt34]

As Dave J points out you can have Lightroom Classic (that's the desktop version) or Lightroom Cloud (I think that's the name) or both, there's no difference in price. Same for Photoshop. I just use the desktop versions.

 

[Chuckanut]

As Dave J points out you can have Lightroom Classic (that's the desktop version) or Lightroom Cloud (I think that's the name) or both, there's no difference in price. Same for Photoshop. I just use the desktop versions.

Thanks to all for Clearing this up.

 

[pacergal]

I love all of the photos you all share.
Amazing!

 

[walkinwood]

Thanks to all for Clearing this up.

https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography/compare-plans.html


There are 3 photo plans on adobe. If you want to run the software on your computer and store images on your drives, the Photograph (20GB) is the one you want.

 

[doneat54]

A shot from out frozen lakeshore a couple mornings ago. Love the textures and contrasts in this one. South Central New Hampshire.

 

[DrRoy]

A fav from this year. Hunt's Mesa.
.

 

[Ronstar]

Nice pics!

I haven't seen anything outside recently worthy of a photo, so I have been taking pics of my pocket knives.

 

[Ronstar]

I did like this cell phone shot in Myrtle Beach

 

[street]

Thanks for all the great pictures!! Nothing more beautiful than the landscapes of nature in which we live in.

 

[donheff]

My last Deep Space Object for 2023, the dark cloud of the Horsehead Nebula, Barnard 33, silhouetted against the bright cloud of IC434. I shot this one in narrowband SHO instead of RGB but there is almost no O3 so no pretty blue areas. Astrophotographers mess around with the colors on this one trying to get different contrasts. The one on the left reflects the predominance of red Ha band emissions and is close to what it would look like to a color (RGB) camera.
The cream color image highlights the S2 and is my favorite. Just out of sight on the left is a Alnitak, a bright star that blows up many photographers' efforts on this target. I chose a higher power (narrower field of view) telescope so I could avoid that challenge. One of the benefits of armchair astrophotography.

Happy new year to all.

 

[Ronstar]

^^Those images are amazing. I hope you have them printed/ framed in your house.

 

[donheff]

^^Those images are amazing. I hope you have them printed/ framed in your house.

Thanks. So far, I haven't printed many. I just started with DSOs in June and I'm getting better at processing them. I did make 8x10 metal prints of two just to see how they print. I like them, but since I printed them, I have considerably improved the images. But I have been thinking of which ones I should print and how big. In the meantime, I have them run as a screen saver on my primary desktop PC, a 26" all-in-one sitting on a built-in desk in our kitchen.

 

[donheff]

I just posted the last DSO I imaged this year, and here is the last one I worked on (I redid it yesterday). This is The Pinwheel Galaxy M101, 21 million light years away, a bit above the last star in the Big Dipper's Handle. This was one of the first objects I imaged and would not normally be a beginner target. When I started this pursuit, a supernova (SN 2023ixf) was blooming in the Pinwheel, and I wanted to catch it while the catching was good. I'm glad I did because it has collapsed into a neutron star or black hole since. You can see the supernova as a bright white circular "star" in the lower spiral band at the 7:00 position.

To understand the size of the explosion, note that this galaxy is 170,000 light years across, and that white circle is in the galaxy, so the glow must be many light years across itself. In contrast, the stars in this image are all here in the Milky Way. Although, a couple of those background "stars" are actually galaxies if you look closely in the upper right and lower left quarters. If I dug into the astrometric data for this image, I could find out what galaxies those are and learn whether they are closer or further than M101.

Edit: Yikes! I generated the data for this image and discovered that the galaxy in the upper right a little above the bright star with a magenta tint, is PGC 49919, which is 770 million light years away.

 

[kgtest]

S23 Galaxy snap of the MPLS skyline the other night.

Winter Solstice clouds produced some pretty cool sunset pictures recently.

I liked I was able to get the US Bank Stadium lit in purple on the Eastern horizon all the way to the USA Flag to the West.

Looks like I caught some sort of chopper as well, maybe a LifeLink or Gubmint blackhawk.


Surprisingly, the street lamps were not illuminated yet, but with winter solstice, its gonna change rapidly but I would think with dusk setting, an auto trigger would happen.

Lots to see in a little cellphone pic. Bonus points if you can identify which direction of travel I am headed