Milky way project -- Film Choice

After camera selection for the Milky way project the next more important thing will be film choice.
The "perfect" astro film would combine a few characteristics:

1. No reciprocity failure
2. Fine grain
3. sensitive to H-Alpha at 656.4 nm
4. Sold in 4x5 format
5. Fast
   
6. E-6 positive development
7. Handles push processing
   

However there is as far as I know no such film. Fuji's provia 400F is gets 1,3 and 5, and not bad on #2, but is not sold as sheet film, so that kills that idea. So what is left

• Provia 100F
• Astia 100F
• Velvia 100
• Velvia 100F
  
• A Kodak film
  

It looks like Velvia 100 might do a bit better on the red, Astia has a bit finner grain, and I think Provia will push better. I think they will all be fine on the other points. Kodak's datasheets are not as easy to understand as Fuji's, so I will stick to Fuji.

I may have to buy a few rolls/boxes and take them out to test and see what does best.

Milky way project

In the early 20th century Astronomer EE Barnard composed a photographic atlas of the milky way, this work was done at the Lick observatory in California and was at the time a rather technical venture. However with the advances in film and camera technology it should be possible to take similar pictures today with amature level equipment.

With modern films such as Fuji Provia 400F it is possible to get quite a lot of milky way detail in as little as 15 seconds at F 2.0. With an equatorials mounted telescope and a camera mounted piggy back wide fields can be captured of much of the northern milky way, from Sagatarius up across to Cassiopea and down into the winter sky. This will take many sessions probably over a course of several years.

The first question is what type of camera to use:

The Options:

* 35mm (Pentax K-1000)
Advantages:

* Easy to use
* Easy to get lens for
* F2.0 Lens
* Light weight
* Film is reasonably cheap

Disadvantages:

* Small Negatives
* 50mm Lens leaves a pretty small plate scale

* 120 format, Rolleiflex F2.8 80mm
Advantages:

* Film is larger
* High quality optics, probably can be shot at F2.8 or F4.0
* Film is still not very expensive
* Not too heavy

Disadvantages:

* Camera is flakey and needs repair
* only one lens (but at least is a really good one)

* 120 Format Pentacon 6 or the like with 250 mm lens
Advantages:

* Same size film as the Rollei
* Long lens will bring out more small details,

Disadvantages:

* Unknown mechnical and optical quality
* Would have to buy camera (1200NIS or so)
* Weight?

* 4x5 format, Sinar F1
Advantages:

* High end 150mm APO lens
* 150mm Lens will bring many smaller details above the grain of the film
* 4x5 film is much bigger allowing for a lot of detail

Disadvantages:

* Provia 400F is not made in 4x5 would have to use Provia 100F
* Lens is only F5.6, so exposures would have to be in the 5-10min range
* Camera weight
* Camera flex could be a problem
* Film flatness could be an issue, with luck quickloads would fix this, or if not we can build a vacuum back

For now I plan to start trying with the Sinar, this may get swapped out for a flatbed camera, however if the project can be made to work with a LF camera the result will look amazing.

Milky way project -- test image

This is test shot of the milky way near sagatarius. I think the double stars are due to a bump of the tripod. The shot was taken bya 30 eyar old Pentax K1000 camera with Fuji Provia 400F film pushed one stop, 15s on a fixed tripod from outside Mizpe Ramon Israel.

Orion With labels

Fuji Provia 400F, 15S at F2.0 ( I think)

Best Observing in a long time

Ok so sometimes Insomnia pays off. I took my binoculars out and had a very nice time. I spent most of my time
touring around scorpius and sagatarius. Nice view of Jupiter and a few moons. Spent some time viewing M7, as well as a globular (not sure which one) and a gassious nebula. (M20?) I also saw an amazing fireball. One of the best ones I've seen. It went from Lyra or Aquila all the way to Ursa Major. with a pretty well defined head and a very long tail. I also took the binoculars off the tripod and looked around Lyra and the summer triangle. To bad that that the ring nebula is not within what you can do with my binoculars.

This was all out the back and side of the house with my celestron 15x70 skymasters. If anyone wants an intro astronomy tool these are great. Not the fanciest thing in the world, and not really great for planets. But for under $100 its about the best you can do, assuming you can find a heavy duty tripod.

Mirror in hand

I have my 114mm F8 Mirror. I should be able to start building the scope around it in the next few days. I'm going to find a few feet of sonotube after work. Then to get started working on putting the thing together next week.

Low cost small telescope project

One of my current goals for this blog is my 500 Shekel telescope project. I would like to build a number of small (4.5"/114mm) reflecting telescopes for as little as possible. My current goal is that it should be about 500 Israeli Shekels including 1 eyepeice (A 25mm Plossl) and the main optics etc. 500NIS is as I write this about $125 USD, and this should include the cost of importing the optics from the USA. I don't know if this will actually be a price goal that can be hit, but its worth trying.

So why the blog? It is my hope that if other people in other far off corners of the world would like to build a telescope (or a bunch of scopes). that this blog might prove some useful ideas.

If anyone out there ever does use my plans or ideas, please let me know. Or even post a picture of the scopes you may build from them.