In my previous entry, I was left a note
Lotharus : Brilliant shots!
So what is your "astronomy lens"?
Actually I have two lenses I bought for astronomy. The first one, however, is a 20mm (40mm equivalent) Panasonic Lumix clocking in at F 1.7 (3.4 equivalent) that I have found extremely useful for street photography, cosplay events, and dim (indoor) light, so that it's become my default lens as well as being a fairly good lens for astronomy.
However, since my sensor is small and comparatively low on megapixel count, I have comparatively poor resolution. The solution is to get a high magnification zoom lens, which I did: I got a 40-150mm M Zuiko.
The results are amusing:
Consider this:
which is a picture of Sagittarius taken in good sky conditions, with the camera's basic 14-42 mm lens from the same company.
When I zoomed in digitally after I was done, I was able to identify patches of nebulosity (glowing parts of the sky)
The two circles on the left are Lagoon and Triffid Nebulae. The two on the right are M7 and M6. (M7 below, M6 on top)
You will note that the picture has gone quite grainy, since we're hitting the limit of the sensor.
Now note what happens when I use the astronomy lens at maximum zoom:
M7 is on the top right. M6 is on the bottom left. I didn't have time to shoot Lagoon and Triffid on Friday. I may do it in the next overnight session.
Also compare this:
which showcases Crux (kite shape in the centre of the top third of the photograph) in a good sky
versus Crux in a poor sky with a good lens:
(here, Crux has been tipped on its side)
Oh, hey, there's a patch of stars near the bottom I didn't see before:
Oh. It's the Jewel Box. I need to leave it at longer exposures to get colour though.
I can even shoot objects that don't appear in the other lenses at all.
Here. This is an overexposed shot. It's orange because I've left it shooting for so long that the sodium light from the ground reflecting off the moisture in the atmosphere has lit up my sensors:
This is Omega Centauri. It's normally identified as a globular cluster (a spherical conglomeration of stars held together by gravity). It manifests here as s glowing patch in the bottom part of the picture, trailing off around the edges as the number of stars in our line of sight reduces.
There is some speculation, however, that it might be a dwarf galaxy that was torn apart by the gravity of our galaxy and cannibalised.
The world is awesome. When we spend too much time around people who don't recognise that, sometimes we, ourselves, forget.
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