COMET & SATELLITE PHOTOGRAPHY....


Equipment I used:

1. 35mm camera with a bulb/time exposure setting & interchangeable lenses

2. Basic lenses used were a 50 mm f1.7 lens, a 135 mm f2.8 lens, and a 200 mm f3.5 lens.

3. Film used was Kodak Royal Gold 1000 ISO film (400 ISO is also good)

4. Tripod

5. Cable release

6. For longer time exposures the camera was mounted on an equatorial telescope mount and a electric drive motor was used to compensate for the rotation of the earth.

Method I used for fixed tripod photos:
The camera was placed on a tripod, the shutter speed set to bulb/time exposure and the focus set to infinity. A cable release was attached to the camera, to hold the shutter open for the desired exposure time. The f-stop was set to the widest opening possible. I bracket exposed the film. That is, pictures with exposure times which varied for each frame from 10sec. up to 20 or 30 sec. for each individual frame were taken. If the exposure times were too great, the star trails became too long. When I used a 50 mm lens, however, the exposure times could be increased to higher values than were used with the 135mm lens. I tried to include something in the foreground with the comet, like a tree or house, to give perspective to the pictures. Other pictures of just the comet and a constellation gave the perspective I wanted.

Equatorial Mount: Using a camera attached to an equatorial telescope mount with a drive motor attached allowed up to 5 min. time exposures with the 135 mm lens. The photo of the comet above was taken with the 135 mm lens with a 5 min. time exposure.