Photographing NLC

[heaven31]

When you all take your NLC pics, do you use professional cameras or just regular digi's? Do you need to use any particular settings or anything like that? I'd love to take some pics if and when I spot a good display but not quite sure how

Jo x

[markt]

Well I use a Canon 350D with a 18-50mm f2.8 lens. I set the ISO to 1600 and by doing this I can get away by doing a handheld exposure, normally 1/15th to 1/3 sec exposure - ish...

Like you I have converted my loft and it has a good northern horizon from there so it doubles as my NLC observatory. My plan is to get a ball and socket tripod head then I can fix this to the Velux window frame to reduce the occassional shake I get with hand holding. I can also drop the ISO speed then which should reduce the slight granularity I can get in the images. I do have a tripod but the arrangement of furniture in my loft mens it is easier to hand hold... (read i'm being lazy)

You should be able to image with a compact digi camera tho too - Mrs MarkT has a lil' digital Kodak thingy, and when on our recent visit to Iceland discovered the ISO could be increased to 'fast' and it could have the exposure increased to a whopping 4 seconds. This was enough to image the aurora, so, by my reckoning, you could probably image NLCs too. I don't expect you would get as good a result as with the SLR but you should still get a reasonable result.

Hope this helps.

[heaven31]

Thanks Mark

The camera I have in the Sony Cyber Shot. It's 5.1 mega pixels so takes some good, regular photos but I have only tried photographing the sky with it twice lol, once for a nice sunset and once to take a pic of a funnel cloud over my house (confirmed to be a funnel after alot of discusion on the net weather forum). I haven't really read the instructions properly to see what it can do and I don't really understand how to set exposures etc but I am going to learn for sure. Maybe I should find the manual and start reading lol.

Jo x

[paulevans]

I use a DSLR - a Minolta Dynax 5D with an assortment of lenses though for dark subjects my favourite is the 50mm f1.7 which collects loads of light. For NLCs I prefer to use a tripod which means that I can use low ISO - 200 generally works fine - that requires exposures of a few seconds - 2 - 10 would be about normal.

There's no reason why a compact camera can't take good NLC shots - set the ISO to about 200 and try 4 seconds exposure - many compacts including both of my Minoltas do this very well. If there is a landscape setting (usually depicted by a picture of mountains) try this as it may even set the focus to infinity for you, or a night mode with the flash switched off may help. The tripod is the vital bit!

HTH,

Paul.

[tmcewan]

Hi,

With film photography the standard advice was to use an SLR fixed to a tripod and loaded with 200 ISO film (slide film always gave the best results, imo). Exposures of 2-6 seconds with a lens setting of f2.8 almost always worked.

I don't have much experience with digital photography on NLC; indeed, this will be my first 'all digital' season. I'm planning to use a canon 350D with a timer controller attached to make exposures automatically, at fixed intervals. Initially, I'm going to try Tv mode, 200 ISO, with an exposure of 6 seconds and then let the camera select the appropriate lens aperture. It will be interesting to see how it performs...

I also have a Canon A520 compact which I'll set-up, exposure-wise, in much the same way as the 350D but this needs a PC/laptop to automate things. I've seen images captured with the same camera/control software (from 2006) and the results are surprisingly good. I'd like to attempt video observation this year too but my budget is starting to stretch already!

Some clear skies would help get things moving!

Tom

[martinastro]

Jo that is a very good question for the forum. I use a Fuji S5600 5.1 MP digital camera which is pretty much an ordinary digital camera but with full manual control. The type of settings required for a good NLC image will be largely dependant on the brightness of the NLCs and the background twilight. For a good display like the one which appeared last night I would take an exposure between 10 - 15 seconds at ISO 200 or 400. For close up images I use the optical zoom function between 5X and 10X and using manual focus I will achieve the best focus I can by first using a bright star such as Capella or Jupiter which would be an easier target then turning the camera (on tripod) to the NLCs and use the camera's built in timer of 2 seconds to reduce vibration and let the exposure take care of itself.

If the sky is much brighter then a smaller exposure and ISO number would be needed, say 3 - 5 seconds at ISO100 - 200. The best thing to do is bracket your images and by that I mean take many images of the NLCs using different settings and by previewing them on the LCD screen you will find out which setting is most appropriate.

An ordinary digital camera is fully capable of getting good images by using the night mode function (2 or more sec exp) at your highest ISO which maybe 200 - 400. You should pick up the bright displays this way but if the image is dark then brighten it using your camera's photo editing software. Use a tripod if you can but if you don't have one then improvise by using a fence post, car roof or anything else. I hope this has been of some help. Best of luck with it and I hope to see your NLC images in the very near future

[reckless]

Hi Guys

Just joined the forum and look forward to reading and contributing this NLC season.

Regarding the original Q I post details of my imaging and processing at members.aol.com/astrophotos/nlc.html

Cheers from 57 degrees North.

Eric

[tmcewan]

Hi Eric,

Good to see you here and best of luck with NLC over the next 7-8 weeks.

Tom

[martinastro]

Hi Eric great to have you here and those NLC images are out standing!