Something a bit different!

[Perkil8r]

Solargraph attempt number two! This time purely for my own indulgence really as no students were involved with this at all. Since last time around I have made a slightly sturdier rig to hold 7 cans at a time to the guard rail on the roof of the school Gym.

 

Single exposure of 15,465,600 seconds (give or take 3600) f stop = pin prick.

Detector = Ilford Photo Paper (B+W)

Lens = Hienz Baked Bean can

Processed: Fixing with home brew fixing fluid (a bit of chemology ), Scanned. Cropped, Levels, Contrast and Greyscale in PS5

 

[Werisit]

Brilliant! I don't know what you need all the kit you've got listed for! I'd love to see a pic of the camera.

[Daz Type-R]

Fantastic Mike, love that.

[Perkil8r]

3 minutes ago, Werisit said:

Brilliant! I don't know what you need all the kit you've got listed for! I'd love to see a pic of the camera.

 

Here it is (well all 7 of them):

 

Also made a small error with exposure time above, not 15,465,600secs but actually 16,070,400 I got the start date wrong, it was 3rd July.

[Smithysteve]

Brilliant Mike! Good result too! Could do with a few more details on setup if you can spare the time.

i noticed an observatory dome in the background... Anything to do with you? ?

[Perkil8r]

Thanks for all the kind words.

 

For more info on the sort of thing see this link: http://www.pinholephotography.org/Solargraph%20instructions%202.htm

 

I made mine with a baked bean tin and pet food lid. I hammered a pin through the tin mid way up and sprayed the inside of the tin matt black. The paper was put in the tin in a dark room with a red light on and the lid duct taped on and covered to stop stray light. I covered the pin hole until it was clamped in place and then removed the tape over the pin hole. Left it for 6 months or so and retrieved it. Removed the paper in the darkened room and "fixed" the paper with chemicals so that light would no longer affect the paper. This gave me a negative that I scanned. Photoshop next on the scan to invert it to make the positive image. I then flipped it to show the correct orientation and did a bit of levels adjustment and contrast. It really is quite easy to do.

 

As for the dome in the background, yes, that is a big part of my job looking after, running and maintaining the school's observatory. 4m dome with Meade LX200R 16", Skywatcher ED80 and Coronado Solarmax 60 Double Stacked. Some say I have a nice job We do loads of outreach at night time with local Brownies, Scouts and the such and I run various clubs and the Astro Soc for the school. It's a dirty job but somebody has to do it eh...