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Ramblings of an Old Star Geezer . . .
Looking at Astrophotography Then and Now . . .
My biggest giggles come from the idea that years ago at the introduction of CCD’s and silicone detectors the hue and cry of the new generation was how much FASTER they would be, cutting exposures down to mere minutes rather than hours. Hah! Your typical astro-imager these days spends hours and hours imaging through filter after filter with some exposures running into consecutive days, not to mention the time in front of a monitor washing everything through one kind of imaging software after another, all to get a nice 8” X 10” print.
25 years ago I took the astrophotograph on this page.
- Full frame no cropping.
- No mosaics
- No multiple filters
- No hours and hours of integration time
- No focus concerns
- No field flatteners
- No aberrations ( check the star images at the four corners of the print )
- No flat fielding or calibrations
- No Photoshop
- No Registax ( In fact, no software of ANY kind. )
- 5.5” f/1.65 Celestron Schmidt Camera
- Gas Hypered, Kodak Technical Pan 2415 film
- One (1) filter, a Kodak Wratten #92 red filter
- A SINGLE 25 minute exposure, hand guided at 325X
- IN THE DARKROOM
- 11” X 14” print on Kodak polycontrast III paper with an “N” finish
The enlarger head was set at 631, an 80 Magenta filter was used to balance the print and the exposure was 44 seconds.
Developed in Kodak Dektol.
Look at the star images in the overall print, look for the smallest star you can see. What do you suppose its size would be on the negative? This is an 11” X 14” print that in turn has been scanned and copied. The smallest stars can be measured in microns.
Old Bernhard knew exactly what he was doing.
I guess we have really come a long way since 1990, but have we?
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