Astrophotography and aperture

[CuriousMike]

During last nights trip to the observatory, I had an idea to compare what exactly f/1.4 got me compared to my older f2.8 lens.

So, I took a series of night photos from f1.4, f1.8, f2.8 and f4.0 to see exactly what the effect was.

I whipped a page together to easily group the photos together.

Maybe someone will find it useful

https://coustier.smugmug.com/Blog/Astroaperture

 

[The Stigenator]

nice!!!

 

[RampantAndroid]

A nice tracking rig lets you use longer exposures at lower ISOs and wider apertures. Stacking photos can help too - I only really do long exposures untracked when I'm doing the northern lights or a meteor shower. (Only done the Norther Lights once, back in March of this year in Iceland. Got REALLY lucky and saw an amazing show.)

 

[CuriousMike]

A nice tracking rig lets you use longer exposures at lower ISOs and wider apertures. Stacking photos can help too - I only really do long exposures untracked when I'm doing the northern lights or a meteor shower. (Only done the Norther Lights once, back in March of this year in Iceland. Got REALLY lucky and saw an amazing show.)

I understand that a tracking rig can help - I'm not *that* deep in astrophotography yet.

I have used stacking to great effect for an Andromeda Galaxy photo I did last year.
I suppose I should try stacking a series of MW photos I did this past weekend...

 

[Syborg1211]

So what was the conclusion from this test? Did f/1.4 get you what you wanted? It would have been interesting to compare equivalent exposures for the different f-stops. So an f/1.4 5 second exposure versus an f/2.0 10 second exposure and f/2.8 20 second exposure. Or a similar range with ISO - f/1.4, 10 seconds, ISO800 vs f/2.8, 10 seconds, ISO3200 to see how much noise the ISO adds and can be cancelled with noise reduction.

 

[CuriousMike]

It would have been interesting to compare equivalent exposures for the different f-stops.

Hrm, maybe next time i'll try that.