It’s been an absolute stinker of a summer when it comes to astrophotography opportunities. However, I took a chance by booking a little getaway with one of my boys to southeastern Poland. We stayed in a quaint town named Krempna near Poland’s border with Slovakia. The plan was to do a little hiking during the day and then hopefully some photography at night. And if all went according to plan, this meant we would be shooting under Bortle 3 skies. Well, I’ll cut to the chase and just say that I finally got an opportunity to shoot under dark skies while revisiting the Heart Nebula.
No Pain, No Gain
I had one simple goal – Survive the hikes and be functional enough to stay out late shooting. That was a little easier said than done! My 16-year-old, whom I shall call “He Who Walks On Clouds” was flying up the mountain trails. On the other hand, yours truly – a gravity-bound middle-aged leadfoot – wondered at what point my oxygen-starved muscles were going to go on strike. Slow, slow going. Also hot. But the heat yielded to a cool clean breeze that whipped around the trees and beckoned us to continue. Peacefully quiet. In fact, we only encountered one other hiker on the trail while cresting the peak of Baranie Mountain. It was a perfect day for a hike and the perfect time for a little rest.
While we were taking a little break at the top of the mountain, it dawned on me. Why for the love of Pete am I the one hauling this twelve-pound pack around when I have this strapping elvish pack mule with me? So I fixed that. Although I totally feel like I got the short end of that deal as the only way to go from here was down. Oh well. At least my spent legs held up well enough to finish the loop and make the 3-mile descent back to the trailhead. A nap would be in order when we got back to our cabin.
Dark Skies are Kinda Amazing
Unbelievably, given my luck, the evening skies were clear. Every fiber of my body burned with that “I totally overdid it today” feeling. But we were determined to make the most of the dark skies. As an added bonus, the Perseids were putting on quite the show. While setting up, we saw several absolute fireballs stream across the twilight sky. Totally cool. Unfortunately though, after shooting for three hours, we didn’t manage to catch any of the brightest flares. But we did get about two hours of good time on the Heart Nebula! Just looking around though under these dark skies – it’s a totally different experience.
I use an unmodified camera, so I decided to be aggressive with the aperture at f/2.8 on my Samyang 135mm lens. Coupled with 30-second exposures at ISO 1600, I knew I’d get to keep most of the snaps I was taking. After reviewing the evening’s take, I wound up keeping 240 images for stacking. In processing, I cropped the light frames down and drizzled the stack. Below you’ll see the result.
I was really struck by how easy it was to process this photo. For instance, I didn’t have to fight with a wicked light pollution gradient which really opened up some opportunities to play around with the post-processing. I know I could have brought out a little more of the nebulosity in this photo, but I was pleased with the contrast of the illuminated dust structures and opted to highlight these features. The colors are really amazing in the raw data. Definitely one of the best photos I’ve produced to date.
However, walking away from this project, I can’t help but feel a little bit disappointed. Dark skies make such a big difference in the overall experience of astrophotography and I just don’t get this kind of opportunity very often. Bummer. And I lament that I didn’t frame this photo a little differently. I missed the opportunity to fully pair the Heart Nebula with the Soul Nebula. In fairness, I did get most of the Soul Nebula in the RAW data, but I clipped it and decided to just focus on the Heart Nebula. Some day…
What’s Next, New, and Exciting?
Overall, this was an awesome trip and I’m looking forward to getting down that way again soon. But in the meantime, I’ve got a lot of exciting things going on. The biggest news I have at the moment is my decision to take the next step in my 3D-printer journey… I just picked up a Bambu Lab P1S printer without the AMS and will be familiarizing myself with it over the coming weeks. Don’t get me wrong, I love my Adventurer 3. But the P1S is in a whole different class. And… It’s wicked fast.
So my continued development of a Gamma star tracker replacement should pick up now with this new equipment. Suffice to say I’ve been impressed thus far with the P1S and will no doubt write more about this in the coming months. And hopefully, before long, I’ll have more to say about some new 3D printed astrophotography toys.
Just a brief post today, but enough to let everyone know I’m still shooting and tinkering. 🙂