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Started my Nightscapes and Star trails course last night with a 3 hr class reviewing trip planning, equipment, and capture techniques.
The field trip was supposed to run on Saturday night but it was obvious that the weather wasn't going to cooperate and that most of next week was the same. Part of class one was clear sky forecasting. I showed them how I do it. The forecast indicated tonight was our best opportunity so we headed out of town, near my regular observing site. Of course the clear sky I predicted was completely clouded over when we met in a Cafe in Yass. Ever the optimist, after coffee and food I suggested we head out in convoy to a small brick bridge over a rail line that I scouted/selected as a shoot location to be ready if it cleared. Arriving at the rail bridge, I directed the convoy into an off road parking area and wow...the sky was mostly clear and remained mainly clear for the three hour shoot. Some cloud did pass through but this only added opalescent interest to the sky in some of their shots.
Sometimes you get lucky.
Joe
Amateur astronomer since 1978...................Web site :http://joe-cali.com/ Scopes: ATM 18" Dob, Vixen VC200L, ATM 6"f7, Stellarvue 102ED, Saxon ED80, WO M70 ED, Orion 102 Maksutov, ST80. Mounts: Takahashi EM-200, iOptron iEQ45, Push dobsonian with Nexus DSC, three homemade EQ's. Eyepieces: TV Naglers 31, 17, 12, 7; Denkmeier D21 & D14; Pentax XW10, XW5, Unitron 40mm Kellner, Meade Or 25,12 Cameras : Pentax K1, K5, K01, K10D / VIDEO CAMS : TacosBD, Lihmsec. Cam/guider/controllers: Lacerta MGEN 3, SW Synguider, Simulation Curriculum SkyFi 3+Sky safari Memberships Astronomical Association of Queensland; RASNZ Occultations Section; Single Exposure Milky Way Facebook Group (Moderator) (12k members), The Sky Searchers (moderator)
This sounds like a success Joe.
And I imagine your students were pleased. :-)
Thank you for posting this update.
Did you also get to shoot or are you mostly coaching others?
To answer Mark's question, I had my cameras with me but I left my cameras in the car and concentrated on coaching. I am being paid for this and owe them my full attention.
With seven students with photographic abilities varying from beginner to advanced, I just circulated from person to person helping with everything from issues with tripods they couldn't get to tighten (couldn't work out what was loose in the dark) to advice on ISO settings, noise reduction focusing etc for the first two hours.
I had the cameras so that if it had stayed clear, I might have done some work of my own after they went home at 10pm I also had my EM-200 in the car so I could have driven 10 mins up the road to my friends property. But it was cloudy so I went home. Because it is on the same road and only 10 mins from my friends property, I can capture there any time.
It's very rewarding seeing the excitement as they produced their first nightscape images. After a few teething problems, one of the least experienced, and least confident participants asked me to look at her image and tell me what was wrong with it. I looked at it and told her, "I can't see anything wrong with it, it looks excellent to me." I asked her what she thought was wrong. She said, "Oh nothing, that's great you think that because it looks fantastic to me too." I could hear the excitement in her voice. :-)
When I comment on images in any of my workshops, I am supportive but I don't sugarcoat comments. People are there to improve and if they are shooting poor quality images, I tell them. I tell them nicely, I don't beat them down. I give them my honest opinion and then I tell them what they can do to improve the image in post processing or next time they capture. When I started teaching in the mid 1990's it was more difficult to criticise but with experience, you learn how to express it without demoralising them. I figure their friends can give them platitudes, they are paying the art centre and me to make them better photographers.
During the third hour, they all settled into a routine, and most were capturing an intervalometer sequence for a star trail so there wasn't much for me to do. I went back to my car and fired up the stove, boiled water for tea and coffee, blueberry muffins and a post mortem on the evening. After a very mild May, June really slapped us in the face with a cold blast from the Southern Ocean so the hot drink went down really well.
I was worried that some might not appreciate the hour-long drive but every one of them made a point to tell me how much they enjoyed us heading out of town to dark skies and how great the location was and fantastic skies. The petrol filter as it was recently called on another thread worked a treat!
Having a lot of fun with this course.....and they're paying me to do it ;-)
cheers
Joe
Amateur astronomer since 1978...................Web site :http://joe-cali.com/ Scopes: ATM 18" Dob, Vixen VC200L, ATM 6"f7, Stellarvue 102ED, Saxon ED80, WO M70 ED, Orion 102 Maksutov, ST80. Mounts: Takahashi EM-200, iOptron iEQ45, Push dobsonian with Nexus DSC, three homemade EQ's. Eyepieces: TV Naglers 31, 17, 12, 7; Denkmeier D21 & D14; Pentax XW10, XW5, Unitron 40mm Kellner, Meade Or 25,12 Cameras : Pentax K1, K5, K01, K10D / VIDEO CAMS : TacosBD, Lihmsec. Cam/guider/controllers: Lacerta MGEN 3, SW Synguider, Simulation Curriculum SkyFi 3+Sky safari Memberships Astronomical Association of Queensland; RASNZ Occultations Section; Single Exposure Milky Way Facebook Group (Moderator) (12k members), The Sky Searchers (moderator)
Thank you Joe for the come-back.
I can imagine the pleasure that young photographer felt with your positive comments.
I remember years ago taking a water color class at the UofI with Billy Marrow Jackson. He was an art professor here and I had always admired his water color work. He had seen something I had painted at a local "Arts in The Park" shindig here and asked me if I would like to take his class. I have to say that It was intimidating to be in his class. And after while...it was still intimidating. :-)
It is a pleasure for me to read of your activities there Joe.
There is nothing like getting paid to do the things we enjoy !
