Meteors Bombard the Milky Way + Edit

[JimFox]

This is from a week or two ago in the San Juans at Dallas Divide in SW Colorado. My goal and focus was doing Deep Space Astro with my long lens and tracker, but of course I still set up cameras for timelapses. I haven't gotten any timelapses done since I am back at my daughters and the 6 grandkids, but an awesome biproduct of the timelapses is I can pull images out that I want. In this case I had noticed a ton of meteors burning up in the sky while looking at the galaxies and nebulas. So I decided to put them all together.

Since I was going to be blending anyway, the ground layer is one image from before the moon set. So the moon is lighting it up. I then took for the sky one of the images that had a meteor but also had the Milky Way in a pretty good spot since the Milky Way was traveling through my frame from Left to Right during the course of the night. I then went though with a layer mask and blended in the various meteors from during the night.

It's kind of amazing in that often we think of night skies with lot's a meteors happening during Meteor Showers like Perseids or Geminid. But in this case, it's just a regular old night...

All frames used in this were shot at ISO 3200, 25 secs and f2.2

All comments are welcome,

Jim

1 - Original

2 - Edit with 1 Meteor Removed per Jameel's suggestion

 

[AlanLichty]

Looks like a laser war in space

Nice blend.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Really nice Jim I am considering an RF 15-35 F 2,8 for night images. It can work at F2,8 and has little vignette compared to my Rokenon. It will replace my 11-24 f4

 

[Jameel Hyder]

That is a nice blend Jim. Curious about the horizontal one - looks like a plane more than a meteor. Or perhaps it was a UFO

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Really nice Jim I am considering an RF 15-35 F 2,8 for night images. It can work at F2,8 and has little vignette compared to my Rokenon. It will replace my 11-24 f4

Canon just announced a RF 14-35 f4 IS. Nice and compact looking with a 77mm filter thread. I might get that to replace the EF 16-25 f4 at some point. The price is a bit steep at 1699 however.

 

[JimFox]

Looks like a laser war in space

Nice blend.

Ha ha, that's a great title for it Alan. Thanks!

 

[JimFox]

Canon just announced a RF 14-35 f4 IS. Nice and compact looking with a 77mm filter thread. I might get that to replace the EF 16-25 f4 at some point. The price is a bit steep at 1699 however.

f4 is really no good at night unless that's your only choice. So that wouldn't work for Ben.

But it would be a great replacement for your 16-25, or did you mean 16-35? I really like my Nikon 16-35mm and its my go to WA for my normal landscape where f4 doesn't matter and I am shooting at f13. But if I had one criticism of it? It's that I wished it was a 14-35mm instead of a 16-35mm. I would definitely exchange my 16-35mm for a 14-35mm if that was an option for me.

 

[JimFox]

Really nice Jim I am considering an RF 15-35 F 2,8 for night images. It can work at F2,8 and has little vignette compared to my Rokenon. It will replace my 11-24 f4

Thanks Ben.

Is it a constant f2.8?

Vignetting shouldn't be an issue, it's an easy fix with ACR. All of my WA 14mm's vignette. But all I have to do to correct it is slide the vignette slider to about 45 to 50 and it's gone. So I don't think I would replace it if that's your reasoning. Now if that 15-35 is a constant f2.8 then that could be cool. But to honest, that 1mm from 14mm to 15mm is huge.... so I don't know if I would switch.

 

[Jameel Hyder]

f4 is really no good at night unless that's your only choice. So that wouldn't work for Ben.

But it would be a great replacement for your 16-25, or did you mean 16-35? I really like my Nikon 16-35mm and its my go to WA for my normal landscape where f4 doesn't matter and I am shooting at f13. But if I had one criticism of it? It's that I wished it was a 14-35mm instead of a 16-35mm. I would definitely exchange my 16-35mm for a 14-35mm if that was an option for me.

Yes it is 14-35. That Rokinon is pretty good for astro work. I am not sure how well these zooms handle coma which has always been an issue. My goto lenses for night work are 24/1.4 and 14/2.8 - both Rokinons.

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Thanks Ben.

Is it a constant f2.8?

Vignetting shouldn't be an issue, it's an easy fix with ACR. All of my WA 14mm's vignette. But all I have to do to correct it is slide the vignette slider to about 45 to 50 and it's gone. So I don't think I would replace it if that's your reasoning. Now if that 15-35 is a constant f2.8 then that could be cool. But to honest, that 1mm from 14mm to 15mm is huge.... so I don't know if I would switch.

Yes that is a constant 2.8.

 

[JimFox]

Yes it is 14-35. That Rokinon is pretty good for astro work. I am not sure how well these zooms handle coma which has always been an issue. My goto lenses for night work are 24/1.4 and 14/2.8 - both Rokinons.

I almost picked up a Rokinon 24mm f1.4 during Amazon days. But I didn't think the discount was enough. I did get the Rokinon 135mm f2.0 for use with my Deep Space Astro, lot's of guys use it for that. Plus at some point I will get a dedicated Astro camera, but it will be either a 4/3rds sensor or a crop sensor, so that will extend the reach of the 135mm for me and make it even more usable.

 

[JimFox]

That is a nice blend Jim. Curious about the horizontal one - looks like a plane more than a meteor. Or perhaps it was a UFO

I skipped over this. Yeah, the horizontal one had the tailing off that I look for in meteors, but in hindsight, it does look a bit odd with it's trajectory. I think I will just label it a UFO....

 

[Ben Egbert]

Comments on vignetting. Both the Canon 11-24 f4 and Rokinon 14 f2.4 require adaptors, and are not well corrected for lens aberrations in Photoshop. The 11-24 works ok as a landscape lens and is much sharper in the corners than the Rokinon at like 14 f4. But I don't like adapted lenses and I would prefer the simplicity of a native lens.

I have been thinking about night photography. The Rokinon Canon R5 are fine for web images but not for print. I am not sure I would ever print a Milky way anyway. So a lens just for web use does not make much sense to me.

I think 15 f2.8 with a 1/4 moon and a scene that lets me make multiple images for stack might be pretty good. The RF15-35 f2.8 gets great reviews for Milky Way.

 

[JimFox]

Comments on vignetting. Both the Canon 11-24 f4 and Rokinon 14 f2.4 require adaptors, and are not well corrected for lens aberrations in Photoshop. The 11-24 works ok as a landscape lens and is much sharper in the corners than the Rokinon at like 14 f4. But I don't like adapted lenses and I would prefer the simplicity of a native lens.

I have been thinking about night photography. The Rokinon Canon R5 are fine for web images but not for print. I am not sure I would ever print a Milky way anyway. So a lens just for web use does not make much sense to me.

I think 15 f2.8 with a 1/4 moon and a scene that lets me make multiple images for stack might be pretty good. The RF15-35 f2.8 gets great reviews for Milky Way.

I didn't even think that your Rokinon 14mm needed an adapter. If that's the case for me it's a no brainer. While adapters seem to work fine most of the time, I would definitely not want one, I would want lenses that natively mounted to the camera I had. So I would say get that 15-35mm for sure.

 

[Jameel Hyder]

The Rokinon 14/2.8 is available in native RF mount and has AF as well. The 2.4 version isn't available yet.

 

[Bob]

Jim,
This is really cool blend. I will have to try it sometime.
I am going to white pocket next week to shoot the milky way with Mike Koopsen if you want to join us. For everyone else I shoot the Sigma 14mm f1.8 and love the lens. It is my go to lens for the milky way. I also have the Rokinon 14mm f2.8 for a Sony mount that I will sell if anyone is interested.
Bob

 

[Amy Nelson]

Talk about chaos...looks like it should be in a Sci fi movie. Great shot (s).

 

[JimFox]

That is a nice blend Jim. Curious about the horizontal one - looks like a plane more than a meteor. Or perhaps it was a UFO

Hey Jameel, I looked close at that one Meteor, and I would say it is a Meteor from the coloring in it and the tail. But it did fly at odds with the other meteor angles and found it to be disruptive to the flow of them. I think I like it better without that one added in.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Nice result! Really like the blending, looks natural to me.

I just pre-ordered the RF 14-35 f/4 L IS, expected to replace my EF 16-35 f/4 L IS assuming the IQ is at least as good. I am also still waiting for a suitable nightscape lens in the RF mount. The Sigma 14m f/1.8 is amazing, but quite a beast, especially when fitted with the EFtoRF converter. I have a decent copy of the Rokinon EF mount 24 f/1.4 but i find that isn't wide enough for a lot of things. First ~14mm RF mount lens from a reasonable manufacturer that is f/2 or better gets my money...

ML

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Nice result! Really like the blending, looks natural to me.

I just pre-ordered the RF 14-35 f/4 L IS, expected to replace my EF 16-35 f/4 L IS assuming the IQ is at least as good. I am also still waiting for a suitable nightscape lens in the RF mount. The Sigma 14m f/1.8 is amazing, but quite a beast, especially when fitted with the EFtoRF converter. I have a decent copy of the Rokinon EF mount 24 f/1.4 but i find that isn't wide enough for a lot of things. First ~14mm RF mount lens from a reasonable manufacturer that is f/2 or better gets my money...

ML

The Rokinon 14/2.8 is now available in RF mount and can AF. Assuming it is as good as the EF version (copy variations aside), it should serve well for night shooting. Has some distortion which can be an issue with architecture but is a non issue with night skies and landscape.

AmazonSmile : Rokinon AF 14mm F2.8 Wide Angle Auto Focus Full Frame Weather Sealed Lens for Canon RF Mount, Black (IO14AF-RF) : Camera & Photo