Fireball train

Got a thin skin? Then look elsewhere. Post a link to an image that you've made, and invite others to offer their critiques. Honesty is encouraged, but please be positive in your constructive criticism. Flaming and just plain nastiness will not be tolerated. Please note that this is not an area for you to showcase your images, nor is this a place for you to show-off where you have been. This is an area for you to post images so that you may share with us a technique that you have mastered, or are trying to master. Typically, no more than about four images should be posted in any one post or thread, and the maximum size of any side of any image should not exceed 950 px.

Moderators: Greg B, Nnnnsic, Geoff, Glen, gstark, Moderators

Forum rules
Please note that image critiquing is a matter of give and take: if you post images for critique, and you then expect to receive criticism, then it is also reasonable, fair and appropriate that, in return, you post your critique of the images of other members here as a matter of courtesy. So please do offer your critique of the images of others; your opinion is important, and will help everyone here enjoy their visit to far greater extent.

Also please note that, unless you state something to the contrary, other members might attempt to repost your image with their own post processing applied. We see this as an acceptable form of critique, but should you prefer that others not modify your work, this is perfectly ok, and you should state this, either within your post, or within your signature.

Images posted here should conform with the general forum guidelines. Image sizes should not exceed 950 pixels along the largest side (height or width) and typically no more than four images per post or thread.

Please also ensure that you have a meaningful location included in your profile. Please refer to the FAQ for details of what "meaningful" is.

Fireball train

Postby Gordon on Wed Sep 27, 2006 6:46 pm

I'm sure its probably not what most of you are expecting! Its a fireball, as in a meteor brighter than Venus, and the glowing cloud of material left in its wake, known as a train. Image
Thats the fireball on the right, low in the northern sky. The orange trail is a plane that moved across the field of view over several frames. The animation is made up of frames taken over 10 minutes, 13 second exposures, at 15 second intervals with the D200. It shows the train being blown westwards by upper atmospheric winds, probably somewhere in the range 50-100km up.

http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~gordon/Fireballtrain20060923GJG1.avi

The lens was a Sigma 30mm used at f/1.4, and I had the ISO set to 1600. The original images were small, fine quality jpgs, I normally use compressed RAW, but there isnt enough room on a 2GB card to keep exposing for the life of the battery, which was only 75 minutes. I think I'll have to get a mains adaptor and possibly some other external battery for when there is no mains power.
As you will see in the animation, I just cropped the lower right hand corner of the frames, so there is a bit of coma showing at f/1.4, but its quite good, much better than my old 55mm f/1.2 Nikkor.
I have made up some 302 frame animated gifs of the whole field, but at over 100Mb they are ridiculously large! so I'm not posting them
I used freeware called JPGVideo to convert the jpgs to an avi movie, which I hope most can view. It was made using Windows1 codec with a fair bit of compression to keep the file size down to 3.3Mb.
An avi movie of the 302 full size frames came out at 2.2Gb, and Windoze Media Player decided it wasnt going to play it :roll:

Gordon
D70, D200, CP5700
User avatar
Gordon
Member
 
Posts: 436
Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2005 11:04 pm
Location: Loomberah/Siding Spring Observatory

Postby thelastname on Wed Sep 27, 2006 7:25 pm

Interesting and well done Gordon.

Movie works fine.
thelastname
Newbie
 
Posts: 44
Joined: Fri Aug 25, 2006 12:01 pm
Location: Warrnambool

Postby Yi-P on Wed Sep 27, 2006 9:06 pm

Very interesting thing you can do with this.

Did you use a tracer/tracker device for the shots? Specially the 10mins exposure ones.
User avatar
Yi-P
Senior Member
 
Posts: 3579
Joined: Mon Jul 25, 2005 1:12 am
Location: Sydney -- Ashfield

Postby Gordon on Wed Sep 27, 2006 9:18 pm

No tracking with these shots Yi-P, just using a tripod. If they were tracked the stars would not move across the sky as they do here, the trees would move the other way instead ;)
The exposures were short enough with the 30mm lens in that part of the sky to not show trails. Maybe my wording isnt clear enough in the original post- the exposures in the animation I posted are 13 seconds each, one taken every 15 seconds, for about 10 minutes total animation time.

Gordon
D70, D200, CP5700
User avatar
Gordon
Member
 
Posts: 436
Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2005 11:04 pm
Location: Loomberah/Siding Spring Observatory

Postby wally on Thu Sep 28, 2006 12:29 am

We get some truly amazing stars down here in Adelaide!!
Where am I
User avatar
wally
Member
 
Posts: 91
Joined: Mon Dec 19, 2005 11:44 am
Location: Adelaide

Postby Laurie on Thu Sep 28, 2006 11:40 am

Gordon, when was this picture taken?
reckon its related to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mbA606ZRWI&eurl=

probably not :D (that was 22nd of Sep btw)
User avatar
Laurie
Senior Member
 
Posts: 679
Joined: Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:46 pm
Location: Mortdale.Sydney/NSW.AU

Postby Gordon on Thu Sep 28, 2006 2:59 pm

Laurie wrote:Gordon, when was this picture taken?
reckon its related to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mbA606ZRWI&eurl=

probably not :D (that was 22nd of Sep btw)


Definitely not related ;) I'm not in Mexico, and my images were taken on the 23rd. Also, whatever it is in the video on youtube, it is NOT a meteor! Its probably another fake like the other "meteor videos" there. The light which is saturated keeps vanishing, thats not going to happen with a large meteor. You can see a large dark object there when it stops glowing, if that was real and hit Earth we would all know about it by now. Large fireballs travel at 11-40km/second, so if it was a real meteor it would have to be a LONG way away to be moving at that angular velocity, and therefore the object would have to be many tens to hundreds of metres across to be resolved on that video. The americas would probably be experiencing the start of a cosmic winter by now!

Gordon
D70, D200, CP5700
User avatar
Gordon
Member
 
Posts: 436
Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2005 11:04 pm
Location: Loomberah/Siding Spring Observatory

Postby Laurie on Thu Sep 28, 2006 3:56 pm

Gordon wrote:
Laurie wrote:Gordon, when was this picture taken?
reckon its related to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mbA606ZRWI&eurl=

probably not :D (that was 22nd of Sep btw)


Definitely not related ;) I'm not in Mexico, and my images were taken on the 23rd. Also, whatever it is in the video on youtube, it is NOT a meteor! Its probably another fake like the other "meteor videos" there. The light which is saturated keeps vanishing, thats not going to happen with a large meteor. You can see a large dark object there when it stops glowing, if that was real and hit Earth we would all know about it by now. Large fireballs travel at 11-40km/second, so if it was a real meteor it would have to be a LONG way away to be moving at that angular velocity, and therefore the object would have to be many tens to hundreds of metres across to be resolved on that video. The americas would probably be experiencing the start of a cosmic winter by now!

Gordon


*runs*

just thought it was interesting, your post and that video. i smell conspiracy
User avatar
Laurie
Senior Member
 
Posts: 679
Joined: Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:46 pm
Location: Mortdale.Sydney/NSW.AU


Return to Image Reviews and Critiques