Author Archives: Mike Lewinski

About Mike Lewinski

Timelapser, astrophotographer, Braver Angel Moderator, NOC Director, Off-gridder in Crestone, Colorado, USA (a Dark Sky certified community)

Nov 24-25, 2019 time lapses

I had to setup the tracking mount well before Polaris was visible and my guess at alignment was close enough to keep the planets in the frame for about 80 minutes.
I caught the Starlink satellites at dawn. Clouds obscured them a little, but when the sky turns red look at the lower right of center around the 32 second mark.
Since I was already polar aligned for the tracking mount…

Andromeda with new telescope plus Nov 23-24, 2019 time lapse with star trails

I bought a small refractor and have made my first attempt at stacking multiple exposures. This was made from 211 x 30 second exposures taken over two hours.
Telescope: Williams Optics Zenithstar 61 APO
Mount: Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Pro
Camera: Sony a6300
Software: DeepSkyStacker
I started out at sunset using a new telescope to image Andromeda and only switched to time lapse after 8:30pm MST. Now that I have a telescope, there’s competition between wide-field time lapse and deep-sky stacking. While I have two cameras, I only have one portable battery bank and sturdy tripod.

Nov 22, 23 time lapses

I knew that frost was going to cover my lens when I put it out… but the focus adjustment on this lens is where the lens warmer goes, and I cannot manage to get it on without losing focus. So do I want blurry out of focus from start to finish, or blurry once the frost sets in? I went with latter, and trimmed most of the blurry out.