A Nikon D5, 800mm Lens, and 2x Teleconverter in Space

An interesting article on using a Nikon in space:

 

This Astronaut Shot Racetracks from Space with a Nikon DSLR

Well, camera and lens would weigh nothing in space! (but still have the same mass, of course). The mass would be good for stabilization. Point it in the right direction with live view, stop the motion, then use self timer, no gravity = tripod!

 

Do the standard batteries work in the cold EVA temps?

Point it in the right direction with live view, stop the motion, then use self timer, no gravity = tripod!

 

Hmm...it would be quite the trick, using just your hands, to let go the camera and have it be motionless (unrotating) to a sufficient degree that it would still be pointing at the same tiny target when the self timer expired. I think it would in fact be exceedingly difficult.

 

Also, without a stable platform, the motion of the mirror as it flips out of the way, or, in Live View, the motion of the shutter as it snaps closed and back open for the exposure, might cause the camera to rotate enough that it's no longer pointed at the target by the time the image is captured.

 

It would be interesting to see how practical it is to use an unsupported camera in free-fall.

Do the standard batteries work in the cold EVA temps?

 

In the image of the astronaut holding the camera, the camera seems wrapped in some protective material. I suspect it is heated and protected from direct sunlight which just might melt it. It's probably a very good idea not to point the lens directly at the sun; lens flare would be the least of your worries.

I've done the 'can't see it, just point and shoot' game before.

 

It was a small warbler up a tree. I couldn't find it in the VF so shot the tree with a 500mm f4 on DX where I thought it was...

 

.. and found it later on a 32" monitor.

 

It was a female Blackcap, so nothing rare, but it showed that hope and resolution can get you an ID....:)

In the image of the astronaut holding the camera, the camera seems wrapped in some protective material. I suspect it is heated and protected from direct sunlight which just might melt it. It's probably a very good idea not to point the lens directly at the sun; lens flare would be the least of your worries.

 

Although you'd get some extra illumination outside the normally visible spectrum, I'm not sure that pointing at the sun would cause excessive trouble other than in as much as the sensor can't convect heat away. Fact-checking myself, the lunar surface can hit 127 centigrade, which is hot enough to be unpleasant to lubricant and mess with electronics (and possibly crack some glass), but probably not enough to melt it, per se. Pointing a big telephoto at the sun is going to be a bad idea no matter where you do it.

I've done the 'can't see it, just point and shoot' game before.

 

Funny you should mention it, I took advantage of a rare clear sky to do basically the reverse, last night. After an exciting couple of hours reconstructing my astronomy mount to calibrate its reticule and deal with the fact that the counterweight, when trying to deal with a D850 + original 300mm f/4 AF-S + long lens support + gear head... wasn't much of a counterweight (I flipped things over, but it's still a tight fit; I've owned the thing for a couple of years and not got around to using it, so at least I finally tried...) I went out to a local football field where I at least wasn't directly under a street light.

 

Lessons I've learned:

• I can't line up an astro-tracker on Polaris if the light pollution is so bad I can't see Polaris. (After half an hour or so I could make out what might have been it, but not through the reticule, so I was still eyeballing north, just a little more accurately; next time I'll ask my wife to bring a laser pointer to help.)
  
• My light pollution filter does not very much now my local region has switched most of its sodium lighting to LEDs. I wonder if I can get a refund from the council? (I do have a stronger nebula filter that might yet do something, but that's on a 200mm f/4.)
  
• If I can barely see some of Orion, Castor and Pollux, Sirius and a few bits of Leo, it's quite hard to aim at anything. I definitely have M42 in shot, and it was just about visible (even in live view - modern sensors are impressive). I may have some of the other nebulae around Orion, but I have to process the images to find out. (Most of these were 4s exposures because I'd not yet moved my tracker to point more northerly.) I pointed at what might be the Pleiades, but I certainly couldn't see them, so who knows once I've processed it. I might have something near the rear of Leo in shot, or I might not, because I couldn't see a thing. Likewise something near the owl nebula. If a lot of processing gets me anywhere, expect some Nikon Wednesday images that contain a lot of sky with a small colourful blob somewhere in them.
  
• I need to visit my sister, who lives on the edge of a dark sky site, more often. But she's in Wales, so it's usually cloudy. :)
  

Having said all that, being able to see the area around what you're aiming at, or see it but not through the camera (as with my dragonfly tracking efforts), does seem like it would have been helpful.

Sometimes I wonder about one of the external FHD video monitors, about 9" maybe, to help 'see' what the camera can see more easily without resorting to a laptop and LV maybe.

D850 + original 300mm f/4 AF-S

I'd have thought your 200mm f2 would grab more light?

If there is light pollution, a wide aperture doesn't solve the problem. You would need a rear slot filter for the 200/2, and possibly a heavier duty tracker (I don't know which one you have).

 

Going to some remote coastal areas might help, however. And there may be other interesting things to photograph (the landscape).

I was doing better with live view than looking through the finder. Although only a bit.

 

I've used my 200 f/2 for non-tracked images in the past, and the rear filter size matches my nebula filter. My general LPR filter is a bit trickier. But no, it's not going to fly on my Skywatcher Star Adventurer, which is optimistically rated for 5kg - the idea was to have something small enough that I'd be willing to take it somewhere without light pollution (it came on my big US trip, but didn't get used, partly due to smoke in the sky and partly due to exhaustion). The 300mm, a long lens support and a D850 (mounted on an Arca d4) already took the mounting rail past what it could balance with the counterweight; I swapped the mount around so the base of the d4 is actually in front of the centre of rotation, which doesn't give me much freedom of movement, and it just about balances. To be fair, the long lens support is fairly heavy and I might have been able to arrange something with less of a cantilever, and it may not be necessary since the 200 f/2's mount might be a little more solid than the 300mm's infamously wobbly one. I was at f/5 anyway, in the interests of not losing all star colours, gaining a modicum of sharpness, and since 8s at ISO400 still seemed to show things up. I may use the 200mm when I have the nebula filter in place, but probably not on the tracker.

 

The coast might help, although the channel is pretty full of light sources - I might do better up north, but once you're out of southern England the light situation gets a lot better anyway. The Welsh valleys block a lot of village lighting.

 

I do have a 10" Dobsonian, but I won't pretend that carting it around is enjoyable. Although I had the traditional February stargazing experience despite the generally warm weather yesterday: everything is fine until you lose feeling in your feet, then when you put your hand on the tripod or a big lump of metal like the long lens support you scream because of how cold it is. I should probably put a foam wrap on my tripod despite it being carbon.

I was thinking about the Scotland coast. ;-) Rugged terrain adds opportunities for shots during the day.

I've managed to book a holiday cottage for the 3rd week of August in the Dark Sky Site of the Forest of Galloway. See how the Perseids are this year....:cool:

 

If it stays clear, I think I'll try my new D850 (!) with a Samyang 135mm f2 on my Skywatcher Star Adventurer (red!)

 

I think the Sigma 135mm 1.8 + D850 + mount may be a bit heavy together....;)

I think the Sigma 135mm 1.8 + D850 + mount may be a bit heavy together....;)

 

Do you have the counterweight? I belatedly realised that if you just stick a head on the central clamp, there's not much room for the camera to move around. Mine's also the red one, but because I acquired them more recently my counterweight, L-plate (needed for the counterweight) and wedge are in the new white/green colour scheme. Tasteful. The L-plate sticks the tripod head off to the side of the mount, so everything cantilevers opposite the counterweight (unless, like me, you mount it facing inwards - but then my tripod head goes from being too long to too short). It probably wouldn't be so bad if you point the head sideways, but then you're fighting the rotation of the head on its base... Good luck, but play before you head out there! (And, er, let me know if you want to borrow anything. The accessories are a little preposterously priced.)

 

The 135 f/1.8 has the same entrance aperture as the 300mm f/4 - it may be no worse than what I was doing. I wouldn't go much bigger, though.

 

Dare I ask how dark the sky actually gets in August in Scotland? The sun won't be that far below the horizon, but maybe I'm paranoid.

I'll let you know in August!

 

I got the 'full bundle' at a good discount pre-owned as a customer return inc. EQ wedge, c.weight and L bracket thingy.

 

All in red....:cool:

 

Galloway isn't really high Scotland.. Latitude level with Carlisle and Newcastle.

Fact-checking myself, the lunar surface can hit 127 centigrade, which is hot enough to be unpleasant to lubricant and mess with electronics (and possibly crack some glass), but probably not enough to melt it, per se. Pointing a big telephoto at the sun is going to be a bad idea no matter where you do it.

 

Hi Andrew,

 

You are probably correct. It would not melt the metal body of the camera. I was thinking more about the black rubber body covering. If not melt it, prolonged sunlight exposure might make it a bit gooey, perhaps.

 

As for pointing the lens at the sun, with no atmosphere to attenuate and scatter the suns rays ...

There's obviously no 800mm+TC combo in that picture of an EVA. And don't astronauts need ground permission to take an EVA, and then only when absolutely essential?

 

I don't think taking snapshots of race circuits qualifies as essential extra-vehicular work. So I suspect the shots were taken through a viewing port.

 

"Taken in a spare 5 minutes"???. Doesn't it take at least 20 minutes to suit up and perform the safety checks for an EVA?

 

'Keep my coffee warm guys.... I'm just nipping out for a smoke and to take a couple of snaps.'

Edited March 1, 2019 by rodeo_joe|1

There's obviously no 800mm+TC combo in that picture of an EVA

Looks more like an UWA with some sort of white wrap velcroed over it. ..and look at that 'fabric' lens cover hinged from the bottom!

 

Don't think he took the D5 + 800mm outside....;)

 

Guessing the 800mm + TCx2 wasn't 'his' personal; luggage. That would be his entire weight allowance!

A nice person call Scottbb, wrote this on the PetaPixel NASA link in the Comments part...

 

"The ISS is 408km up (according to Google), so the field of view is 408km/1600mm = 0.255 km wide per mm of sensor dimension. At 23.9mm high by 35.9mm wide, the camera sees 6.1km x 9.15km when directly overhead. The sensor is 5588 px wide, so each pixel covers 9.15km / 5588 = 1.64 m x 1.64 m of the earth's surface. That's kinda cool: the 1600mm focal length on a D5 from the ISS translates to a square of earth's surface that is roughly 1600mm per side, per pixel."

 

The final sentence sums up a very nice coincidence...:cool:

 

I guess the maths is right... seems to be in the right ballpark for my simple brain!

Seems plausible. It'd be about 1.1m for the D850 or about 1m on a D7200. The P1000 actually does slightly worse than the D7200 (408km/539mm * 6.17mm / 4608pix), which slightly surprised me - but I guess 6000pix in a 1.5x crop (so 2400mm equivalent) overtakes 4608pix at 3000mm equivalent. An 800mm + TC20 on a D850 gets closer to a P1000 for reach than I thought (with a lot less diffraction). Bit less portable, though.