Posts: 5
Threads: 4
Joined: Oct 2023
Posts: 5
Threads: 4
Joined: Oct 2023
Location: Castle Geyser, Old Faithful Geyser Basin.
Date: Last night/This Morning.
With a full moon and mixed heavy clouds forecast, options were limited. But it was my free night for the week. And I had just finished the basic tear-down/upgrade on a Star Adventurer 2 unit acquired on ebay. I've had another one for over a year, so I was familiar enough with the initially confusing device. I wanted to get the fresh lube rolling around and confirm I hadn't broken it entirely.
But, I knew anything worth tracking would be bleached-out and under cloud at least half the time. IF Polaris could be seen at all. The Geyser Basin has the potential for stunning night landscape photography. That's where it gets ya. It seems like such an incredible backdrop to tracked astro frames. But most of the basin is to the North of good shooting spots. And its geysers and fumaroles belch boiling water and steam into the air without warning. Old Faithful geyser is an exception in its regularity.
If you're distant enough from the direct hazard of hot mineral rain landing on your lens, you'll want to be quick about getting a good lock on Polaris. Because when you go to confirm polar align, there'll be a black hole where The Great Bear used to be. During otherwise dry and clear weather, clouds literally rise from the ground, often socking-in the entire area with thermal ground fog. An all-nighter will always reach "chilly" and can go way deeper. Subzero is common on winter nights. If it's only subfreezing not subzero, Ursa Major is less urgent than actual Ursus arctos horribilis. Haven't gotten a wolf pack yet, but sometimes the coyotes are pretty thick and start singing away.
Months ago, I was still figuring out the Tracker Triad of Polar/Balance/Focus. I hadn't considered the other App modes. But for last night, Panoramic time-lapse was just the thing. So, I set up by Castle Geyser and quickly got the latitude cranked up and the camera in place. Focus and framing took longer than I'd have liked, but hey, it's 2 hours of shootin' and it's not getting any warmer.
It was about what I'd hoped. About halfway through, Castle Geyser erupted. It's a weird place. The plume of once-scalding, now regular cold, water only landed on about 15 feet of the boardwalk. It blasts up a hundred feet like water from a garden hose and plops in a small landing zone. Guess who had 2 cameras clipping away smack in the middle of the zone? Would you believe that's the second time Castle's geyser rain has dropped right on me and my gear, only. And that the other time I was 120 degrees off from the geyser, many yards away on the paved portion. Despite the "no filters" raw-dog astro-ethic, I've managed to get the geyser-juice off several lenses without visible calcite precipitation. But I still get wicked flare with this lens - check the olive-colored UFO that pops in at 4 seconds. I kept the rain droplets wiped-off between exposures as possible, but it's a definite effect.
I got home and realized I had no post plan. Somehow, I figured LRC would do it. A short internet trail led me to LRTimelapse. I was getting fairly punchy but wanted something before dawn. Pretty noob, I'd say. After a couple corrections in a less bleary state, I'm pretty happy.
Canon 60D, astro-modded. Crop sensor, very noisy by today's standards.
Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, f2.8, 4 sec., ISO 200. 243 images, processed pretty blindly in LRT6.
https://youtube.com/shorts/zagkSIBA-J4?feature=share
Date: Last night/This Morning.
With a full moon and mixed heavy clouds forecast, options were limited. But it was my free night for the week. And I had just finished the basic tear-down/upgrade on a Star Adventurer 2 unit acquired on ebay. I've had another one for over a year, so I was familiar enough with the initially confusing device. I wanted to get the fresh lube rolling around and confirm I hadn't broken it entirely.
But, I knew anything worth tracking would be bleached-out and under cloud at least half the time. IF Polaris could be seen at all. The Geyser Basin has the potential for stunning night landscape photography. That's where it gets ya. It seems like such an incredible backdrop to tracked astro frames. But most of the basin is to the North of good shooting spots. And its geysers and fumaroles belch boiling water and steam into the air without warning. Old Faithful geyser is an exception in its regularity.
If you're distant enough from the direct hazard of hot mineral rain landing on your lens, you'll want to be quick about getting a good lock on Polaris. Because when you go to confirm polar align, there'll be a black hole where The Great Bear used to be. During otherwise dry and clear weather, clouds literally rise from the ground, often socking-in the entire area with thermal ground fog. An all-nighter will always reach "chilly" and can go way deeper. Subzero is common on winter nights. If it's only subfreezing not subzero, Ursa Major is less urgent than actual Ursus arctos horribilis. Haven't gotten a wolf pack yet, but sometimes the coyotes are pretty thick and start singing away.
Months ago, I was still figuring out the Tracker Triad of Polar/Balance/Focus. I hadn't considered the other App modes. But for last night, Panoramic time-lapse was just the thing. So, I set up by Castle Geyser and quickly got the latitude cranked up and the camera in place. Focus and framing took longer than I'd have liked, but hey, it's 2 hours of shootin' and it's not getting any warmer.
It was about what I'd hoped. About halfway through, Castle Geyser erupted. It's a weird place. The plume of once-scalding, now regular cold, water only landed on about 15 feet of the boardwalk. It blasts up a hundred feet like water from a garden hose and plops in a small landing zone. Guess who had 2 cameras clipping away smack in the middle of the zone? Would you believe that's the second time Castle's geyser rain has dropped right on me and my gear, only. And that the other time I was 120 degrees off from the geyser, many yards away on the paved portion. Despite the "no filters" raw-dog astro-ethic, I've managed to get the geyser-juice off several lenses without visible calcite precipitation. But I still get wicked flare with this lens - check the olive-colored UFO that pops in at 4 seconds. I kept the rain droplets wiped-off between exposures as possible, but it's a definite effect.
I got home and realized I had no post plan. Somehow, I figured LRC would do it. A short internet trail led me to LRTimelapse. I was getting fairly punchy but wanted something before dawn. Pretty noob, I'd say. After a couple corrections in a less bleary state, I'm pretty happy.
Canon 60D, astro-modded. Crop sensor, very noisy by today's standards.
Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, f2.8, 4 sec., ISO 200. 243 images, processed pretty blindly in LRT6.
https://youtube.com/shorts/zagkSIBA-J4?feature=share
