Lucky shot

Image Critiques Nightscape & Astro Critiques
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Lucky shot
Lucky shot2000Ă—1333 468 KB

I have been working for the visitor center at Kitt Peak National Observatory over 11 years mostly as a overnight guide working with guest and doing some evening programs. I am now the observatory technician for the visitor center and an do just about everything from training staff, teaching astrophotography classes, fixing and updating telescope equipment, as well as creating application websites as needed. In December 2017, the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope was turned over to the visitor center and I with one other was trained how to run the telescope and maintain it. I am currently working with this telescope and a new program coming in the future called Windows on the Universe.

I was there all day long and really wanted to leave, but I knew where the Milky Way was and had an idea of a photo image. I used my Sky Watcher Pro and mounted my Canon 6D Mark ii with my Canon EF 11-24mm at 11mm for 89 seconds. The lucky park was a meteor that flew by at the same angle of the telescope. The nighttime sky is amazing up there and I never get tired of it.

This is just a little bit what I do at Kitt Peak.

Type of Critique Requested

  • Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
  • Conceptual: Feedback on the message and story conveyed by the image.
  • Emotional: Feedback on the emotional impact and artistic value of the image.
  • Technical: Feedback on the technical aspects of the image, such as exposure, color, focus and reproduction of colors and details, post-processing, and print quality.

Specific Feedback and Self-Critique

Any feedback welcome.

Technical Details

6Dm2 EF 11-24 at 11mm f/5 89 seconds ISO 1600 mounted on a sky tracker. Nov 1, 2018 I was about 75 feet from the telescope.

1 Like
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Very cool picture – and very cool “job” (or collection of jobs)! What an amazing structure with a lovely FG and just the right amount of moonlight.

And a pretty cool looking lens, too – the stars in the corners are impressively round, with no obvious CA or other artifacts. I’ve been very frustrated in the search for a good wide angle for night sky work. I have the 17mm TS-E which should be great, but it’s an older design – a “daylight” lens from the film era and just not up to snuff by today’s standards.

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Any lens should work fine. It is just a matter of stopping it down to the image is sharp. F/2.8 lens is best but they are expensive. Sigma and tamron make nice lenses for a lot less. I also use a night sky filter that helps a lot with light pollution. The filter is not cheap but works very well is someone gets deeper into that