[Lvas] Saturday (4/25/09) Observing

[David Blanchette]

At 11:22 AM 4/27/2009, you wrote:
>These are from my backyard which is in mountains edge (as far south 
>on Durango as you can go) so my southern and western skies are about 
>as dark as any in the valley. My northern horizon looks through all 
>of the valley to the north so not great but usable. My house faces 
>east so it blocks the sky dome from the strip and beyond. I'm set up 
>in an observatory which blocks a portion of the street lights and 
>other ambient light and provides for a permanent setup so my polar 
>alignment is pretty close. I haven't played with the ISO settings at 
>all. These were all shot at 1600. If I understand these setting, the 
>lower the ISO the less noise but also decreases the sensitivity of 
>the chip. What would you suggest for an ISO setting?

You're correct.  The larger the number, the more sensitive the chip, 
but it's noisier.  So far, I've done most of my shooting at 
1600.  I've shot some brighter objects at 800, but my tracking has 
not reached the point of shooting more that 5 minutes at a 
time.  Once I figure that out, I'll shoot at 800 more often, and 400 possibly.

Stacking the images will deal with a lot of the noise, but shooting 
at anything other than 1600 is a good start.

-- David