Tag: Tracker

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Testing the MSM Nomad Tracker


The new star tracker from Move Shoot Move improves upon their original model, eliminating its flaws to provide a reliable and compact tracker. 

A few years ago the start-up company Move Shoot Move (MSM) introduced a low-cost (about $250), compact star tracker they called the Rotator. Like all other star trackers, the Rotator allowed a camera to follow the turning sky for untrailed, pinpoint stars in long exposures. 

Trackers are essential for rich Milky Way images, and are great for nightscapes, for shooting the sky, blended with untracked shots of the ground, as I show in examples below.

The original Rotator (L) and new Nomad (R). The Nomad is even smaller than the Rotator.

Out with the Old …

The original Rotator went through a couple of design changes during its lifetime. I tested the last versions to be marketed, using three different sample units I either purchased or were sent to me by MSM. (My reviews appeared in 2019 on my blog here, and in the June 2021 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine.) 

The bottom line is that I found all the samples of the Rotator I tested to be unreliable for accurate tracking, indeed for tracking period, as units would sometimes not start tracking for a few minutes, or just stop tracking mid-shoot and then restart intermittently. Getting a set of untrailed exposures was a hit or miss affair. 

But with a cost lower than most other trackers on the market (ostensibly, as explained below), a pocketable compact size, and with endorsements from notable nightscape photographers, the original Rotator garnered a loyal following of fans. I was not one of them.

MSM obviously recognized the design flaws of the Rotator, because in early 2024 they replaced it with an all-new model, dubbed the Nomad. It works! 

The Nomad on the Benro 3-Way Head, with Laser and Polar Scope, and with a camera and 135mm lens. The ball head is not one from MSM.

I purchased a unit in January 2024 when the Nomad came out, and have used it extensively and successfully over the last few months. I found it has addressed all the serious flaws of the Rotator.

Polar Alignment Accessories

With a weight of about 400 grams, the Nomad is about 70 grams lighter than the old Rotator. It is one of the lightest and smallest trackers on the market, a benefit for those wanting to hike to remote nightscape sites, or pack gear for airline travel. (I took my Nomad to Australia this year; one result is below, shot with the Nomad.)

This frames the spectacular area of the southern Milky Way from Centaurus at left, to Carina at right, with Crux, the Southern Cross, at centre. This is a stack of 8 x 4-minute exposures with the Canon RF28-70mm lens at 48mm and f/2.8, on the Canon Ra at ISO 800. All on the MSM Nomad tracker.

However, unlike the popular Star Adventurer 2i and Mini trackers from Sky-Watcher, the Nomad, like MSM’s older Rotator, does not have a polar alignment scope built in, just a peep sight hole. That makes it easier for MSM to fit a tracker inside a compact box. 

And yet, I feel some form of polar alignment aid (not just a peep sight) is essential if a tracker is to follow the sky accurately. Like the Rotator, the Nomad can be purchased with two add-on choices (shown below): 

• a 5 mw green laser pointer, 

• and an optical polar scope …

… each of which attaches to the side of the Nomad as outboard accessories. I purchased both, bundled with the Nomad as “Basic Kit C” for $309 U.S., and find both accessories useful. 

NOTE: When shopping at the MSM website don’t be fooled by what looks like temporary sale prices. The prices are always marked down, though MSM does offer coupon codes now and then for genuine discounts. I’ve always found MSM’s delivery by parcel post prompt, and in my case, shipments came from a warehouse in Canada, not China. 

The Laser and Polar Scope as they come supplied
With the Laser threaded on using the red cap
With the Polar Scope clamp attached
With both the Polar Scope and Laser attached. Don’t lose the caps at bottom!

As with the Rotator, the need to add essential accessories makes the Nomad more expensive and more complex to pack than buyers might think. And it can be more complex to initially set up than imagined, not helped by the lack of any instructions. (I’m told by MSM that a downloadable PDF sheet is being prepared.) In place of factory-supplied instructions, MSM depends on its YouTuber fans to provide tutorials. 

It took me a moment to figure out how the laser attaches to the Nomad — it does so by replacing the black cap that comes on the laser with a supplied threaded red cap, so the laser can screw into the peep hole on the Nomad’s body that is covered by yet another cap you remove — but don’t lose it, as you might need it. 

The optical polar scope attaches by way of an included clamp held onto the Nomad by the laser, or by the removable threaded cap (so you will need it if you aren’t using the laser, but it is easily lost). 

Out of the box I found I had to adjust the beam of the laser (using the two tiny set screws on the laser) so the beam exited straight out the laser and up the peep hole in the Nomad’s case. 

Once collimated, the laser pointer has proved to be an accurate and convenient way to polar align, especially for shooting with wide-angle lenses. (Keep in mind, green laser pointers over 1 mw are illegal in some jurisdictions.)

The laser uses a removable and rechargeable 3.7-volt battery, and comes with a little USB-powered charger. The laser’s battery has lasted for months of momentary use. The laser works briefly in winter when it is warm, but as soon as it gets cold, as is true of most laser pointers, it refuses to lase! 

This frames the small constellations of Sagitta the Arrow and Vulpecula the Fox.
At lower left is the green planetary nebula Messier 27, aka the Dumbbell, shown in the close-up tracking test image below. This is a stack of 14 x 2-minute exposures with the Canon RF135mm lens on the Canon Ra, on the MSM Nomad tracker. The images were the best 14 out of a series shot to test the Nomad’s tracking.

However, for the more accurate polar alignment needed when shooting with telephoto lenses (an example is above), and for winter use, I prefer to use the optical polar scope, with the laser a handy complement just to get close to the pole. 

The polar scope has a reticle etched with star patterns for both the North and South Celestial Poles. I found the latter worked well in Australia. The mounting clamp held the polar scope securely and consistently well centered, another welcome improvement over the polar scope clamp supplied with the Rotator, which could wiggle around. 

Polar scope with its glow-in-the-dark Illuminator. The Nomad comes with an Arca-Swiss dovetail plate bolted onto the bottom edge, for attaching it to a tripod head or to the optional MSM Wedge.

The polar scope does not have an illuminator LED. Instead, it comes with a novel phosphorescent cap which you hit briefly with white light so it glows in the dark. 

Placed over the front of the polar scope, it lights up the field allowing the reticle to be seen in silhouette. While it works fine for sighting Polaris, the bright field can make it hard to see the faint stars in Octans around the South Celestial Pole. 

The Nomad on the Benro 3-Way Geared Head, using the Arca-Swiss attachment plate. Another method of mounting the Nomad to the Benro is shown below.

To aid polar alignment I purchased the Benro 3-Way Geared Head, also sold by MSM but available from many sources. Its geared motions make it easy to aim the tracker’s rotation axis precisely at the pole and hold it there solidly. 

The Benro accepts standard Arca-Swiss mounting plates, so I’ve found it a useful head to have for other purposes and gear combinations. It has replaced my old Manfrotto 410 3-axis head which uses a proprietary mounting plate.

However, MSM also sells its own latitude adjustment Wedge which, at $90, is a cheaper alternative to the $200 Benro. I’ve not used the MSM Wedge, so I can’t say how solid and precise it is. But the Wedge is lighter than the Benro head, and so may be a better choice when weight is a prime consideration. 

I would recommend either the Wedge or Benro for their fine adjustments of azimuth and altitude that are essential for easy, yet precise and stable polar alignment. 

Tracking Accuracy 

All-important is how well the Nomad tracks. When shooting with wide-angle lenses (14mm to 35mm) for nightscapes and wide Milky Way shots, the majority of images I’ve taken over the last few months, using exposures of 1 to 3 minutes, have been reliably well tracked, with pinpoint stars. 

The Nomad begins tracking right away, with no wait for gear backlash to be taken up, or for the drive mechanism to settle in. I also found no tendency for tracking to be better or worse with camera position, unlike the Rotator that seemed to work better with the camera aimed at one area of sky vs another. And the Nomad didn’t suffer from any stalls or moments when it just stopped in its tracks, again unlike the problematic Rotator.

20 consecutive 2-minute exposures with a 135mm lens, to show the variations in tracking accuracy. Tap on the image to download it for closer inspection.

As with any tracker, where you do see mistracking is when using longer lenses. I tested, and indeed have used, the Nomad with 85mm and 135mm telephoto lenses, as many owners will want to do, for close-ups of Milky Way starfields and for so-called “deepscapes.” (An example of the latter is at the end.) The demo image above shows blow-ups of consecutive frames from the 135mm shoot of the Vulpecula/Sagitta starfield shown earlier. 

In those more demanding tests, as I demonstrate here, I found that typically about 50% to 60% of images (taken with 1- to 2-minute exposures) were tracked well enough to be usable. The longer the focal length used, or the longer the exposures, the more frames will be trailed enough to be unusable in an image stack. And a well-tracked frame can be followed by a badly tracked one, then the next is fine again. That’s the nature of small drive gears.

As with other trackers, I would suggest that the Nomad is best used with lenses no longer than a fast 135mm. Even then, plan to shoot twice as many frames as you’ll need. Half may need to be discarded. While I know some users will want to push the Nomad beyond its limits, I would not recommend burdening it with monster telephoto lenses or small telescopes. Like all other trackers, that’s not its purpose.

When there was mistracking it was usually in the east-west direction, due to errors in the drive mechanism, and not north-south due to flexure. (If it occurs, north-south drift is likely due to poor polar alignment.)

I found the Nomad did indeed turn at the sidereal rate to follow the stars, something I was never confident the Rotator actually did. 

While you might think a 50% success rate with telephotos is not good, in fact the Nomad’s tracking performance is on par with other competing trackers I’ve used, from Sky-Watcher and iOptron. At wide-angle focal lengths the success rate proved closer to 100%.

So for a tracker as compact as the Nomad to perform so well is very welcome indeed. It’s the main area where the Nomad beats the old Rotator by a long shot! 

NOTE: While the MSM website mentions an “optional counterweight system,” as of my review’s publication date it is still being developed, MSM tells me. However, I don’t feel it will be necessary for the Nomad’s main purpose of wide-field imaging.

Mechanical Stability 

Another flaw of the old Rotator was that it had several single-point attachments that, under the torque of a turning camera, could cause the camera to come loose and suddenly flop down. 

Exploded view of the ratcheted mounting plate to attach a ball head to the Nomad
Showing the set screw to prevent the ball head coming loose

The Nomad uses a ratcheted clamp to attach a user-supplied ball head to the tracker body, and that clamp has an additional safety set screw to help ensure the ball head does not unscrew itself as a camera turns. 

I’ve had no issues with cameras coming loose. Of course, the solidness of the ball head used will be critical as well. A large ball head can be better, but introduce some of the issues I report on below. 

While MSM offers its own ball head, I have not used it, preferring to use a couple of other ball and pano heads I like, and that I show in the images here. 

Simplicity of Operation

The Nomad improves upon the old Rotator by doing away with all its time-lapse features. You might think that eliminating features can’t be an improvement, but in this case it is. 

I suspect few owners used the Rotator’s preset functions for slowly turning a camera along the horizon while firing the camera shutter between each incremental time-lapse move (the very function that gave the company its name!). The Rotator’s options for creating time-lapses were confusing to set up and limited in their choice of speeds. A serious time-lapse photographer would never use it. 

(If you do want a tracker with time-lapse motion-control capabilities the Star Adventurer Mini works well. Its WiFi connection and mobile app allows a user to set all the factors needed for a good time-lapse: interval, angle increment, number of frames, and length of shoot.) 

Instead, MSM has focused the Nomad on being just a star tracker, and I think wisely so. Its only controls are a three-position S-OFF-N switch, for using the Nomad in either the southern or northern hemisphere. It worked very well “Down Under,” with the exception noted below. 

There is no solar or lunar drive rate, unnecessary in a tracker, and also no half-speed rate for nightscapes, used to lessen star trailing while also minimizing ground blurring. I’ve never liked using trackers at such a compromise half-speed rate, so I don’t miss it. 

Using the optional V-Plate described below, I have used the Nomad to take tracked Milky Way panoramas, as shown here. It has worked very well for that purpose, with it easy to switch the tracking on (for the sky) and off (for the ground). 

This is a 200° panorama of the arch of the northern Milky Way rising over Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta. Shot with the Nomad, with a blend of an untracked panorama for the ground and tracked panos for the sky.
The gear used to take the panorama above, including the Alyn Wallace V-Plate, supporting an Acratech 2-axis pan head. The Nomad is ON here, set to N. Below the power switch is the USB-C port for charging and external power.

My only criticism is that the power switch is a little mushy and perhaps easy to slide on by mistake when it is packed in a bag.

An LED for each of the N and S directions glows red to indicate the power is on and the direction chosen, handy to help prevent you from choosing the wrong direction by mistake. 

The Nomad is powered by an internal lithium battery that charges from any 5-volt USB charger (the Nomad comes with a USB-C cord, but no charger). The Nomad takes about 2.5 hours to charge to full and runs for 6 to 7 hours of continuous tracking at room temperatures. A second LED by the USB port glows yellow when the Nomad is charging, and green when it has fully charged. 

In practice the Nomad has lasted for several nights of shooting on one charge. When the battery level is low, the red LED for the other direction begins blinking. As a backup in the field, the Nomad can be powered via its USB-C port by any external 5-volt power bank.

Collisions 

The Nomad hasn’t been without issues, though the main problem I’ve had I can’t, in fairness, blame on the Nomad. 

Due to the Nomad’s small size and shape, ball heads sit close to the Nomad body. Locks and clamps sticking out from ball heads can collide with the Nomad, or with the Benro head, as it rotates the ball head. Here I show how a collision can occur when aimed up at the zenith. 

Showing the ball head colliding with the Benro when aimed high.

But collisions can also occur when aimed at the Celestial Pole. I ran into that issue in Australia, where many of the wide-field targets in the Milky Way (such as the field in Carina and Crux shown earlier) lie close to the South Celestial Pole. 

A camera aimed toward the Celestial Pole (either South or North) is more likely to collide with the Nomad than when a camera is aimed toward the sky opposite the Pole. 

Aimed toward the Celestial Pole
As it turns, the ball head hits the Nomad

As I show above, one night when tracking targets in Carina I found the ball head had jammed against the Nomad, seizing its motion. As I feared, that caused something inside the Nomad to come loose. 

After the collision incident no frame was well-tracked. The Nomad was wandering all over the place!

From then on it failed to track well for any shots. The drive was wobbling the stars in random directions. No frame was usable. The Nomad was now out of commission, not a welcome prospect when you have traveled to the other side of the world to shoot the sky. 

The access hole with a handy adjustment screw that fixed the issue.

What was the solution? There was only one point of adjustment accessible to users, a mysterious hole on the side of the tracker with a small hex screw at the bottom. This is normally covered by a rubber plug, though that was either missing on arrival or got lost along the way from my unit. Upon inquiry, MSM told me the screw is for use just at the factory, for a final adjustment of the gear and bearing distance.

But in my case, tightening it slightly seemed to do the trick, restoring normal tracking. However, my unit still tends to make intermittent clicking sounds now and then, though it seems to track well enough again. 

The lesson here is don’t let gear collide with the Nomad. It likely has no internal clutch, making it unforgiving of being jammed.

Collision Avoidance

How do you avoid collisions? What I should have used in Australia was MSM’s optional V-Plate designed by the late and sadly missed Alyn Wallace. 

Aimed toward the Celestial Pole
Aimed toward the zenith

I bought one a couple of years ago, but never thought to bring it with me on the Australia trip. As I show above, the V-Plate allows for much more freedom to aim a camera, either toward the Poles or straight up (as I show above), or low in the sky 180° away from the Pole, without fear of the ball head hitting other components. 

The V-Plate’s shortcoming is that, despite cranking down the levers that hold it in position, it can still slip under the weight of a heavy camera sitting on the diving-board-like platform supported only on one end. The V-Plate’s locks are not as solid and secure as they should be. But with care it can work well. And you need buy only the V-Plate; not the Z-Plate.

I should note that since I got my V-Plate, it has been upgraded with a larger lever handle to aid tightening the tilt lock. However, it really needs another support point on the tilt adjustment, so it can’t move as readily under load.

V-Plate lock knob hard to get at and adjust
V-Plate lock knob hitting the Polar Scope

In addition, MSM now offers a taller Arca-Swiss mounting block as an option, to replace the plate that comes bolted onto the Nomad with two Torx screws. That optional riser block moves the Nomad farther from the Wedge or Benro head, helping to prevent some collisions. By putting more space between the Nomad and the Benro head, the riser block makes it easier to get at the small locking clamp on the V-Plate’s rotation axis. But …

Shortly after I first published this review, a loyal reader (thanks, John!) pointed out his method of placing the Nomad on the Benro, with the Nomad turned 90° to the way I pictured it earlier. As I show below, this places the Benro’s lock knob on the side of the Nomad, not back. The benefit is that the V-Plate’s azimuth lock lever is now more accessible and well-separated from the Benro. That method makes the taller riser block unnecessary.

Here’s a reader-suggested alternative method for mounting the Nomad and orienting the Benro head that puts more space between the V-Plate and Benro, for ease of adjustment.

Even with this alternative method, the V-Plate tends to block the laser’s beam, as does a camera once it is mounted. The polar scope can also be blocked. It’s an example of how one MSM accessory can interfere with another accessory, perhaps requiring yet another accessory to solve! 

Laser beam hitting the V-Plate with it horizontal
V-Plate rotated out of the way of the laser

In practice, with the V-Plate installed, polar alignment often has to be done before attaching the camera or setting up the V-Plate to the desired orientation. When adding the camera, care has to be taken to then not bump the Nomad off alignment. That’s why I like the Benro head as a stable platform for the Nomad, despite its extra weight. 

As I illustrated earlier, the V-Plate is also an essential accessory for shooting tracked-sky Milky Way panoramas, as it allows a camera to be turned parallel to the horizon from segment to segment while it also tracks the sky.

A “deepscape” of the Sagittarius starclouds over Mt. Blakiston, in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta. This is a blend of two exposures: a single untracked 2-minute exposure at ISO 1600 for the ground, and a single tracked 2-minute exposure at ISO 800 for the sky, taken immediately after, with the Nomad tracker motor now on. With a 28-70mm lens at 70mm, on the rig shown.

Recommendations 

So, as with the Rotator, when buying a Nomad, plan on adding several “optional” accessories to your cart. They can, in fact, be essential. 

However, they can add another $150 (for V-Plate + Wedge + riser block) to $250 (V-Plate + Benro head + riser block) to the total. These are in addition to the cost of the polar alignment aids offered in the various Basic bundles. I like having both the laser and polar scope, but for shooting just wide-angle nightscapes, the laser alone will do.

The cost of accessories makes the Nomad not quite the low-cost tracker you might have been sold on, nor as self-contained and compact as it first appears. Just choosing what combination of gear to buy can be daunting for beginners. 

The Milky Way and its core region in Sagittarius and Scorpius over the Badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta. This is a blend of untracked exposures for the ground and tracked exposures for the sky, with the Canon Ra on the Nomad, with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at 20mm at f/2.8.

But when well-equipped, the little Nomad can work very well. Despite my run-in with a collision glitch, I can recommend the Nomad as a good choice for anyone looking for a solid, accurate, but portable tracker that can slip into any camera bag. 

Just make room in your bag – and budget! – for polar alignment aids, V-Plates, wedges, and ball heads to complete your tracking kit. 

And then don’t let anything collide with the Nomad! 

— Alan, June 27, 2024 – Revised June 28 / AmazingSky.com  

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Exploring the Dusty Realms of the Milky Way


A run of exceptionally clear nights allowed me to capture scenes of stardust along the MilkyWay.

Colourful nebulas – clouds of glowing gas – are the most popular targets in the deep sky for astrophotographers. Most nebulas emit red light from hydrogen atoms. Some glow blue by reflecting the light of nearby hot stars.

But another class of nebulas emits or reflects almost no light, and appears dark, often as shapes silhouetted against the bright starry background. They are usually made of obscuring interstellar dust – typically grains of carbon soot emitted by aging or active stars – literally stardust.

In the olden days of film photography, these dark dust clouds always appeared black in our exposures. Or they never showed up at all.

But today’s digital cameras, with the aid of processing techniques, can capture the dust clouds, often not as black clouds, but as pale blue tendrils, or as brownish-yellow streamers faintly glowing with a warm light.

In October and November 2023, a series of unusually clear and mild nights allowed me to go after some of these dark and dusty targets, from my home in rural southern Alberta, Canada. I captured a selection of scenes off the beaten track along the Milky Way. Here’s my tour of stardust sights in the northern autumn and winter sky.

Cepheus the King

This is a portrait of most of the northern constellation of Cepheus the King. All the wide-field images were shot and processed to emphasize the rich collection of bright and dark nebulas in the constellation. North is always up. This is a stack of 40 x 2-minute exposures with the rare Samyang RF85mm f/1.4 lens stopped down to f/2.8, on the Canon EOS Ra camera at ISO 800. The lens was equipped with a 77mm Nisi Clear Night broadband filter. For all the wide-field images the camera was on the Star Adventurer 2i tracker for tracked but unguided exposures.

The wide-field image above frames most of the northern constellation of Cepheus. The southern section of Cepheus at the bottom of the frame lies in the Milky Way and is rich in bright red nebulas, notably the large, round IC 1396. It is a popular and easy target. But the northern upper reaches of Cepheus are where more challenging dusty nebulas reside. I’ve indicated the location of two fields shown in the close-ups below.

The Iris Nebula

This is the bright blue reflection nebula, NGC 7023, aka the Iris Nebula, in Cepheus. This is a stack of 25 x 8-minute exposures through the Askar APO120 refractor at f/7 with the 1X Flattener, and with the filter-modified Canon R camera at ISO 1600.

Located some 1300 light years away, this is a blue reflection nebula, as the dust is lit by the young blue star in its core. But surrounding the bright Iris Nebula are more extensive clouds of dust, dimly lit by reflected light and with varying densities and shades of grey and brown.

The Dark Shark and Wolf’s Cave Nebulas

This is a portrait of a field of dusty nebulas in northern Cepheus, in a stack of 30 x 6-minute exposures with the Astro-Tech AT90CFT refractor at f/4.8 and filter-modified Canon EOS R camera at ISO 800, though no filter was used when taking these frames.

This field in northern Cepheus is yellowed by reams of dust. A couple of blue reflection nebulas lie on the edges of streamers of brown dust. The object at top is called the Dark Shark, for its fanciful resemblance to a menacing shark, though one wearing a blue hat!

At the bottom of the frame is a long, snake-like dark brown nebula, Barnard 175, with the blue reflection nebula van den Bergh (vdB) 152 at its tip. This object has been dubbed the Wolf’s Cave Nebula, though that likeness is harder to discern. It is unclear where some of these nicknames come from, as many are recent appellations invented by astrophotographers. Some of the names have stuck, though few are “official.”

Perseus the Hero and Taurus the Bull

This is a portrait of the dust-filled region of sky from Perseus down to Taurus that includes the pink California Nebula (NGC 1499) at top down to the Pleiades star cluster (M45) at bottom. This is a stack of 48 x 2-minute exposures with the rare Samyang RF85mm f/1.4 lens stopped down to f/2.8, on the Canon EOS Ra camera at ISO 800. The lens was equipped with a 77mm Nisi Clear Night broadband filter.

The region of sky between Perseus and Taurus is rich in bright nebulas set amid large tendrils of dust in Taurus. The Pleiades star cluster lights up a portion of the dust clouds. And the pink California Nebula lies at the end of a large lane of dust.

The California Nebula

This is the California Nebula, aka NGC 1499, in Perseus near the star Menkib, or Xi Persei, at bottom. This is a stack of 12 x 6-minute exposures with the filter-modified Canon R (though no filter was used to take this image), at ISO 800, on the Askar APO120 refractor with its 0.8x Reducer/Flattener for f/5.6 and 670mm focal length.

The California Nebula (named for its resemblance to the shape of the state) lies in Perseus. It is a bright emission nebula glowing in the red and pink light of hydrogen atoms, perhaps excited by blue-white Xi Persei, aka Menkib, at bottom. But it sits amid wider clouds of dust, here recorded as white and yellow.

IC 348

This is the bright blue reflection nebula complex, IC 348, in Perseus, in a stack of 18 x 8-minute exposures through the Askar APO120 refractor at f/7 with the 1X Flattener, and with the filter-modified Canon R camera at ISO 1600.

This complex mix of reflection and dark nebulas surrounds Omicron Persei. In some sections the dust is so dense it blocks all light from more distant stars. Once thought to be holes in the heavens, the photos of pioneering astrophotographer Edward Emerson Barnard in the early 20th century proved that dark nebulas are nearby, and obscure what’s behind them.

IC 348’s distance of only 700 light years means there isn’t much between us and the surrounding dark clouds. Oddly, though a popular target, as best I can tell, no one has come up with a nickname for this field. What can you see in the dark shapes?

The Pleiades / Messier 45

This frames the famous Pleiades or Seven Sisters star cluster (aka Messier or M45) set amid a dusty starfield in Taurus. The field is about 4.7° by 3.2°. This is a stack of 30 x 6-minute exposures with the Astro-Tech AT90CFT refractor at f/4.8 (using its 0.8x Reducer) and the filter-modified Canon R camera at ISO 800.

There’s no more famous deep-sky object than the blue Pleiades, or Seven Sisters. They feature in the mythology of almost all cultures around the world. The young blue stars are surrounded by bright blue reflection nebulosity, most prominent below the lower star Merope, a bit of nebula catalogued separately as NGC 1435.

While the Pleiades light up the core of the dust clouds blue, the dust clouds extend much wider and permeate the entire constellation of Taurus. However, the outlying clouds are very faint as they have no nearby source of illumination. The arc of nebulosity at top is most obvious. It was found by Barnard and is catalogued as IC 353.

Taurus the Bull

This is a portrait of the dust-filled region of sky in Taurus that frames the Hyades star cluster (at bottom) with bright yellow Aldebaran, up to the blue Pleiades star cluster (M45) at top. This is a stack of 48 x 2-minute exposures with the Samyang RF85mm f/1.4 lens at f/2.8, on the Canon EOS Ra camera at ISO 800.

Overlapping the previous constellation field, this framing extends farther south, continuing past the Pleiades down into the main section of Taurus the Bull, with the luminous yellow star Aldebaran marking the Bull’s eye. It is surrounded by the stars of the V-shaped Hyades star cluster, legendary half-sisters to the Pleiades.

Notable in this framing are the large dark tendrils of the Taurus Molecular Clouds, dense streams of dust only about 430 light years away. They are on my shot list for close-ups on upcoming clear winter nights.

NGC 1555 and Area

This is a framing of dust clouds among the stars of the Hyades star cluster in Taurus. The field of view is 4.7° by 3.2°. This is a stack of 30 x 6-minute exposures with the Astro-Tech AT90CFT refractor at f/4.8 and the filter-modified Canon EOS R camera at ISO 800, though no filter was used in taking the images.

This complex field lies on the northern edge of the Hyades. At upper right is the odd nebula NGC 1555, discovered by John Russell Hind in 1852 and variable in brightness due to changes in its embedded source star T Tauri, a prototype of a class of young, newly formed stars. An adjacent object, NGC 1554, was catalogued by Otto Struve, but has faded from view; thus it is called Struve’s Lost Nebula.

At lower left is the emission nebula Sharpless 2-239 embedded in the dense and brownish dust cloud LDN (Lynds Dark Nebula) 1551. It is dark indeed, but not black. Like most dark nebulas it has some warm colour.

Orion the Hunter

This is a portrait of Orion the Hunter with exposures and processing to emphasize the complex and colourful array of bright and dark nebulas within its boundaries. This is a stack of 42 x 2-minute exposures with the Samyang RF85mm f/1.4 lens at f/2.8, on the Canon EOS Ra camera at ISO 800. The lens had a Nisi Clear Night broadband filter to help improve contrast.

The most photogenic constellation is surely Orion the Hunter. It is filled with a rich collection of nebulas, including the eponymous Orion Nebula, bright enough to be visible to the unaided eye in the Sword of Orion, and #42 in Charles Messier’s catalogue.

The largest feature (though one best seen only in photos) is the arc of Barnard’s Loop, a possible supernova remnant or stellar wind-blown bubble that encircles Orion. It is usually plotted on sky atlases as just an easternmost arc, though it extends down and below Orion, all the way over to blue Rigel at bottom right.

At top is the large circular emission nebula Sharpless 2-264, surrounding the head of Orion and the star Meissa and a loose open star cluster Collinder 69. The nebula has become known as the Angelfish Nebula. It sits above orange Betelgeuse (at left) and blue-white Bellatrix (at right), marking the shoulders of Orion.

As you can see, there’s a winter-full of targets to go after in Orion. However, in my tour, I focused on two areas of dust and reflection nebulas.

Messier 78 Area

This is the bright reflection nebula complex that includes Messier 78 (the largest blue-white nebula) and NGC 2071 above it. This is a stack of 30 x 4-minute exposures through the Astro-Tech AT90CFT refractor with its 0.8x Reducer for f/4.8, and with the filter-modified Canon R camera at ISO 1600. No filter was employed here.

This frames one of the other often-neglected nebulas in Orion, Messier 78, one of the objects catalogued by Charles Messier in the 1780s. His is the popular “hit list” of deep-sky targets for all amateur astronomers.

In this case, M78 is accompanied by another smaller reflection nebula, NGC 2071. They are set in a region of dark clouds of interstellar dust, and framed by the red-magenta arc of Barnard’s Loop, aka Sharpless 2-276. The small reflection nebula at upper left on the edge of another dark cloud is van den Bergh 62. The large faint star cluster left of centre on the edge of the Loop is NGC 2112.

The Witch Head Nebula

This is the reflection nebula called the Witch Head, but officially IC 2118 (also with the catalogue number NGC 1909), near the very bright star Rigel, at lower left in Orion. This is a stack of 29 x 6-minute exposures through the Astro-Tech AT90CFT refractor with its 0.8x Reducer for f/4.8, and with the filter-modified Canon R camera at ISO 800. No filter was employed here.

The hot, blue giant star at lower left is Rigel at the foot of Orion. It illuminates the dust cloud that forms the fanciful shape of the blue Witch Head Nebula, or IC 2118. The nebula is actually over the border in Eridanus the River. Some magenta emission nebulosity also populates the field in Orion.

Indeed, as the wide-field photo above attests, all of Orion is filled with some form of nebulosity, be it emission, reflection, or dark.

There’s much more to go after when exploring the nebulous and dusty realms of the Milky Way. The sky is filled with stardust. Indeed, we are made of it!

— Alan, November, 2023 / www.amazingsky.com

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Marvelous Nights in the Mountains


In mid-October 2022 I enjoyed a rare run of five clear and mild nights in the Rocky Mountains for shooting nightscapes of the stars. Here’s a portfolio … and a behind-the-scenes look at its making.

Getting two perfectly clear nights in a row is unusual in the mountains. Being treated to five is a rare treat. Indeed, had I started my shooting run earlier in the week I could have enjoyed even more of the string of cloudless nights in October, though under a full Moon. But five was wonderful, allowing me to capture some of the scenes that had been on my shot list for the last few years.

Here is a portfolio of the results, from five marvelous nights in Banff and Jasper National Parks, in Alberta, Canada. 

For the photographers, I also provide some behind-the-scenes looks at the planning and shooting techniques, and of my processing steps. 

Night One — Peyto Lake, Banff National Park

Peyto Lake, named for pioneer settler and trail guide Bill Peyto who had a cabin by the lakeshore, is one of several iconic mountain lakes in Banff. Every tour bus heading along the Icefields Parkway between Banff and Jasper stops here. By day is it packed. By night I had the newly constructed viewpoint all to myself. 

The stars of Ursa Major, the Great Bear, over the waters of Peyto Lake, Banff, in deep twilight. This is a stack of 6 x 30-second exposures for the ground and a single untracked 30-second exposure for the sky, all at f/2.8 with the Canon RF 15-35mm lens at 15mm, and Canon R5 at ISO 800.

I shot the classic view north in deep twilight, with the stars of Ursa Major and the Big Dipper low over the lake, as they are in autumn. A show of Northern Lights would have been ideal, but I was happy to settle for just the stars. 

This is a blend of two panoramas: the first of the sky taken at or just before moonrise with the camera on a star tracker to keep the stars pinpoint, and the second taken for the ground about 20 minutes later with the tracker off, when the Moon was up high enough to light the peaks. Both pans were with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at 15mm and f/2.8, and Canon R5 at ISO 1600, with the sky pan being 7 segments for 1 minute each, and the untracked ground panorama being the same 7 segments for 2 minutes each.

The night was perfect, not just for the clarity of the sky but also the timing. The Moon was just past full, so was rising in late evening, leaving a window of time between the end of twilight and moonrise when the sky would be dark enough to capture the Milky Way. Then shortly after, the Moon would come up, lighting the peaks with golden moonlight — alpenglow, but from the Moon not Sun. 

The above is blend of two panoramas, each of seven segments, the first for the sky taken when the sky was dark, using a star tracker to keep the stars pinpoints. The second for the ground I shot a few minutes later at moonrise with no tracking, to keep the ground sharp. I show below how I blended the two elements. 

The Photographer’s Ephemeris
TPE 3D

To plan such shots I use the apps The Photographer’s Ephemeris (TPE) and its companion app TPE 3D. The screen shot above at left shows the scene in map view for the night in question, with the Big Dipper indicated north over the lake and the line of dots for the Milky Way showing it to the southwest over Peyto Glacier. Tap or click on the images for full-screen versions.

Switch to TPE 3D and its view at right above simulates the scene you’ll actually see, with the Milky Way over the mountain skyline just as it really appeared. The app even faithfully replicates the lighting on the peaks from the rising Moon. It is an amazing planning tool.

This is a blend of 5 x 20-second exposures stacked for the ground to smooth noise, and a single 20-second exposure for the sky, all with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at f/2.8 and Canon R5 at ISO 1600. All were untracked camera-on-tripod shots.

On the drive back from Peyto Lake to Saskatchewan River Crossing I stopped at another iconic spot, the roadside viewpoint for Mt. Cephren at Waterfowl Lakes. By this time, the Moon was well up and fully illuminating the peak and the sky, but still leaving the foreground dark. The sky is blue as it is by day because it is lit by moonlight, which is just sunlight reflecting off a perfectly neutral grey rock, the Moon! 

This is from a set of untracked camera-on-tripod shots using short 30-second exposures. 

Night Two — Pyramid Lake, Jasper National Park 

By the next night I was up in Jasper, a destination I had been trying to revisit for some time. But poor weather prospects and forest fire smoke had kept me away in recent years. 

The days and nights I was there coincided with the first weekend of the annual Jasper Dark Sky Festival. I attended one of the events, the very enjoyable Aurora Chaser’s Retreat, with talks and presentations by some well-known chasers of the Northern Lights. Attendees had come from around North America. 

This is a blend of: a stack of 4 x 1-minute tracked exposures for the sky at ISO 1600 plus a stack of 7 x 2-minute untracked exposures at ISO 800 for the ground, plus an additional single 1-minute tracked exposure for the reflected stars and the foreground water. All were with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at 15mm and f/2.8 and Canon R5.

On my first night in Jasper I headed up to Pyramid Lake, a favorite local spot for stargazing and night sky photography, particularly from the little island connected to the “mainland” by a wooden boardwalk. Lots of people were there quietly enjoying the night. I shared one campfire spot with several other photographers also shooting the Milky Way over the calm lake before moonrise.

This is a blend of: a stack of 4 x 1-minute tracked exposures for the sky at ISO 1600 plus a stack of 6 x 3-minute untracked exposures at ISO 800 for the ground, all with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at 20mm and f/2.8 and Canon R5. The tracker was the Star Adventurer Mini.

A little later I moved to the north end of Pyramid Island for the view of the Big Dipper over Pyramid Mountain, now fully lit by the rising waning Moon, and with some aspens still in their autumn colours. A bright meteor added to the scene.

Night Three — Athabasca River Viewpoint, Jasper National Park

For my second night in Jasper, I ventured back down the Icefields Parkway to the “Goats and Glaciers” viewpoint overlooking the Athabasca River and the peaks of the Continental Divide. 

This is a blend of three 3-section panoramas: the first taken with a Star Adventurer Mini for 3 x 2-minute tracked exposures for the sky at ISO 800; the second immediately afterward with the tracker off for 3 x 3-minutes at ISO 800 for the ground; and the third taken about an hour later as the Moon rose, lighting the peaks with warm light, for 3 x 2.5-minutes at ISO 1600. All with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at f/2.8 and 15mm and Canon R5,

As I did at Peyto Lake, I shot a panorama (this one in three sections) for the sky before moonrise with a tracker. I then immediately shot another three-section panorama, now untracked, for the ground while it was still lit just by starlight under a dark sky. I then waited an hour for moonrise and shot a third panorama to add in the golden alpenglow on the peaks. So this is a time-blend, bending reality a bit. See my comments below! 

Night Four — Edith Lake, Jasper National Park

With a long drive back to Banff ahead of me the next day, for my last night in Jasper I stayed close to town for shots from the popular Edith Lake, just up the road from the posh Jasper Park Lodge. Unlike at Pyramid Lake, I had the lakeshore to myself. 

This is a panorama of four segments, each 30 seconds untracked with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at 15mm and f/2.8 and Canon R5 at ISO 1000.

This would be a fabulous place to catch the Northern Lights, but none were out this night. Instead, I was content to shoot scenes of the northern stars over the calm lake and Pyramid Mountain. 

This is a blend of a single tracked 2-minute exposure for the sky and water with the reflected stars, with a single untracked 4-minute exposure for the rest of the ground, both at f/2.8 with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at 17mm and Canon R5 at ISO 800.
This is a blend of a single tracked 2-minute exposure for the sky and water with the reflected stars, with a stack of two untracked 3-minute exposure for the rest of the ground, both at f/2.8 with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at 17mm and Canon R5 at ISO 1600. I shot this October 16, 2022.

The Moon was now coming up late, so the shots above are both in darkness with only starlight providing the illumination. Well, and also some annoying light pollution from town utility sites off the highway. Jasper is a Dark Sky Preserve, but a lot of the town’s street and utility lighting remains unshielded. 

Night Five — Lake Louise, Banff National Park

On my last night I was at Lake Louise, as the placement of the Milky Way would be perfect. 

This is a blend of two sets of exposures: – a stack of two untracked 2-minute exposures for the ground at ISO 800 – a stack of four tracked 1-minute exposures for the sky at ISO 1600 All with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at f/2.8 and 20mm and Canon R5, and with the camera and tripod not moving between image sets.

There’s no more famous view than this one, with Victoria Glacier at the end of the blue-green glacial lake. Again, by day the site is thronged with people and the parking lot full by early morning. 

By night, there were just a handful of other photographers on the lakeshore, and the parking lot was nearly empty. I could park right by the walkway up to the lake. 

The Photographer’s Ephemeris
TPE 3D

Again, TPE and TPE 3D told me when the Milky Way would be well-positioned over the lake and glacier, so I could complete the untracked ground shots first, to be ready to shoot the tracked sky segments by the time the Milky Way had turned into place over the glacier. 

This is a blend of three vertical panoramas: the first is a set of three untracked 2-minute exposures for the ground at ISO 800 with the camera moved up by 15° from segment to segment; the second shot immediately afterward is made of 7 x 1-minute tracked exposures at ISO 1600 for the sky, also moved 15° vertically from segment to segment; elements of a third 3-section panorama taken about 90 minutes earlier during “blue hour” were blended in at a low level to provide better lighting on the distant peaks. All with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at f/2.8 and 20mm and Canon R5.

This image is also a panorama but a vertical one, made primarily of three untracked segments for the ground and seven tracked segments for the sky, panning up from the horizon to past the zenith overhead, taking in most of the summer and autumn Milky Way from Serpens up to Cassiopeia.

Nightscape Gear 

As readers always want to know what gear I used, I shot all images on all nights with the 45-megapixel Canon R5 camera and Canon RF15-35mm lens, with exposures of typically 1 to 3 minutes each at ISOs of 800 to 1600. I had other cameras and lenses with me but never used them. 

The R5 works very well for nightscapes, despite its small pixels. See my review of it here on my blog, and of a holy trinity of Canon RF lenses including the RF15-35mm here. 

Star Adventurer Mini tracker with Alyn Wallace V-Plate and AcraTech Panorama Head

For a tracker for such images, I used the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Mini, a compact and lightweight unit that is easy to pack and carry to shooting sites. See my review of it here at AstroGearToday. 

I use the Mini with a V-Plate designed by nightscape photographer Alyn Wallace and sold by Move-Shoot-Move. It is an essential aid to taking tracked panoramas, as it allows me to turn the camera horizontally manually from one pan segment to the next while the camera is tracking the stars. It’s easy to switch the tracker on (for the sky) and off (for the ground). The Mini tracks quite accurately and reliably. Turn it on and you can be sure it is tracking. 

For more tips on shooting panoramas, see my blog post from 2019.

Behind-the-Scenes Processing

For those who are interested, here’s a look at how I processed and assembled the images, using the Peyto Lake panorama as an example. This is not a thorough tutorial, but shows the main steps involved. Tap or click on an image to download a full-size version.

  • I first develop all the raw files (seven here) in Adobe Camera Raw, applying identical settings to make them look best for what they are going to contribute to the final blend, in this case, for the tracked sky with pinpoint stars and the Milky Way. 
  • Camera Raw (as does Adobe’s Lightroom) has an excellent Merge to Panorama function which usually works very well on such scenes. This shows the stitched sky panorama, created with one click.
  • I develop and stitch the untracked ground segments to look their best for revealing details in the landscape, overexposing the sky in the process. Stars are also trailed, from the long exposures needed for the dark ground. No matter – these will be masked out.
  • This shows the stack of images now in Adobe Photoshop, but here revealing just the layer for the sky panorama and its associated adjustment layers to further tweak color and contrast. I often add noise reduction as a non-destructive “smart filter” applied to the “smart object” image layer. See my review of noise reduction programs here. 
  • This shows just the ground panorama layer, again with some adjustment and retouching layers dedicated to this portion of the image. 
  • The sky has to be masked out of the ground panorama, to reveal the sky below. The Select Sky command in Photoshop usually works well, or I just use the Quick Selection tool and then Select and Mask to refine the edge. That method can be more accurate. 
  • Aligning the two panoramas requires manually nudging the untracked ground, up in this case, to hide the blurred and dark horizon from the tracked sky panorama. Yes, we move the earth! The sky usually also requires some re-touching to clone out blurred horizon bits sticking up. Dealing with trees can be a bit messy! 

The result is the scene above with both panorama layers and the masks turned on. While this now looks almost complete, we’re not done yet. 

  • Local adjustments like Dodge and Burn (using a neutral grey layer with a Soft Light blend mode) and some luminosity masks tweak the brightness of portions of the scene for subtle improvements, to emphasize some areas while darkening others. It’s what film photographers did in the darkroom by waving physical dodging and burning tools under the enlarger. 
  • I add finishing touches with some effect plug-ins: Radiant Photo added some pop to the ground, while Luminar Neo added a soft “Orton glow” effect to the sky and slightly to the ground. 

All the adjustments, filters, and effects are non-destructive so they can be re-adjusted later, when upon further inspection with fresh eyes I realize something needs work.  

Was It Photoshopped?

I hope my look behind the curtains was of interest. While these types of nightscapes taken with a tracker, and especially multi-segment panoramas, do produce dramatic images, they do require a lot of processing at the computer. 

Was it “photoshopped?” Yes. Was it faked? No. The sky really was there over the scene you see in the image. However, the long exposures of the camera do reveal more details than the eye alone can see at night — that is the essence of astrophotography. 

My one concession to warping reality is in the time-blending — the merging of panoramas taken 30 minutes to an hour apart. I’ll admit that does push my limits for preferring to record real scenes, and not fabricate them (i.e. “photoshop” them in common parlance).

But at this shoot on these marvelous nights, making use of the perfectly timed moonrises was hard to resist!

— Alan, November 17, 2022 / AmazingSky.com 

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How to Photograph the Lunar Eclipse


On the night of November 18/19 eclipse fans across North America can enjoy the sight of the Moon turning deep red. Here’s how to capture the scene.

Seeing and shooting this eclipse will demand staying up late or getting up very early. That’s the price to pay for an eclipse everyone on the continent can see.

Also, this is not a total eclipse of the Moon. But it’s the next best thing, a 97% partial eclipse – almost total! So the main attraction — a red Moon — will still be front and centre.

CLICK ON AN IMAGE to bring it up full screen for closer inspection.

NOT QUITE TOTAL

At mid-eclipse 97% of the disk of the Full Moon will be within Earth’s dark umbral shadow, and should appear a bright red colour to the eye and even more so to the camera. A sliver of the southern edge of the Moon will remain outside the umbra and will appear bright white, like a southern polar cap on the Moon. 

While some references will say the eclipse begins at 1:01 am EST, that’s when the Moon first enters the outer lighter penumbral shadow. Nothing unusual can be seen at that point, as the darkening of the Moon’s disk by the penumbra is so slight, you won’t notice any difference over the normally bright Full Moon. 

The extent of the umbra and penumbra at the October 2004 total lunar eclipse.

It isn’t until the Moon begins to enter the umbra that you can see a dark bite being taken out of the edge of the Moon. 

WHAT TO SEE

At mid-eclipse the Full Moon will look deep red or perhaps bright orange — the colours can vary from eclipse to eclipse, depending on the clarity of the Earth’s atmosphere through which the sunlight is passing to light the Moon. The red is the colour of all the sunsets and sunrises going on around the Earth during the eclipse.

The total lunar eclipse of August 2007. At the November 18 eclipse the bottom edge of the Moon, as it did here, will be bright, but brighter than it appears here.

The unique aspect of this eclipse is that for the 15 to 30 minutes around mid-eclipse we might see some unusual colour gradations at the edge of the umbral shadow, from sunlight passing through Earth’s upper atmosphere and ozone layer. This can tint the shadow edge blue or even green. 

Eclipse chart courtesy Fred Espenak / EclipseWise.com

WHERE CAN THE ECLIPSE BE SEEN?

The last lunar eclipse six months ago on the morning of May 26, 2021 (see my blog here) was visible during its total phase only from western North America, and then only just. However, this eclipse can be seen from coast to coast. 

Only from the very easternmost points in North America does the Moon set with the eclipse in progress, but during the inconsequential penumbral phase. All of the umbral phase is visible from the Eastern Seaboard, though the last stages will be in progress with the Moon low in the west in the pre-dawn hours. But that positioning can make for photogenic sight. 

The start, middle and end times of the umbral eclipse for Eastern and Pacific time zones. The background image is a simulation of the path of the November 18/19, 2021 eclipse when the Moon travels through the southern part of the umbra.

WHEN IS THE ECLIPSE?

The show really begins when the Moon begins to enter the umbra at 2:18 am EST (1:18 am CST, 12:18 am MST, 11:18 pm PST). 

But note, these times are for the night of November 18/19. If you go out on the evening of November 19 expecting to see the eclipse, you’ll be sadly disappointed as you will have missed it. It’s the night before! 

The eclipse effectively ends at 5:47 am EST (4:47 am CST, 3:47 am MST, 2:47 am PST) when the Moon leaves the umbra. That makes the eclipse 3 1/2 hours long, though the most photogenic part will be for the 15 to 30 minutes centred on mid-eclipse at 4:03 am EST (3:03 am CST, 2:03 am MST, 1:03 am PST). 

The sky at mid-eclipse from my home on Alberta, Canada (51° N)

WHERE WILL THE MOON BE?

The post-midnight timing places the Moon at mid-eclipse high in the south to southwest for most of North America, just west (right) of the winter Milky Way and below the distinctive Pleiades star cluster. 

The view from the West Coast.

The high altitude of the Moon (some 60º to 70º above the horizon) puts it well above haze and murk low in the sky, but makes it a challenge to capture in a frame that includes the landscape below for an eclipse nightscape. 

ASTRONOMY 101: The high altitude of the Moon is a function of both the eclipse timing in the middle of the night and its place on the ecliptic. The Full Moon is always 180° away from the Sun. So it sits where the Sun was six months earlier, in this case back in May, when the high Sun was bringing us warmer and longer days. Winter lunar eclipses are always high; summer lunar eclipses are always low, the opposite of what the Sun does. 

The view from the East Coast.

From eastern North America the Moon appears lower in the west at mid-eclipse, making it easier to frame above a landscape. For example from Boston the Moon is 30º up, lending itself to nightscape scenes. 

However, the sky will still be dark. To make use of the darkness to capture scenes which include the Milky Way, I suggest making the effort to travel away from urban light pollution to a dark sky site. That applies to all locations. Yes, that means a very long night!

PHOTO OPTIONS 1 — CAMERA ON A FIXED TRIPOD

With just a camera on a tripod, if you are on the East Coast (I show Boston here) it will be possible to frame the eclipsed Moon above a landscape with a 24mm lens (assuming a full frame camera; a cropped frame camera will require a 16mm lens). 

Framing the scene from the East Coast.

What exposure will be best will depend on the level of local light pollution at your site. But from a dark site, 30 seconds at ISO 1600 and f/2.8 should work well. But without tracking, you will see some star trailing at 30 seconds. Also try shorter exposures at a higher ISO. 

There’s lots of time, so take lots of shots. Include some short shots of just the Moon to blend in later, as the exposures best for picking up the Milky Way will still overexpose the Moon, even when it is darkest at mid-eclipse. 

Framing the scene from the West.

From western North America, including the landscape below will require wide lenses and a vertical format, with the Moon appearing quite small. But from a photogenic site, it might be worth the effort. 

Total eclipse of the Moon, December 20/21, 2010, taken from home with 15mm lens at f/3.2 and Canon 5D MkII at ISO 1600 for 1 minute single exposure, toward the end of totality.
Total eclipse of the Moon, December 20/21, 2010, taken from home with Canon 5D MKII and 24mm lens at f2.8 for stack of 4 x 2 minutes at ISO 800. Taken during totality..

However, as my images above from the December 2010 eclipse show, if there’s any haze, the Moon could turn into a reddish blob. 

You might be tempted to shoot with a long telephoto lens, but unless the camera is on a tracker, as below, the result will likely be a blurry mess. The sky moves enough during the long (over 1 second) exposures needed to pick up the reddened portion of the Moon that the image will smear when shot with long focal lengths. The solution is to use a sky tracker.

PHOTO OPTIONS 2 — CAMERA ON A TRACKER

Placing the camera on a motorized tracker that has been polar aligned to follow the motion of the stars opens up many more possibilities. 

Camera on a Star Adventurer tracker showing the field of a 24mm lens.

From a dark site, make use of the Moon’s position near the Milky Way to frame it and Orion and his fellow winter constellations. A 24mm lens will do the job nicely, in exposures up to 2 to 4 minutes long. But take short ones for just the Moon to layer in later. 

Showing the field of a 50mm lens.

A 50mm lens (again assuming a full frame camera) frames the Moon with the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters in Taurus. 

Showing the field of an 85mm lens,

Switching to an 85mm lens frames the clusters more tightly and makes the Moon’s disk a little larger. For me, this is the best shot to go for at this eclipse, as it tells the story of the eclipse and its unique position near the two star clusters. 

Showing the field of 200mm and 250mm lenses.

But going with a longer lens allows framing the red eclipsed Moon below the blue Pleiades cluster, a fine colour contrast. A 200mm lens will do the job nicely (or a 135mm on a cropped frame camera). 

Or, as I show here, the popular William Optics RedCat with its 250mm focal length will also work well. But such a lens must be on a polar-aligned tracker to get sharp shots. Use the Sidereal rate drive speed to ensure the sharpest stars over the 1 to 4 minutes needed to record lots of stars. 

Typical settings for tracker images, with an image of the January 2019 eclipse.

Take lots of exposures over a range of settings — long to bring out the deep sky detail and shorter to preserve detail in the reddened lunar disk. These can be layered and blended later in Photoshop, or in the layer-based image editing program of your choice, such as Affinity Photo or ON1 Photo RAW. 

PHOTO OPTIONS 3 — THROUGH A TELESCOPE

While I think the tracked wide-field options are some of the best for this eclipse, many photographers will want frame-filling close-ups of the red Moon. While a telescope will do the job, unless it has motors to track the sky, your options are limited.

Phone on a simple Dobsonian reflector.

A phone clamped to the eyepiece of a telescope can capture the shrinking bright part of the eclipsed Moon as the Moon enters more deeply into the umbra. Exposures for the bright part of the Moon are short enough a motor drive on the telescope is not essential. 

But if you haven’t shot the Moon with this gear before, eclipse night is not the time to learn. Practice on the Moon before the eclipse. 

DSLR on a beginner refractor telescope showing the adapter.

For shooting with a DSLR camera through a telescope you’ll need a special camera adapter nosepiece and T-ring for your camera. Again, if you don’t have the gear and the experience doing this, I would suggest not making the attempt at two in the morning on eclipse night! 

DSLR on a beginner reflector with an often necessary Barlow lens.

For example, owners of typical beginner reflectors are often surprised to find their cameras won’t even reach focus on their telescope. Many are simply not designed for photography. Adding a Barlow lens is required for the camera to reach focus, though without a drive, exposures will be limited to short (under 1/15s) shots of the bright part of the Moon.

An exposure composite of short and long exposures.

The challenge with this and all lunar eclipses is that the Moon presents a huge range of brightness. Short snapshots can capture the bright part of the Moon not in the umbra, but the dark umbral-shaded portion requires much longer exposures, usually over one second. 

Your eye can see the whole scene (as depicted above) but the camera cannot, not in one exposure. This example is a “high dynamic range” blend of several exposures. 

A series of the September 27, 2015 total lunar eclipse to demonstrate an exposure sequence from partial to total phase.

Plus as the eclipse progresses, longer and longer exposures are needed to capture the sequence as the Moon is engulfed by more of the umbra. 

After mid-eclipse, the exposures must get progressively shorter again in reverse order. So attempting to capture an entire sequence requires a lot of exposure adjustments. 

TIP: Bracket a lot! Take lots of frames at each burst of images shot every minute, or however often you wish to capture the progress of the eclipse for a final set. Unlike total solar eclipses, lunar eclipses provide lots of time to take lots of images. 

PHOTO OPTIONS 4 — THROUGH A TRACKING TELESCOPE

If you want close-ups of the eclipsed red Moon, you will need to use a mount equipped with a tracking motor, such as an equatorial mount shown here. But for use with telephoto lenses and short telescopes, a polar-aligned sky tracker, as above, will work. 

A small apo refractor on an equatorial mount with typical settings for mid-eclipse.

Exposures can now be several seconds long, and at a lower ISO speed for less noise, allowing the Moon to be captured in sharp detail and with great colour. Long exposures will even pick up stars near the Moon. 

However, when shooting close-ups, use the Lunar drive rate (if your mount offers that choice) to follow the Moon itself, as it has a motion of its own against the background stars. It’s that orbital motion that takes it from west to east (right to left) through the Earth’s shadow. 

The fields of view and size of the Moon’s disk with typical telescope focal lengths.

Filling the camera frame with the Moon requires a surprising amount of focal length. The Moon appears big to our eyes, but is only 1/2º across. 

Even with 800mm of focal length, the Moon fills only a third of a full frame camera field. Using a cropped frame camera has the advantage of tightening the field of view, but it still takes 1200mm to 1500mm of focal length to fill the frame. 

But I wouldn’t worry about doing so, as longer focal lengths typically also come with slower f-ratios, requiring longer exposure times or higher ISOs, both of which can blur detail. 

A camera on an alt-azimuth GoTo Schmidt-Cassegrain.

For close-ups, a polar-aligned equatorial mount is best. But if your telescope is a GoTo telescope on an alt-azimuth mount (such as a Schmidt-Cassegrain shown here), you should be able to get good shots.

The field of view will slowly rotate during the eclipse, making it more difficult to later accurately assemble a series of shots documenting the entire sequence. 

But any one shot should be fine, though it might be best to keep exposures shorter by using a higher ISO speed. As always, take lots of shots at different settings. 

You won’t be able to tell which is sharpest until you inspect them later at the computer.

TIP: People worry about exposures, but the flaw that ruins many eclipse shots is poor focus. Use Live View to focus carefully on the sharp edge of the bright part of the Moon. Or better yet, focus on a bright star nearby. Zoom up to 10x to make it easier to see when the star is in sharpest focus. It can be a good idea to refocus through the night as the changing temperature can shift the focus point of long lenses and telescopes. That might take moving the scope over to a bright star, which won’t be possible if you need to preserve the framing for a composite. 

PHOTO OPTIONS 5 — HDR COMPOSITES

Using an equatorial mount tracking at the lunar rate keeps the Moon stationary. This opens up the possibility of taking a series of shots over the wide range of exposures needed to capture the Moon from bright to dark, to assemble later in processing. Take 5 to 7 shots in quick succession. 

An HDR composite from the December 2010 eclipse.

High dynamic range software can blend the images, or use luminosity masks created by extension panels for Photoshop such as Lumenzia, TK8 or Raya Pro. Either technique can create a final image that looks like what your eye saw. The key is making sure all the images are aligned. HDR software likely won’t align them for you very well.

The January 2019 eclipse layered and blended in Photoshop.

Blending multiple exposures will also be needed to properly capture the eclipsed Moon below the Pleiades, similar to what I show here (and below) from the January 2019 eclipse when the Moon appeared near the Beehive star cluster. 

PHOTO OPTIONS 6 — ECLIPSE TRACK COMPOSITES

Another popular form of eclipse image (though also one rife for laughably inaccurate fakes) is capturing the entire path of the Moon across the sky over the duration of the eclipse from start to end. 

The track of the September 2015 eclipse, accurately assembled to correct scale.

It can be done with a fixed camera on a tripod but requires a wide (14mm to 20mm) and properly framed lens, to capture the sequence as it actually appeared to proper scale, and not created by just pasting over-sized moons onto a sky to “simulate” the scene, usually badly. By the end of the day on November 19 the internet will be filled with such ugly fakes. 

You could set the camera at one exposure setting (one best for when the Moon and sky are darkest at mid-eclipse) and let the camera run, shooting frames every 5 seconds or so. The result might work well as a time-lapse sequence, showing the bright sky darkening, then brightening again. 

But chances are the frames taken at the start and end when the sky is lit by full moonlight will be blown out. It will still take some manual camera adjustments through the eclipse. 

For a still-image composite, you should instead expose properly for the Moon’s disk at all times, a setting that will change every few minutes, then take a long exposure at mid-eclipse to pick up the stars and Milky Way. The short Moon shots are then blended into the base-layer sky image later in processing. 

Framing the eclipse path for the start of the sequence.
Framing the path so the Moon ends up at a desired location on the frame.

If the camera has been well-framed and was not moved over the 3.5 hours of the eclipse, the result is an accurate and authentic record of the Moon’s path and passage into the shadow, and not a faked atrocity! 

But creating a real image requires a lot of work at the camera, and at the computer. 

TIP: Shooting for composites is not work I would recommend attempting while also running other cameras. Focus on one type of image and get it right, rather than trying to do too many and doing them all poorly. 

PHOTO OPTION 7 — ECLIPSE SHADOW COMPOSITE

One of the most striking types of lunar eclipse images is a close-up composite showing the Moon passing through the Earth’s umbral shadow, with the arc of the shadow edge on the Moon defining the extent of the shadow, which is about three times larger than the Moon.

Such a composite can be re-created later by placing individual exposures accurately on a wider canvas, using screen shots from planetarium software as a template guide. 

A composite of the Moon moving through the umbra.

But to create an image that is more accurate, it is possible to do it “in camera.” Unlike in the film days, we don’t have to do it with multiple exposures onto one piece of film. 

We take lots of separate frames with a telescope or lens wide enough to contain the entire path of the Moon through the umbra. A polar-aligned equatorial mount tracking at the sidereal rate is essential. That way the scope follows the stars, not the Moon, and so the Moon travels across the frame from right to left. 

Framing for a shadow composite.

Start such a sequence with the Moon at lower right if you are framing just the path through the shadow. Use planetarium software (I used Starry Night™ to create the star charts for this blog) to plan the framing for your camera, lens and site, so the Moon ends up in the middle of the frame at mid-eclipse. This is not a technique for the faint of heart!  

A shadow-defining composite from January 2019, with the Moon near the Beehive cluster.

An interesting variation would be using a 200mm to 250mm lens to frame the Moon’s shadow passage below the Pleiades, to create an image as above. That will be unique. Again, an accurately aligned tracker turning at the sidereal rate will be essential.

Acquiring the frames for any composite takes constantly adjusting the exposure during the length of eclipse, which can try your patience and gear during the wee hours of the morning. 

I’ll be happy just to get a good set of images at mid-eclipse to make a single composite of the red Moon below the Pleiades. 

TIP: It could be cold and lenses can frost over. A battery-powered heater coil on the optics might be essential. And spare warm batteries.

The 4-day-old waxing crescent Moon on April 8, 2019 in a blend of 7 exposures from 1/30 second to 2 seconds, blended with luminosity masks in Photoshop.

PRACTICE!

To test your equipment and your skills at focusing, you can use the waning crescent Moon in the dawn hours on the mornings of October 29 to November 2 or, after New Moon on November 4, the waxing crescent Moon on the evenings of November 6 to 10. While the crescent Moon isn’t as bright as the Full Moon, it will be a good stand in for the bright part of the eclipsed Moon when it is deep in the umbra. 

Even better, the dark part of the crescent Moon lit by Earthshine is a good stand-in for the part of the Moon in the umbra. Like the eclipsed Moon, the crescent Moon’s bright and dark parts can’t be captured in one exposure. So it’s a good test for the range of exposures you’ll need for the eclipse, for practising changing settings on your camera, and for checking your tracking system.  

The crescent Moon is also useful to test your manual focusing, though the sharp detail along the terminator (the line dividing the bright crescent from the earthlit dark part of the Moon) is much easier to focus on than the flat, low contrast Full Moon.

A selfie of me looking up at the total eclipse of the Moon on January 20, 2019, using binoculars to enjoy the view.

DON’T FORGET TO LOOK!

Amid all the effort needed to shoot this or any eclipse, lunar or solar, don’t forget to just look at it. No photo can ever quite capture the glowing nature of the eclipsed Moon set against the stars. 

A selfie of the successful eclipse chaser bagging his trophy, the total lunar eclipse of January 20, 2019.

I wish you clear skies and good luck with your lunar eclipse photography. If you miss it, we have two more visible from North America next year, both total eclipses, on May 15/16 and November 8, 2022. 

— Alan, www.amazingsky.com 

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How to Photograph the Great Conjunction


On December 21 we have a chance to see and shoot a celestial event that no one has seen since the year 1226. 

As Jupiter and Saturn each orbit the Sun, Jupiter catches up to slower moving Saturn and passes it every 20 years. For a few days the two giant planets appear close together in our sky. The last time this happened was in 2000, but with the planets too close to the Sun to see. 

Back on February 18, 1961 the two planets appeared within 14 arc minutes or 0.23° (degrees) of each other low in the dawn sky. 

But on December 21 they will pass each other only 6 arc minutes apart. To find a conjunction that close and visible in a darkened sky you have to go all the way back to March 5, 1226 when Jupiter passed only 3 arc minutes above Saturn at dawn. Thus the media headlines of a “Christmas Star” no one has seen for 800 years! 

Photographing the conjunction will be a challenge precisely because the planets will be so close to each other. Here are several methods I can suggest, in order of increasing complexity and demands for specialized gear. 

Easy — Shooting Nightscapes with Wide Lenses

This shows the field of view of various lenses on full-frame cameras (red outlines) and a 200mm lens with 1.4x tele-extender on a cropped frame camera (blue outline). The date is December 17 when the waxing crescent Moon also appears near the planet pair for a bonus element in a nightscape image.

Conjunctions of planets in the dusk or dawn twilight are usually easy to capture. Use a wide-angle (24mm) to short telephoto (85mm) lens to frame the scene and exposures of no more than a few seconds at ISO 200 to 400 with the lens at f/2.8 to f/4. 

The sky and horizon might be bright enough to allow a camera’s autoexposure and autofocus systems to work. 

Indeed, in the evenings leading up to and following the closest approach date of December 21 that’s a good method to use. Capture the planet pair over a scenic landscape or urban skyline to place them in context. 

For most locations the planets will appear no higher than about 15° to 20° above the southwestern horizon as it gets dark enough to see and shoot them, at about 5 p.m. local time. A 50mm lens on a full-frame camera (or a 35mm lens on a cropped frame camera) will frame the scene well. 

This was Jupiter and Saturn on December 3, 2020 from the Elbow Falls area on the Elbow River in the Kananaskis Country southwest of Calgary. This is a blend of 4 untracked images for the dark ground, stacked to smooth noise, for 30 seconds each, and one untracked image for the bright sky for 15 seconds to preserve colours and highlights, all with the 24mm Sigma lens and Canon EOS Ra at ISO 200.

NIGHTSCAPE TIP — Use planetarium software such as Stellarium (free), SkySafari, or StarryNight (what I used here) to simulate the framing with your lens and camera. Use that software to determine where the planets will be in azimuth, then use a photo planning app such as PhotoPills or The Photographer’s Ephemeris to plan where to be to place the planets over the scene you want at that azimuth (they’ll be at about 220° to 230° — in the southwest — for northern latitude sites). 

My ebook linked to at right has pages of tips and techniques for shooting nightscapes and time-lapses. 

This was Jupiter and Saturn on December 10, 2020 from Red Deer River valley, north of Drumheller, Alberta. This is a blend of 4 images for the dark ground, stacked to smooth noise, for 20 seconds each at f/5.6, and a single image for the sky for 5 seconds at f/2.8, all with the 35mm Canon lens and Canon EOS Ra at ISO 400. All untracked.

Harder — Shooting With Longer Lenses

The planet pair will sink lower and closer to the horizon, to set about 7:00 to 7:30 p.m. local time each night. 

As the sky darkens and the planet altitude decreases you can switch to ever-longer lenses to zoom in on the scene and still frame the planets above a carefully-chosen horizon, assuming you have very clear skies free of haze and cloud. 

For example, by 6 p.m. they will be low enough to allow a 135mm telephoto to frame the planets and still have the horizon in the frame. Using a longer lens has the benefit or resolving the two planets better, showing them as two distinct objects, which will become more of a challenge the closer you are to December 21. 

On December 21 wide-angle and even short telephoto lenses will likely show the two planets as an unresolved point of light, no brighter than Jupiter on its own.

On closest approach day the planets will be so close that using a wide-angle or even a normal lens might only show them as an unresolved blob of light. You’ll need more focal length to split the planets well into two objects. 

However, using longer focal lengths introduces a challenge — the motion of the sky will cause the planets to trail during long exposures, turning them from points into streaks. That trailing will get more noticeable more quickly the longer the lens you use. 

A rule-of-thumb says the longest exposure you can employ before trailing becomes apparent is 500 / the focal length of the lens. So for a 200mm lens, maximum exposure is 500 / 200 = 2.5 seconds. 

To be conservative, a “300 Rule” might be better, restricting exposures with a 200mm telephoto to 300 / 200 = 1.5 seconds. Now, 1.5 seconds might be long enough for the scene, especially if you use a fast lens wide open at f/2.8 or f/2 and a faster ISO such as 400 or 800. 

This shows the motion of Jupiter relative to Saturn from December 17 to 25, with the outer frame representing the field of view of a 200mm lens and 1.4x tele-extender on a cropped frame camera. The smaller frame shows the field of a telescope with an effective focal length of 1,200mm.

TELEPHOTO TIP — Be sure to focus carefully using Live View to manually focus on a magnified image of the planets. And refocus through an evening of shooting. While people fuss about getting the one “correct” exposure, it is poor focus that ruins more astrophotos. 

Even More Demanding — Tracking Longer Lenses 

This one popular sky tracker, the iOptron SkyGuider Pro, here with a telephoto lens. It and other trackers such as the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer seen in the opening image, can be used with lenses and telescopes up to about 300mm focal length, if they are balanced well. Even longer lenses might work for the short exposures needed for the planets, but vibration and wind can blur images.

However, longer exposures might be needed later in the evening when the sky is darker, to set the planets into a starry background. After December 17 we will have a waxing Moon in the evening sky to light the sky and foreground, so the sky will not be dark, even from a rural site. 

Even so, to ensure untrailed images with long telephotos — and certainly with telescopes — you will need to employ a sky tracker, a device to automatically turn the camera to follow the sky. If you don’t have one, it’s probably too late to get one and learn how to use it! But if you have one, here’s a great opportunity to put it to use. 

Polar align it (you’ll have to wait for it to get dark enough to see the North Star) and then use it to take telephoto close-up images of the planets with exposure times that can now be as long as you like, though they likely won’t need to be more than 10 to 20 seconds. 

You can now also use a slower ISO speed for less noise. 

TRACKER TIP — Use a telephoto to frame just the planets, or include some foreground content such as a hilltop, if it can be made to fit in the frame. Keep in mind that the foreground will now blur from the tracking, which might not be an issue. If it is, take exposures of the foreground with the tracker motor off, to blend in later in processing. 

The Most Difficult Method — Using a Telescope

An alt-azimuth mounted GoTo scope like this Celestron SE6 can work for short exposures of the planets, provided it is aligned and is tracking properly. Good focus will be critical.

Capturing the rare sight of the planets as two distinct disks (not just dots of light) accompanied by their moons, all together in the same frame, is possible anytime between now and the end of the year. 

But … resolving the disks of the planets takes focal length — a lot of focal length! And that means using a telescope on a mount that can track the stars. 

While a sky tracker might work, they are not designed to handle long and heavy lenses and telescopes. You’d need a telescope on a solid mount, though it could be a “GoTo” telescope on an alt-azimuth mount. Such a mount, while normally not suited for long-exposure deep-sky imaging, will be fine for the short exposures needed for the planets.

You will need to attach your camera to the telescope using a camera adapter, so the scope becomes the lens. If you have never done this, to shoot closeups of the Moon for example, and don’t have the right adapters and T-rings, then this isn’t the time to learn how to do it.

A simulation of the view with a 1,200mm focal length telescope on December 21. Even with such a focal length the planet disks still appear small.

TELESCOPE TIP — As an alternative, it might be possible to shoot the planets using a phone camera clamped to the low-power eyepiece of a telescope, but focusing and setting the exposure can be tough. It might not be worth the fuss in the brief time you have in twilight, perhaps on the one clear night you get! Just use your telescope to look and enjoy the view! 

But if you have experience shooting the Moon through your telescope with your DSLR or mirrorless camera, then you should be all set, as the gear and techniques to shoot the planets are the same. 

This is the setup I might use for a portable rig best for a last-minute chase to clear skies. It’s a Sky-Watcher EQM-35 mount with a 105mm apo refractor (the long-discontinued Astro-Physics Traveler), and here with a 2x Barlow to double the effective focal length to 1,200mm.

However, once again the challenge is just how close the planets are going to get to each other. Even a telescope with a focal length of 1200mm (typical for a small scope) still gives a field of view 1° wide using a cropped frame camera. That’s 60 arc minutes, ten times the 6 arc minute separation of Jupiter and Saturn on December 21! 

TELESCOPE TIP — Use a 2x or 3x Barlow lens if needed to increase the effective focal length of the scope. Beware that introducing a Barlow into the light path usually requires racking the focus out and/or adding extension tubes to reach focus. Test your configuration as soon as possible to make sure you can focus it. 

TELESCOPE TIP — With such long focal lengths shoot lots of exposures. Some will be sharper than others. 

TELESCOPE TIP — But be sure to focus precisely, and refocus over the hour or so you might be shooting, as changing temperatures will shift the focus. You can’t fix bad focus! 

Jupiter and Saturn in the same telescope field on December 5, 2020. Some of the moons are visible in this exposure taken in twilight before the planets got too low in the southwest. This is a single exposure with a 130mm Astro-Physics apo refractor at f/6 (so 780mm focal length) for 4 seconds at ISO 200 with the Canon 6D MkII. The disks of the planets are overexposed to bring out the moons.

Short exposures under one second might be needed to keep the planet disks from overexposing. Capturing the moons of Jupiter (it has four bright moons) and Saturn (it has two, Titan and Rhea, that are bright) will require exposures of several seconds. Going even longer will pick up background stars.

Or … with DSLRs and mirrorless cameras, try shooting HD or 4K movies. They will likely demand a high and noisy ISO, but might capture the view more like you saw and remember it. 

FINAL TIP — Whatever combination of gear you decide to use, test it! Don’t wait until December 21 to see if it works, nor ask me if I think such-and-such a mount, telescope or technique will work. Test for yourself to find out.

Jupiter and Saturn taken in the deep twilight on December 3, 2020 from the Allen Bill flats area on the Elbow River in the Kananaskis Country southwest of Calgary, Alberta. This is a blend of 4 untracked images for the dark ground, stacked to smooth noise, for 2 minutes each at ISO 400, and two tracked images for the sky (and untrailed stars) for 30 seconds each at ISO 400, all with the 35mm Canon lens at f/2.8 and Canon EOS Ra. The tracker was the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer 2i.

Don’t Fret or Compete. Enjoy! 

The finest images will come from experienced planetary imagers using high-frame-rate video cameras to shoot movies, from which software extracts and stacks the sharpest frames. Again, if you have no experience with doing that (I don’t!), this is not the time to learn! 

And even the pros will have a tough time getting sharp images due to the planets’ low altitude, even from the southern hemisphere, where some pro imagers have big telescopes at their disposal, to get images no one else in the world can compete with!

In short, use the gear you have and techniques you know to capture this unique event as best you can. And if stuff fails, just enjoy the view! 

Jupiter and Saturn taken December 3, 2020 from the Allen Bill flats area on the Elbow River in the Kananaskis Country southwest of Calgary, Alberta. This is a blend of 4 untracked images for the dark ground, stacked to smooth noise, for 2 minutes each at ISO 400, and two tracked images for the sky for 30 seconds at ISO 1600, all with the 35mm Canon lens at f/2.8 and Canon EOS Ra. The tracker was the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer 2i.

If you miss closest approach day due to cloud, don’t worry. 

Even when shooting with telephoto lenses the photo ops will be better in the week leading up to and following December 21, when the greater separation of the planets will make it easier to capture a dramatic image of the strikingly close pairing of planets over an Earthly scene. 

Clear skies! 

— Alan, © 2020 AmazingSky.com 

Posted on

Testing the MSM Tracker


MSM Test Title

A new low-cost sky tracker promises to simplify not only tracking the sky but also taking time-lapses panning along the horizon. It works but …

If you are an active nightscape photographer chances are your social media feeds have been punctuated with ads for this new low-cost tracker from MoveShootMove.com. 

For $200, much less than popular trackers from Sky-Watcher and iOptron, the SiFo unit (as it is labelled) offers the ability track the sky, avoiding any star trails. That alone would make it a bargain, and useful for nightscape and deep-sky photographers. 

But it also has a function for panning horizontally, moving incrementally between exposures, thus the Move-Shoot-Move designation. The result is a time-lapse movie that pans along the horizon, but with each frame with the ground sharp, as the camera moves only between exposures, not during them. 

 

MSM Polar Aligned Side V1
The Move-Shoot-Move Tracker
The $200 MSM can be polar aligned using the optional laser, shown here, or an optical polar scope to allow to follow the sky. The ball head is user supplied. 

Again, for $200 this is an excellent feature lacking in trackers like the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer or iOptron SkyTracker. The Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Mini does, however, offer both tracking and “move-shoot-move” time-lapse functions, but at a cost of $300 to $400 U.S., depending on accessories. 

All these functions are provided in a unit that is light (weighing 700 grams with a tripod plate and the laser) and compact (taking up less space in your camera bag than most lenses). By comparison, the Star Adventurer Mini weighs 900 grams with the polar scope, while the original larger Star Adventurer is 1.4 kg, double the MSM’s weight. 

Note, that the MSM’s advertised weight of 445 grams does not include the laser or a tripod plate, two items you need to use it. So 700 grams is a more realistic figure, still light, but not lighter than the competition by as much as you might be led to believe. 

Nevertheless, the MSM’s small size and weight make it attractive for travel, especially for flights to remote sites. Construction is solid and all-metal. This is not a cheap plastic toy.

But does it work? Yes, but with several important caveats that might be a concern for some buyers. 

What I Tested

I purchased the Basic Kit B package for $220 U.S., which includes a small case, a laser pointer and bracket for polar alignment (and with a small charger for the laser’s single 3.7-volt battery), and with the camera sync cable needed for time-lapse shooting. 

I also purchased the new “button” model, not the older version that used a knob to set various tracking rates. 

 

MSM with Canon 6D MkII
MSM Fitted Out
Keep in mind that to use any tracker like the MSM you will need a solid tripod with a head good enough to hold the tracker and camera steady when tipped over when polar aligned, and another ball head on the tracker itself.

The ball head needed to go on top of the tracker is something you supply. The kit does come with two 3/8-inch stud bolts and a 3/8-to1/4-inch bushing adapter, for placing the tracker on tripods in the various mounting configurations I show below. 

The first units were labelled as ‘SiFo,” but current units now carry the Gauda brand name. I’ll just call it the MSM. 

I purchased the gear from the MSM website, and had my order fulfilled and shipped to me in Canada from China with no problems. 

Tracking the Sky in Nightscapes

The attraction is its tracking function, allowing a camera to follow the sky and take exposures longer than any dictated by “500” or “NPF” Rules to avoid any star trailing. 

Exposures can be a minute or more to record much more depth and detail in the Milky Way, though the ground will blur. But blending tracked sky exposures with untracked ground exposures gets around that, and with the MSM it’s easy to turn on and off the tracking motor, something not possible with the low-cost wind-up Mini Track from Omegon. 

MSM Polar Aligned Side V2
Mounting on the Side
The MSM is shown in illustrations and instructions mounted by its side panel bolt hole. This works, but produced problems with the gears not meshing well and the MSM not tracking at all for initial exposures. 

The illustrations and instructions (in a PDF well-hidden off the MSM Buy page) show the MSM mounted using the 1/4-20 bolt hole on the side of the unit opposite the LED-illuminated control panel. While this seems to be the preferred  method, in the first unit I tested I found it produced serious mis-tracking problems. 

MSM Test (On Side) 1 minute 50mm
50mm Lens Set, Mounted on the Side
A set of five consecutive 1-minute exposures taken with the original SiFo-branded MSM mounted by its side bolt hole showed the MSM’s habit of taking several minutes for the gears to mesh and to begin tracking. Tap or click to download full-res version.

With a Canon 6D MkII and 50mm f/1.4 lens (not a particularly heavy combination), the MSM’s gears would not engage and start tracking until after about 5 minutes. The first exposures were useless. This was also the case whenever I moved the camera to a new position to re-frame the scene or sky. Again, the first few minutes produced no or poor tracking until the gears finally engaged. 

This would be a problem when taking tracked/untracked sets for nightscapes, as images need to be taken in quick succession. It’s also just plain annoying.

However, see the UPDATE at the end for the performance of a new Gauda-branded unit that was sent to me. 

Sagittarius - Red Enhancer Filter
50mm Nightscape
With patience and persistence you can get well-tracked nightscapes with the MSM. This is a single 1-minute exposure with a 50mm lens. Tap or click to download full-res version.

Mounting Options

The solution was to mount the MSM using the 3/8-inch bolt hole on the back plate of the tracker, using the 1/4-20 adapter ring to allow it to attach to my tripod head. This still allowed me to tip the unit up to polar align it. 

MSM Polar Aligned Back V1
Mounting on the Back
Mounting the MSM using its back plate produced more reliable tracking results, though requires swapping mounting bolts and 3/8-1/4-inch adapter rings from the preferred method of mounting the MSM for time-lapse work. 

Tracking was now much more consistent, with only the first exposure usually badly trailed. But subsequent exposures all tracked, but with varying degrees of accuracy as I show below. 

When used as a tracker, you need to control the camera’s exposure time with an external intervalometer you supply, to allow setting exposures over 30 seconds long. 

The MSM offers a N and S setting, the latter for use in the Southern Hemisphere. A 1/2-speed setting turns the tracker at half the normal sidereal rate, useful for nightscapes as a compromise speed to provide some tracking while minimizing ground blurring. 

Polar Alignment

For any tracker to track, its rotation axis has to be aimed at the Celestial Pole, near Polaris in the Northern Hemisphere, and near Sigma Octantis in the Southern Hemisphere. 

MSM Tracker with Laser Pointer (Red Light Version)
Polar Aligning on Polaris
The MSM’s bright laser pointer is useful for aiming the tracker at the North Celestial Pole, located about a degree away from Polaris in the direction of Alkaid, the end star in the Handle of the Big Dipper or Plough. 

I chose the laser pointer option for this, rather than the polar alignment scope. The laser attaches to the side of the MSM using a small screw-on metal bracket so that it points up along the axis of rotation, the polar axis. 

The laser is labeled as a 1mw unit, but it is far brighter than any 1mw I’ve used. This does make it bright, allowing the beam to show up even when the sky is not dark. The battery is rechargeable and a small charger comes with the laser. Considering the laser is just a $15 option, it’s a bargain. But ….

UPDATE ADDED SEPTEMBER 1

Since I published the review, I have had the laser professionally tested, and it measured as having an output of 45 milliwatts. Yet it is labeled as being under 1 milliwatt. This is serious misrepresentation of the specs, done I can only assume to circumvent import restrictions. In Canada it is now illegal to import, own, or use any green laser over 5 milliwatts, a power level that would be sufficient for the intended use of polar aligning. 45mw is outright illegal. 

So be warned, use of this laser will be illegal in some areas. And use of any green laser will be illegal close to airports, and outlawed entirely in some jurisdictions such as Australia, a fact the MSM website mentions. 

The legal alternative is the optical polar alignment scope. I already have several of those, but my expectation that I could use one I had with the same bracket supplied with the laser were dashed by the fact that the bracket’s hole is too narrow to accept any of the other polar alignment scopes I have, which are all standard items. I you want a polar scope, buy theirs for $70. 

However, if you can use it where you live, the laser works well enough, allowing you to aim the tracker at the Pole just by eye. For the wide lenses the tracker is intended to be used with, eyeball alignment proved good enough.

Just be very, very careful not to accidentally look down the beam. Seriously. It is far too easy to do by mistake, but doing so could damage your eye in moments. 

Tracking the Sky in Deep-Sky Images

How well does the MSM actually track? In tests of the original SiFo unit I bought, and in sets of exposures with 35mm, 50mm, and 135mm lenses, and with the tracker mounted on the back, I found that 25% to 50% of the images showed mis-tracking. Gear errors still produced slightly trailed stars. This gear error shows itself more as you shoot with longer focal lengths. 

MSM Test (On Back) 2 min 35mm
35mm Lens Set, Mounted on the Back
A set of 2-minute exposures with the MSM mounted by its back plate showed better tracking with quicker gear meshing, though still with some frames showing trailing. Tap or click to download full-res version.

The MSM is best for what it is advertised as — as a tracker for nightscapes with forgiving wide-angle lenses in the 14mm to 24mm range. With longer lenses, expect to throw away a good number of exposures as unusable. Take twice as many as you think you might need.

MSM Test (On Back) 1 min 135mm
135mm Telephoto Lens Set
A set of 20 one-minute exposures with a 135mm lens showed more than half with unusable amounts of mis-tracking. But enough worked to be usable! Tap or click to download full-res version.

With a 135mm lens taking Milky Way closeups, more than half the shots were badly trailed. Really badly trailed. This is not from poor polar alignment, which produces a gradual drift of the frame, but from errors in the drive gears, and random errors at that, not periodic errors. 

To be fair, this is often the case with other trackers as well. People always want to weight them down with heavy and demanding telephotos for deep-sky portraits, but that’s rarely a good idea with any tracker. They are best with wide lenses.

That said, I found the MSM’s error rate and amount to be much worse than with other trackers. With the Star Adventurer models and a 135mm lens for example, I can expect only 20% to 25% of the images to be trailed, and even then rarely as badly as what the MSM exhibited.

See the UPDATE at the end for the performance of the replacement Gauda-branded unit sent to me with the promise of much improved tracking accuracy. 

The Arrow, Dumbbell, and Coathanger
Sagitta and Area with the 135mm
The result of the above set was a stack of 8 of the best for a fine portrait of the Milky Way area in Sagitta, showing the Dumbbell Nebula and Coathanger asterism. Each sub-frame was 1 minute at f/2 and ISO 1600. Tap or click to download full-res version.

Yes, enough shots worked to be usable, but it took using a fast f/2 lens to keep exposure times down to a minute to provide that yield. Users of slow f/5.6 kit-zoom lenses will struggle trying to take deep-sky images with the MSM. 

In short, this is a low-cost tracker and it shows. It does work, but not as well as the higher-cost competitors. But restrict it to wide-angle lenses and you’ll be fine. 

Panning the Ground 

The other mode the MSM can be used in is as a time-lapse motion controller. Here you mount the MSM horizontally so the camera turns parallel to the horizon (or it can be mounted vertically for vertical panning, a mode I rarely use and did not test). 

MSM Tracker Taking Time-Lapse in Moonlight
The MSM at Work
I performed all the time-lapse testing from my rural backyard on nights in mid-August 2019 with a waning Moon lighting the sky. 

This is where the Move-Shoot-Move function comes in. 

The supplied Sync cable goes from the camera’s flash hot shoe to the MSM’s camera jack. What happens is that when the camera finishes an exposure it sends a pulse to the MSM, which then quickly moves while the shutter is closed by the increment you set.

There is a choice of 4 speeds, marked in degrees-per-move: 0.05°, 0.2°, 0.5°, and 1.0°. For example, as the movie below shows, taking 360 frames at the 1° speed results in a complete 360° turn.

 

MSM Control Panel CU
Time-Lapse Speeds
The control panel offers a choice of N and S rotation directions, a 1/2-speed rate for partially tracked nightscapes, and Move-Shoot-Move rates per move of 0.05°, 0.2°, 0.5° and a very fast 1° setting. The Sync cable plugs into the jack on the MSM. The other jack is for connecting to a motion control slider, a function I didn’t test.

The MSM does the moving, but all the shutter speed control and intervals must be set using a separate intervalometer, either one built into the camera, or an outboard hardware unit. The MSM does not control the camera shutter. In fact, the camera controls the MSM.

Intervals should be set to be about 2 seconds longer than the shutter speed, to allow the MSM to perform its move and settle. 

This connection between the MSM and camera worked very well. It is unconventional, but simple and effective.

MSM Time-Lapse Correct
Mounting for Time-Lapse
The preferred method of mounting the MSM for time-lapses is to do so “upside-down” with its rotating top plate at bottom attached to the tripod. Thus the whole MSM and camera turns, preventing the Sync cable from winding up during a turn. 

Too Slow or Too Fast

The issue is the limited choice of move speeds. I found the 0.5° and 1° speeds much too fast for night use, except perhaps for special effects in urban cityscapes. Even in daytime use, when exposure times are very short, the results are dizzying, as I show below. 

Even the 0.2°-per-move speed I feel is too fast for most nightscape work. Over the 300 exposures one typically takes for a time-lapse movie, that speed will turn the MSM (300 x 0.2°) = 60 degrees. That’s a lot of motion for 300 shots, which will usually be rendered out at 24 or 30 frames per second for a clip that lasts 10 to 12 seconds. The scene will turn a lot in that time.

On the other hand, the 0.05°-per-move setting is rather slow, producing a turn of (300 x 0.05°) = 15° during the 300 shots. 

That works, but with all the motion controllers I’ve used — units that can run at whatever speed they need to get from the start point to the end point you set — I find a rate of about 0.1° per move is what works best for a movie that provides the right amount of motion. Not too slow. Not too fast. Just right. 

MSM Time-Lapse Correct CU
Inverted Control Panel
When mounted as recommended for time-lapses, the control panel does end up upside-down. 

UPDATE ADDED DECEMBER 21, 2019

From product photos on the MoveShootMove.com website now it appears that the tracker is now labeled MSM, as it should have been all along.

Most critically, perhaps in response to this review and my comments here, the time-lapse speeds have been changed to 0.05, 0.075, 0.1 and 0.125 degrees per move, adding the 0.1°/move speed I requested below and deleting the overly fast 0.5° and 1.0° speeds.

Plus it appears the new units have the panel labels printed the other way around so they are not upside down for most mounting situations.

I have not tested this new version, but these speeds sound much more usable for panning time-lapses. Bravo to MSM for listening! 

MSM Rotator 2019

Following the Sky in a Time-Lapse

The additional complication is trying to get the MSM to also turn at the right rate to follow the sky — for example, to keep the galaxy core in frame during the time-lapse clip. I think doing so produces one of the most effective time-lapse sequences. 

But to do that with any device requires turning at a rate of 15° per hour, the rate the sky moves from east to west.

Because the MSM provides only set fixed speeds, the only way you have of controlling how much it moves over a given amount of time, such as an hour, is to vary the shutter speed. 

I found that to get the MSM to follow the Milky Way in a time-lapse using the 0.05° rate and shooting 300 frames required shooting at a shutter speed of 12 seconds. No more, no less. 

MSM Time-Lapse Top Plate
Top Plate Display
When mounted “upside-down” for a time-lapse the top surface provides the N-S direction arrows (N moves clockwise) and a small, handy bubble level.

Do the Math

Where does that number come from? 

At its rate of 0.05°/move, the MSM will turn 15° over 300 shots. The sky moves 15° in one hour, or 3600 seconds. So to fit 300 shots into 3600 seconds means each shot has to be no longer than (3600/300) = 12 seconds long. 

The result works, as I show in the sampler movie. 

But 12 seconds is a rather short shutter speed on a dark, moonless night with the Milky Way. 

For properly exposed images you would need to shoot at very fast apertures (f/1.4 to f/2) and/or high and noisy ISO speeds. Neither are optimal. But they are forced upon you by the MSM’s restricted rates. 

Using the faster 0.2° rate (of the original model) yields a turn of 60° over 300 shots. That’s four hours of sky motion. So each exposure now has to be 48 seconds long for the camera to follow the sky, four times longer because the drive rate is now four times faster. 

A shutter speed of 48 seconds is a little too long in my opinion. Stars in each frame will trail. Plus a turn of 60° over 300 shots is quite a lot, producing a movie that turns too quickly. 

MSM Time-Lapse Inverted
Alternative Time-Lapse Configuration
The other option is to mount the MSM so the control panel is right-side-up and the top turn-table (the part that turns and that the camera is attached to) is on top. Now only the camera turns; the MSM does not. This works but the Sync cable can wrap around and bind in long turns. For short turns of 30° to 60° it is fine. 

By far the best speed for motion control time-lapses would be 0.1° per move. That would allow 24-second exposures to follow the sky, allowing a stop less in aperture or ISO speed.  (DECEMBER 21 UPDATE: That speed seems to now be offered.)

Yes, having only a limited number of pre-wired speeds does make the MSM much easier to program than devices like the Star Adventurer Mini or SYRP Genie Mini that use wireless apps to set their functions. No question, the MSM is better suited to beginners who don’t want to fuss with lots of parameters. 

As it is, getting a decent result requires some math and juggling of camera settings to make up for the MSM’s limited choices of speeds. 

Time-Lapse Movie Examples

This compilation shows examples of daytime time-lapses taken at the fastest and dizzying 0.5° and 1.0° speeds, and night time-lapses taken at the slower speeds. The final clip is taken at 0.05°/move and with 12-second exposures, a combination that allowed the camera to nicely follow the Milky Way, albeit at a slow pace. Taking more than the 300 frames used here would have produced a clip that turned at the same rate, but lasted longer. 

Battery Life

The MSM is powered off an internal rechargeable battery, which can be charged from any 5-volt charger you have from a mobile phone. 

The MSM uses a USB-C jack for the power cable, but a USB-A to USB-C cord is supplied, handy as you might not have one if you don’t have other USB-C devices. 

The battery lasted for half a dozen or more 300-shot time-lapses, enough to get you through at least 2 or 3 nights of shooting. However, my testing was done on warm summer nights. In winter battery life will be less. 

While the built-in battery is handy, in the field should you find battery level low (the N and S switches blink as a warning) you can’t just swap in fresh batteries. Just remember to charge up before heading out. Alternatively, it can be charged from an external 5V battery pack such as used to prolong cell phone life. 

Hercules and Corona Borealis (50mm 6D)
The constellations of Hercules and Corona Borealis in the northern spring and summer sky. This is a stack of 3 x 2-minute exposures with the 50mm Sigma lens at f/2.8 and Canon 6D at ISO 800, plus an additional 2 min exposure through the Kenko Softon filter to add the star glows. All tracked on the original MSM SiFo Tracker from China. Tap or click to download full-res version.

Other Caveats

The MSM does not offer, nor does it promise, any form of automated panorama shooting. This is where the device turns by, say, 15° to 45° between shots, to shoot the segments for a still-image panorama. More sophisticated motion controllers from SYRP and Edelkrone offer that function, including the ability to mate two devices for automated multi-tier panoramas. 

Nor does the MSM offer the more advanced option of ramping speeds up and down at the start and end of a time-lapse. It moves at a constant rate throughout. 

While some of the shortcomings could perhaps be fixed with a firmware update, there is no indication anywhere that its internal firmware can be updated through the USB-C port. 

MSM Polar Aligned On Back

UPDATE ADDED OCTOBER 7, 2019

Since I published the review, MSM saw the initial test results and admitted that the earlier units like mine (ordered in June) exhibited large amounts of tracking error. They sent me a replacement unit, now branded with the Gauda label. According to MSM it contains a more powerful motor promised to improve tracking accuracy and making it possible to take images with lenses as long as 135mm.

I’m sorry to report it didn’t.

MSM Gauda-135mm Back-NE
This shows 300% blow-ups of a star field rising in the northeast sky taken with the new Gauda unit and with a 135mm lens, each for 2 minutes in quick succession. Less than 50% of the frames were useable and untrailed. (The first frames were shot through high clouds.)

MSM Gauda-135mm Back-Zenith
Taken the same night as the previous set, this shows 24 shots taken in quick succession with the same 135mm lens for 2 minutes each but with the camera aimed overhead to the zenith. None of the images were usable. All were trailed, most very badly.

In tests with the 135mm lens the new, improved MSM still showed lots of tracking error, to the point that images taken with a lens as long as this were mostly unusable.

Tap or click on the images to download full-res versions.

The short movie above takes the full-frame images from the zenith set of 24 frames taken over 48 minutes and turns them into a little time-lapse. It shows how the mechanism of the MSM seems to be wobbling the camera around in a circle, creating the mis-tracking.

Comparison with the Star Adventurer

As a comparison, the next night I used a Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer (the full-size model not the Mini) to shoot the same fields in the northeast and overhead with the same 135mm lens and with the same ball-head, to ensure the ball-head was not at fault. Here are the results:

Star Adventurer-135mm-NE
The same field looking northeast, with 300% blow-ups of 2-minute exposures with the 135mm lens and Star Adventurer tracker. As is usual with this unit, about 20% of the frames show mis-tracking, but none as badly as the MSM.

Star Adventurer-135mm-Zenith
Aiming the camera to the zenith the Star Adventurer again showed a good success rate with a slightly greater percentage trailed, but again, none as badly as the MSM.

The Star Adventurer performed much better. Most images were well-tracked. Even on those frames that showed trailing, it was slight. The Star Adventurer is a unit you can use to take close-ups of deep-sky fields with telephoto lenses, if that’s your desire.

By contrast, the MSM is best used — indeed, I feel can only be used practically — with wide-angle lenses and with exposures under 2 minutes. Here’s a set taken with a 35mm lens, each for 2 minutes.

MSM Gauda-35mm Side-NE
This is a set of consecutive 2-minute exposures with a 35mm lens and Canon 6D MkII on the MSM tracker, with the tracker mounted using the side 1/4-20 bolt hole. It was aimed to the northeast. About half the images showed significant trailing.

With the more forgiving 35mm lens, while more images worked, the success rate was still only 50%.

What I did not see with the new Gauda unit was the 5-minute delay before the gears meshed and tracking began. That issue has been resolved by the new, more powerful motor. The new Gauda model does start tracking right away.

But it is still prone to significant enough drive errors that stars are often trailed even with a 35mm lens (this was on a full-frame Canon 6D MkII).

UPDATED CONCLUSIONS (December 21, 2019)

The MSM tracker is low-cost, well-built, and compact for easy packing and travel. It performs its advertised functions well enough to allow users to get results, either tracked images of the Milky Way and constellations, or simple motion-control time-lapses. 

But it is best used — indeed I would suggest can only be used — with wide-angle lenses for tracked Milky Way nightscapes. Even then, take more shots than you think you need to be sure enough are well-tracked and usable. 

It can also be used for simple motion-control time-lapses, provided you do to the math to get it to turn by the amount you want, working around the too-slow or too-fast speeds. The new 0.1° per move speed (added in models as of December 2019) seems a reasonable rate for most time-lapses. 

However, I think aspiring time-lapse photographers will soon outgrow the MSM’s limitations for motion-control sequences. But it can get you started. 

If you really value its compactness and your budget is tight, the MSM will serve you well enough for tracked nightscape shooting with wide-angle lenses.

But if you wish to take close-ups of starfields and deep-sky objects with longer lenses, consider a unit like the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer for its lower tracking errors. Or the Star Adventurer Mini for its better motion-control time-lapse functions. 

— Alan Dyer / August 22, 2019 / UPDATED October 7, 2019 / © 2019 AmazingSky.com