Got to play with some old Slide photos from '86

[Whitters]

Scutum star cloud 5 minute exposure 1000 asa film. Teneriffe

[MarkS]

Nice picture that.

1986 - 24 years ago.
Guiding for long exposures was manual and digital techniques (e.g. background subtraction) weren't available to the amateur.

How did people cope back then?

We now take it for granted that we can produce mind-bogglingly good images from city suburbs.

Mark

P.S. I misread the word scutum - I must be a bit more careful.

[Ian]

Me too Mark. I thought it meant a cluster of globules.

None too shabby that Paul, as Mark said, we've come a long way since then

[RobertM]

Paul, I think that's really stunning for an image from that long ago.

How did people cope back then - diy I suppose i.e. when a barn door was a barn door, though there was some really good kit available if you could afford it !

No satellite trails either - luxury 

[Whitters]

I did have a go at making a barn door, not too sucessfully though, and if you took it too far you had to build a whole new one. On the Hally trip to Teneriffe I borrowed one of the Liverpool lads tracking platform. A nifty bit of kit with the heart of a clock from a lamp post. I still have one... One of the other chaps had brought allong a 6" scope mount and all in what we called the coffin. it was fun getting that thru customs, but thats another story. The scope was only used as the guide equipted with a crosshair eyepice, the imaging scope was a short 4" and a few camera lenses. The worst thing then was you never knew what worked and what didn't until you processed the film.

[MarkS]

I have to say that for a 5 minute exposure with a "barn door" contraption, that is an excellent result!

Do you have any others?  I'd love to see them.

I've got a old Time Life book called "The Universe" circa 1964.  The images from state of the art observatory equipment at the time are just no comparison to what we achieve nowadays with portable equipment.  They're the kind of images that would be politely ignored if someone attempted to put them on a forum today!  But they were produced by the likes of the Mount Palomar and Wilson Observatories.

It was this book that first awakened in me an interest in Astronomy. It belonged to my dad and lived on his bookshelf.  So I used to sneak downstairs at 5am in the morning just to look at the pretty pictures.  I used to thumb through the Time Life book "Mathematics" as well - that ignited my passion for maths!  The naughty things we get up to as kids can dictate our future lives ...

Mark

[Whitters]

One of Comet Halley taken on 12/04/86 at 02:38:00. 3M 1000ASA film Pentax MV1 50mm f2 10 Mins from Tenerife



My interest in astronomy also started from a book, "Teach your child about the stars" I still have it.

[Whitters]

Comet Halley, Omega Centuri and Centurus A 15/04/86 01:05:00 3M 1000ASA 100mm Tenerife. Stack of two images, one 3 minute and one 5 minute exposure.