Re: Travis AFB photo (practice for Tikaboo) - not bad!


Message posted by gary on March 30, 2001 at 11:48:33 PST:

Travis has Tacamos (take charge and move out) on base, which is probably the white frame plane. [e6b I think, but don't quote me.]

The grain is there mostly because the image processing accentuates it. The original photos have very little contrast because you are looking through haze. I believe I can get less grain if I image process differently. I have a few ideas on how to do this, but rather not ramble on until I've tried them out.

If I went to Kodak Tmax 100 film (TMX), the grain would be less, but my telescope aperture is not large enough to make this practical. Most of these shots were done at 1/4 second on Tmax 400 (TMY) film, so the TMX exposure would be a full second, which is too slow.

If I didn't use the T-barlow, I could get 4x the amount of light, and thus use less grainy film. However, to see the same image, you would have to enlarge the scan by a factor of 2, which in turn would amplify the grain. Basically, you can't win. Only a larger aperture would help.

What you really want is a B&W CCD and a notebook computer. The CCD is much more sensitive than film, especially in the near infra-red region, which helps in penetrating the haze (in theory).


In Reply to: Re: Travis AFB photo (practice for Tikaboo) - not bad! posted by Magoo on March 30, 2001 at 6:21:21 PST:

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