I have a H-alpha modified Canon R, but I was wondering how many more stops of light a modification lets in. Has there been any data collection on this? I reckon below 1 stop of light, but that's just a guess.
Wednesday night, my friends and I went out to Bucktail Overlook (PA-US) for the annual Lyrid Meteor Shower. A small but stunning shower, as the Lyrids are known for their huge fireballs. This was proven the moment we got to the overlook. As we stepped out of the car, we saw the most breathtaking fireball fly past us. Truly a scene from a movie. It went from the northern horizon to almost the Southern horizon, burning so bright we could see the flames as it burned up in the atmosphere. If this didn’t happen during sunset, I bet this would have lit up the entire sky like it was almost daytime. Unfortunately for us, we didn’t see any more huge fireballs like that to knock her off the pedestal.
All the flaming red structures you see are H-alpha emissions from excited hydrogen atoms thousands of light-years away as they jump from a higher energy state to a lower energy state, emitting photons of light at 656.28nm during this transition.
Very spicy of course 🤤
Ever since getting my camera astro-modified and a Hα clip-in filter for it, I’ve been longing to get out even more during clear nights. The combo of these two is game-changing, with so much yummy Hα signal in each photo now. Took me a little bit to learn how to blend HaRGB photos, but huge thanks to u/matejlele for helping a brotha out. Make sure to check out his tutorials and page! The original plan was to blend meteors and a huge panorama, but low clouds periodically started materializing out of nowhere during the middle of the night, so I ended up shooting the classic core shot with a little Hα spice and with me in the foreground, fully welcoming the summer Milky Way!
📸 Shot on my Astro-modified Canon R+ EF 24-70mm f/2.8 II
Portrait Shot
Sky: 1 frame | f/2.8 | 60s | ISO 2500
Foreground: 1 frame | f/2.8 | 6-8s | ISO 3200
Hα: 4 frames stacked | f/2.8 | 240s | ISO 3200
Panorama Shot
Sky: 5 panels | f/2.8 | 60s | ISO 2500
Hα: 2 panels | 4 frames stacked | f/2.8 | 240s | ISO 3200
Processed using Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, PTGui, Pixinsight, Auriga Registar, and ASTAP
Check out prints on my website, and more of my work on my Instagram!
Remember to Leave No Trace :)