I had the opportunity to try out Albest'st long exposure feature on my S3 IS recently. It was at a site with very a dark sky and no moon. The camera was mounted on a Meade ETX-125EC telescope and roughly aligned so it would minimise the star trails. I had trouble with the weight of the camera on the telescope so did not want to mess around with it once I had managed to get it set up. In future, I plan to reduce the camera weight by removing the batteries and use an external power supply to run the camera. As a first attempt, I am delighted with the results.
The photo of the Southern Cross and the bright band of the Milky Way stars is a wide angle view made up of two single 60 second exposures taken at the widest angle. I left noise reduction on and the resultant images were remarkably noise free. Each photo was enhanced in PS Elements and then joined to make the final image. For those who may have trouble determining where the Southern Cross is amounst the stars on the reduced size image I have put two lines along the long and short axis of the Cross and between the two Pointers. The darker patch just below the top and to the right of the Cross is known as the Coal Sack. The Orion Nebula was a single 60 second exposure taken fully zoomed (optical) and cropped. (Note that the Southern Cross is mainly visible from the Southern Hemisphere and only at lower latitudes of the Northern.) There is still more detail contained in the Southern Cross photo if it is lightened, below the trees there is a gate and cattle stop just visible. Remarkable for being taken only with star light!!
I can't wait to try out my wifes A560 which is a much smaller and lighter camera now that there is firmware for it. Thanks to all who have been involved in developing the CHDK firmware, being one who tries to do "more with less", it has made all sorts of previously impossible or horrendously expensive ideas now achieveable.
