jeffwongdesign

Tag Archives: astrophotography

Photo of the Milky Way with Noise Reduction

/ Me, Photo

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Photo of the Milky Way created from 30 stacked photos.

I shot a time lapse last night and got some pretty nice pictures of the Milky Way. The photo pictured above was created from 30 photos, with a median stack. Shot at 3200 ISO, a single image had a decent amount of noise.

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A single photo of the Milky Way with noise.

Notice the amount of image noise in the darker areas. I added some noise reduction, but it still looked kind of janky around the edges.

Time lapse video created from the photos.

Enjoy!

Night Time Shot from Bernal Heights

/ Cali, Me, Photo

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Photo of the SF at night from Bernal Heights

After share tea, we swung by Bernal Heights at night to snap a couple photos.

Bernal Heights remained undeveloped until the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Built atop bedrock, the hill’s structures survived the tremor, and the sparseness of the development saved much of Bernal from the ravages of the firestorm that followed. The commercial corridor of Eugenia Avenue filled in with shops as the pastureland on the hilltop was developed for workers’ homes during the rapid rebuilding of the city. Some of the tiny earthquake cottages—which the city built to house quake refugees—survive to this day, including three which were moved up to Bernal Heights. –Wikipedia

I’m hoping to get some more photos from here soon. Check out similar photos from Twin Peaks.

A New Chapter

/ Me, Photo

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Proposal on top of Glacier Point at Yosemite on September 29th at 7:30pm.

Our universe has existed for nearly 14 billion years. The earth has existed for 4.5 billion years. Our specie has evolved for 200 thousand years, and civilization as we know it has been here for about 6,000 years.

I’m happy to be part of this cosmic timeline and explore this universe with Annie. To all my followers, thank you for being a part of this moment.

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Annie and I star gazing on a clear night.

It really was a magical evening — we got to watch the sun set over half dome and then we witnessed one of the clearest night skies I’ve ever seen. If you look closely in the photo above, you’ll see the Andromeda Galaxy. It was a perfect night for an engagement… and astrophotography!

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The milky way, completely visible with the naked eye.

The photo above is a portion of our Milky Way galaxy. I honestly didn’t do much retouching to this image. I simply took 9 photos, aligned them, and then did a median stack to reduce the noise. Then I bumped up the exposure two stops.

It was romantic, and I think Annie really enjoyed the scenery.

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The ring inside the box, with a small LED light.

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A close up of the engagement ring, lit with christmas lights on top of my Macbook Pro.

I know Annie likes her diamonds — and hopefully, she loves this one. ^_^

Milky Way Time Lapse (Fail)

/ Photo, Video

Unfortunately, the last two night skies have been filled with overcast. I’m actually surprised I was able to snag a photo of Andromeda.

By the way, if you haven’t seen it already, there’s a pretty cool video that shows the Andromeda galaxy in an amazing amount of detail. The fact that it’s over 2.5 million light years away blows my mind. I’m really hoping I get get a better picture of it in the future.

Andromeda Galaxy

/ Photo, Science

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Here’s a photo Annie and I shot of the Andromeda Galaxy last night. I was using my dad’s old 135mm f3.5… and the humidity took away some contrast… But overall, it’s a step in the right direction.

Oh yeh, the image was stacked using 18 photos shot at around ISO 256,000. There was a ton of noise, but by aligning, stacking and doing a median filter, I was able to get a cleaner image. It’s bonkers what software can do now-a-days. A couple of clicks, and bada-bing, a noise-free image.

I kind of wish I had a newtonian telescope with a star tracker. Oh could you imagine how sweet some of these photos would turn out?? One day… one day. ^_^

Hopefully we’ll get another clear this evening—I’m looking forward to grabbing a couple more snaps.