Cygnus: The Swan (take 1)

Object:	Cygnus, Vulpecula, and Sagitta
Location:	Narrowsburg, NY
Observer:	Roland Roberts
Time:	21 Jul 2001 4:00 UT
Camera:	Pentax A3000, 50 mm f/2 lens
Film:	Kodak Elite Chrome II, ISO 200
Exposure:	4 minutes at f/4

This is my first attempt at film-based sky photography. Well, not exactly my first. I shot on roll of film in New York City just trying for star trails with the goal of finding where the sky fog limit was. However, I couldn’t tell the difference in any of the prints which all came out with a nice green sky. I attribute that to using Kodak Gold film and having had it developed someplace that couldn’t handle special requests. And then there was the roll of film I shot where I didn’t correctly engage the film on the take up roller while loading it in the dark, but let’s not discuss that now….

This shot comes with its own set of problems. I used slide film, Kodak Elite Chrome II, ISO 200. My camera, a semi-automatic 35 mm, seems to have developed a dislike for my cable release and would randomly terminate the exposure and start taking a new one. I ended up throwing out one 24-exposure roll and of the second roll I only had 5 shots come out worth keeping; only 3 of those were actually at the exposures I had planned. Additionally, because I failed to take a daytime picture at the start of the roll and because the first couple of frames were severely underexposed, the lab cut the slide right in the middle when mounting the slides.

Still, I was quite pleased with this one shot. Not perfect but good enough to be a big motivator for trying some more. The first picture captures the core of Cygnus along with Vulpecula and Sagitta. The low-resolution scan here makes a few features nearly disappear even though they are clearly visible on the film and print. In particular, the Veil Nebula is quite obvious on the print, but after scanning at low resolution and doing an HSV stretch to provide a darker background, it has pretty much disappeared.

Visible in this image (but unlabelled ’cause I deleted the labelled version, doh!):

• (the Swan), Vulpecula (the Fox), and Sagitta (the Arrows).
• Stars (2): Deneb Adige and Albireo.
• Planetary Nebula (1): M27 — the Dumbell Nebula.
• Supernova Remnant (1): NGC6992 — the Veil Nebula.
• Other Nebula(1): NGC7000 — the North American Nebula, IC5068 — the Pelican Nebula, IC1318A and IC1318B, and IC1311.