Home > Diary > 01/01/05
The first night of my new year of 2005 began with purchase of a new SLR camera and an attempt to take a photo of the sky. On the 1st of January, I purchased a Vivitar V3800N body with a 28-105 mm Tamaron lens f/2.8-22. Actually this was being planned to be purchased a week before but the situation was not permitting to get it until the eve of new year. A group of 3 of us, Keshav, an amateur photographer, his cousin and me, planned to go for this observing session. At 2 p.m. we met at a common place and went to a duplicate-products' market, National Market in Bangalore near Ralway Station, a place where goods are either purchased and sold at wholesale rates or either stolen, in both cases no guarantee is given. Entire week went in chaos and confusion about me deciding to buy it from an authorized shop or this place at my own risk, just because of lack of knowledge of the camera required for astrophotography. The last moment decision was to get it from this place itself. At a bargained price of Rs. 8500, I finally took it only at the risk of an amateur photographer's words. After this we left for our observing site. We had missed the 4 p.m. bus for that place. As we didn't know it and were getting late, we took an alternate route and reached the entrance to the village by another bus and just waited at the mercy of some trespasser. We knew the next bus would reach there by 7 p.m. after darkness would set in and it would be risky as this entire area is infested with wild elephants and no one dares enter there even at 6 p.m. This is a village named Sivanhalli located 10 km. in a deviation from the main road after the famous Bannerghatta National Park in Bangalore south on Anekal Highway. Then a lorry entered the area when some villagers and we climbed into the back empty portion of it. It was a very rough and wobbly ride as the road was abundant with potholes. Then after reaching halfway we saw some people halted in the middle of the road. They told that there were 2 wild elephants in the vicinity. And this entire group of villages fears and respects elephants much more than even any other natural calamity. I was really, really excited thinking that after all I, myself am going to get the first ever chance to see a elephant along with the villagers for the first time in my life. Bus or lorry, whatever it is, it has to face the wrath of an elephant if they disobey the rules of Nature. The vehicles moven on at snail-speed arrangement for some time until there was confirmation that the mean-machines of Nature were gone. Finally we reached a village where the lorry stopped just 2 km. before our destination village. We decided to walk from there, as comparatively the thick forest had been crossed and from here was quite safe.
On the way, we looked up and saw a less brightly lit night sky, still reflecting the lights from the nearby cosmopolitan city, Bangalore. I decided to find the Comet Maccholz which was quite bright and just visible with the naked-eye even from a city. It was easy to find with my 25mm toy binoculars which's considered just less for proper astronomy. Then we saw a continuous chain of 3 satellites in different parts of the sky within six minutes, wondering if we would have had the privilege of photographing them if we wouldn't have been late. After some time we reached our place and removed my newbie camera which I hadn't even touched! Keshav then at the last moment explained the working of an SLR camera in a jist. It was just impossible for me to grasp the working of such a complicated device in the last few seconds, all the buttons and options present on it. I had even got a lot of theory with me about astrophotography and there was no time to read it if we didn't want to miss the other evening satellites; I found contentment in attempting it without knowledge than wasting our first opportunity. We reached an open site which was roughly free from trees obstructing our view of the horizons. We set up the camera on a tripod and aimed first at the constellation of Canis Major housing the brightest star in the night-sky, Sirius. I had no idea of the exposure time required for anything in the sky, except for star-trails which goes into several minutes. We decided to settle upon a number as 45 seconds; having no idea of the exposure whether it was a foolish or the wisest idea, we gave it a shot in the dark. Then we decided to give the Comet as 1.5 minutes. This way we went for some constellations with exposure times not ranging more than 3 minutes with different combinations of the lens at widest and narrowest. Remember, I still didn't now what's an SLR camera and here I was expecting to get some high quality photos of the sky. I was just guiding the night-sky to Keshav, who was taking the photos. All in all we could just take 3 photos of the Comet, 3 belonging to constellations and some of the Moon.
When the Gibbous Moon rose we attempted to take it with both wide and narrow field lenses really not knowing the size of it on film that we would get. The light from it was spreading to a major portion of the sky which was blinding (blurring) our view of the remainder of the sky. Then all of a sudden thin clouds poured in along with it, just as if we've given an invitation to both the natural factors of nature to spoil our first ever astrophotography attempt on such a good occasion, of a temporary visitor of our Solar System, the bright comet. The light from the bright Moon, and the reflection of Moon-light and Bangalore lights by the clouds was a signal to us that it was enough for the day. There are three most important factors in astronomy. One is Moon, the other is light-pollution and the final is clouds. This factor called 'clouds' is the worst among all and it's like this one spares none in astronomy - the ill-fated ones or even the most opportunistic ones, the most professional and the most beginners. It's just as if they barge in to take revenge on us when we are looking up. Astronomers and clouds have an intricate relationship among each other and no sense of understanding and co-operation. They had just begun to appear in Bangalore from two to three days back only when we planned to go for this photography session. The entire month of December, the sky was was crystal clear and a real reflection of the exquisite winter skies which is preferred for observing. And again only on 11th December they came to greet us when we went out for observation, the day before and the day next they were no were to be visible !! We then headed to a room where we were to sleep. I decided to get up the next day early as an Iridium Satellite with a central brightening of -8 magnitude was visible, and I had already missed one that day. We slept like dead-logs that day and I had even got up early but went back again as the weather was cold even in the insulated room. Then I again got up at around 6.30 a.m. and thought that I had missed Sunrise. Then I woke others up and we hurriedly rushed to a small hill with a temple on top, a scenic location for this. Fearing the worst that I had missed the second light of the new year, I saw the Sun at the horizon well above it, just risen. We captured around 8-9 glimpses of it on reel. Now when I gave the reel for developing, I got the biggest shock of my life in photography! The astro-negatives were entirely blank!! The photo developer told that nothing would appear so he didn't print it. I was so worried that I didn't know what to do regarding printing it. If this would be the case every time I would give it for developing and would get it blank, where would I lead myself into photography ? Then I had to refer to the resources that I had regarding developing and printing and got a sense of eternal satisfaction reading that such negatives will appear as grossly underexposed and the photo developer will also deny printing them. Then I went to a place and personally instructed the person to do 'deep-printing' for such negatives. And though it wasn't the fault of the negatives, the photos have come out real bad. Others have either nothing visible on them or the image is totally 'fogged' with light-pollution. Now having some idea of my first astrophotography and the frustrations and disappointments it brings along with it, I know I've entered into the ever-exciting field of astrophotography waiting to do the next big thing.
