Re: photo search

Robert Reeves (rreeves@connecti.com)
Thu, 25 Mar 1999 09:07:00 -0600

----- Original Message -----
From: Kevin Fetter <kfetter@geocities.com>
To: <SeeSat-L@blackadder.lmsal.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 1999 4:40 AM
Subject: photo search


> Last week I had done a photo search for milstar 1. I got back my photo's
> and they had not turn out very good, so I am going to try again, this time
> I am going to use slide film, I had used kodak gold max 800 for my last
> search. They prints were terrible, and seeing how great slide film works
> for night sky photography, I

Hi Kevin,

Although I have a lifelong interest in satellite observing, my current
project is a
rather large book about astronomical photography (Titled "Wide-Field
Astrophotography") which will be published this year by Willmann-Bell.
Unfortunately
the publisher decided the section about satellite photography was outside
the realm
of the book and cut it from the text.  That's unfortunate since I have been
shooting
satellites since the early 1960's when Paul Maley and I were school kids
here in
San Antonio.

But the point of this is that I rate Gold Max film rather poorly for
celestial photography.
Shooting satellites is little different than wide-field astronomical
targets.  In that light,
I am very impressed with Fuji Superia X-tra (800 speed) for negatives and
Kodak's
Elite Chrome 200 and 400 emulsions for slides.  I actually favor the 200
speed in my
Schmidt camera, but the 400 will likely be better for satellite photography.

On my web site listed in the signature line, item 16 in the table of
contents on the main
page is "Forty-five Unhypered Films Tested for Astrophotography".  You can
see how
they stack up in initial speed, reciprocity law failure, red, blue, and
green sensitivity, etc.

Yes, I am aware that the color graphic is the negative films section does
not have the
Superia films, but the numeric charts do have the data.  (I have to
procrastinate about
something!)

Good hunting.

Robert Reeves            http://www.connecti.com/~rreeves
520 Rittiman Rd.         rreeves@connecti.com
San Antonio, TX          210-828-9036
U.S.A.                           29.484N  98.440W  200 meters