----- 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