Just two days before Christmas, the sun went down on a mostly sunny afternoon. I did not expect the colors to be that intense. But here you go! A photographic Christmas present 🙂
A deep red Christmas sunset
Grains of pepper
High detail macros of pepper grains. Very interresting, what may be achieved with tele phot lenses and macro lenses
Extreme macros of pure gold
A friend of mine asked for high resolution images of pure gold. So I tried to push my camera setup to the extremes for stacked macros. Image width is approximately 20mm!
Total Solar Eclipse in Turkey 2026-03-29
It has been a bit more than 6 years since I could see the total solar eclipse in Austria (11th August 1999), when I found an advert for an eclipse trip to Turkey for March 2006. The amateur astronomers from Viennese Astro-Station-Conrad organized this tour, where more than 300 enthusiasts and eclipsophiles participated and travelled to a hotel near Side. The holiday resort at the mediterranean sea was perfectly placed in the path of totality.
Since I first saw prominences through a telescope with hydrogen (H-alpha) filter, and results from the 1999 eclipse were mediocre (I only had a tripod and manual trigger), my dream was to capture prominences during the eclipse. For good results, a tracking mount is required. I onyl had a shaky EQ2 mount, which is built for telescopes with up to 4 kg. My initial plan was to use 2 cameras. Though I could further borrow a third camera as well as another mirror lens.
But how to mount these three cameras? I could not find a base supporting 3 cameras – especially none suitable to attach to the EQ2. I came up with an aluminium frame and pipe clamps from the hardware store. The contraption is definitely unconventional. The total weight put on the EQ2 is also way above the specified limits. Luckily, there were no major issues. Only the little motor struggled from time to time to keep the gear coupling.
The setup:
- Minolta Dynax 7, Sigma 135-400mm f/4.5-5.6 DG APO @ 400mm
- Konica-Minolta Dynax 7d, MC MTO 11CA (1000mm mirror lens)
- Canon 20d, MC MTO 11CA
Several macros of insects
Here are a few macros of insects shot in the past. Most of them were taken in Croatia on the islands of Losinj, Cres and Krk
