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Comment by rpastro | Hacker News Reader

Hey everyone, I’m the astrophotographer, but I’m not OP. I’m assuming OP picked up my article and posted here and that’s ok! So I quickly created an account here to comment.

Having a quick read through the comments I just want to say thank you for the kind words! Please follow my IG (https://www.instagram.com/deepskyjourney) to see more of my photography, and the reddit article if you want to drop a comment with any questions :)

https://www.reddit.com/r/ProjectHailMary/s/NbRv3sj3fs

Cheers,

Rod Prazeres

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Congratulations Rod. Your pics are amazing! Much success to you.

FWIW, my friend, who is an avid astrophotographer, runs a site Brahmand [1] that captures breathtaking pics of the dark sky, with notes on how he took the pics.

Awesome stuff: https://www.brahmand.me/photo-gallery/

Recommended for anyone interested in astrophotography.

*Brahmand in Sanskrit means the universe

[1] https://www.brahmand.me/

Wow. Stunning photos. Thanks.

Props to you for your amazing work but my favorite part of your article was:

> And I have to say this clearly: my wife has been incredible through all of it. She’s put up with my astrophotography craziness, backed me the whole way, and seeing how proud and excited she is has been its own kind of reward.

Feels so authentic!!

Hi Rod, the images you have on your gallery and instagram are stunning but very low-resolution (unless I'm missing something). You mention in the article about preparing IMAX-ready photographs. Is there a way to download those full-res versions of your images?

> Is there a way to download those full-res versions of your images?

Maybe because HN is usually geared towards "programmers" rather than "artists", but asking for a (free?) download of full-res versions of a photographers photos is a bit like asking a developer who is publishing commercial desktop software for the source code of the program :)

Maybe at least ask to be able to pay for a high resolution version (not just printed), I know I'd be interested in that too!

I'd gladly pay a few bucks for a digital download of a full-res pack. I would love to use these as desktop backgrounds but the images in his gallery are ~1000px on the long end. Even if I buy a print I can't set that as my desktop background.

Maybe the only way is to screenshot the Project Hail Mary credits when it comes to streaming.

> I'd gladly pay a few bucks for a digital download of a full-res pack

It sure sounds like you value his work at less than a dollar per image. The desktop-background market may not be something he's interested in.

> Maybe the only way is to screenshot the Project Hail Mary credits when it comes to streaming.

...and this may be the reason he's not interested in the desktop background market. You make a single sale, and the image is trivially reproduced. Doing it for pennies is not a winning proposition; prints have better margins.

If you want pretty and free nebula pictures, you can have Generative AI make as many as you like - if you want his work: you'll have to abide by his terms.

You're right, I wouldn't pay >$1/image for download.

I understand where he's coming from - even at $100/download others can make reprints and take away print sales, which is presumably where he gets most of his revenue.

I get it. It's just too bad that I won't be able to fully enjoy his body of work without spending $$$ on prints.

He sells prints. Looks like the pricing ranges around $13-172 for paper prints, per image. If your budget is a few dollars for a pack of them, you should look elsewhere.

I assume that is on purpose, you have to buy prints. Curious if the full res digital would be for sale but I am guessing not

I was thrilled to read through to the end of the article and discover a fellow Brisbanite! My friends and I were discussing this movie the other night, they will be stoked to keep an eye out for your images.

Anyone in Brisbane (or nearby) with a passing interest in space should really go and checkout the Brisbane Planetarium in the Mt Cootha botanical gardens.

It's a 6 minute uber from Toowong station which is a 9 minute train ride from Central station.

You have to book, but it's definitely worth it!

The Director of Photography on the movie is also an Australian!

Hey Rod, your last name seems portuguese(?)

Congrats on this, not only you got credits on a feature movie, you got one of the good ones. Cloud 9 for you, enjoy!

Nice catch. I’m Brazilian but have been living in Australia for over 20 years and thank you!

Hey! Great work, really glad to see a Brazilian fella doing such an amazing work.

Greetings from Minas Gerais

Did you sell the rights the image exclusively or will you be able to sell those images as prints?

Jazz hands

They’re non exclusive and you can find them up for sale here: https://rpastro.darkroom.com/collections/as-seen-in-project-...

My website is also www.rpastro.com.au :)

Amaze! Amaze!

Also a fellow astrophotography enthusiast here! I love to photograph deep sky objects in the context of their landscapes. There is a lot of math, stacking, tracking, and denoising in the process, but I keep every image very real as what you would see if your eyes were a lot more sensitive. A lot of people don't realize how big some objects are in the night sky -- for example, Barnard's Loop is as large as about half the entire constellation of Orion, and Andromeda appears 6 times the size of the moon. We just don't see them because many of these objects are very dim -- not small.

https://www.instagram.com/dheeranet

Absolutely amazing Rod.

I could feel your excitement in the way you wrote this. And like you said, in a time dominated by CGI and AI, it’s refreshing to see people who still want to create things as real as possible. These experiences and the thinking behind them make the outcome far more meaningful.

Congratulations and best luck!

Congrats on having your images picked up!

Ive recently bought a remote rural property in a dark sky area with a view to take up astral photography. Ive previously been quite into landscape photography.

Can you recommend any favourite communities or information sources for a newbie to check out?

Very cool. Major bragging rights. And it is a great film to be associated with.

Hi Rod,

I know nothing about astrophotography, but while reading your article I wondered: what happens when a truck passes your house while you're taking these shots, don't the vibrations mess up with the results?

Can you share what equipment was used to capture those images?

I’ve had multiple setups over the last 2 years, but for the images displayed in the movie there were two main setups: a William Optics RedCat 51 II and an Askar 130PHQ, both paired with a ZWO ASI2600MM Pro camera, typically on a Sky Watcher NEQ6 Pro mount, along with narrowband and RGB filters depending on the target.

What sort of magnification do you need to get photos like that?

The Redcat scope FL is 250 mm. The Askar scope FL is 1000 mm. The camera has an APS-C sensor (23.5 mm x 15.7 mm) giving it a crop factor of about 1.5x compared to 35 mm film (where 50mm is considered 1:1 human vision field of view).

So:

Redcat: 250 / 50 * 1.5 =7.5x magnification

Askar : 1000 / 50 * 1.5 =30x magnification

This is deep sky photography. Doesn't require lots of magnification. What it does require is dark skies and lots of exposure time.

I wish he had more info on his site about his capture process, but it sounds like some of his captures are over multiple nights? I'm not entirely clear on the terminology here:

Integration: 17h 50′

Hα: 30×600″ (5h)

OIII: 31×600″ (5h 10′)

SII: 37×600″ (6h 10′)

RGB Stars: 30×60″ each channel (1h 30′ total)

https://www.instagram.com/p/DToHq5sk_6r/?img_index=1

I may be wrong with all of this. I haven't done any astrophotography since I was a teen and that was just a 50 mm Nikon SLR on the back of a Celestron 8" CST with motorized manual tracking from highly suboptimal skies (Miami, FL). Still, got some decent shots of the Orion nebula.

Thanks for the info.

> 50 mm Nikon SLR

35 mm obviously.

Somewhat answered here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47520283

Congrats on the film use!

It’s really interesting to read how you’ve captured and created these images… will follow your work!

Congratulations :-)

Very nice shots. It must be a great feeling to see one's own footage in a feature film!

How long do you do astrophotography?

Happy for you, Rod.

Your work is stellar and I love the shapes and patterns in your photographs.

hey! congratulations!! I've been quite unknowingly used your pictures as my desktop wallpaper for years now. don't really remember how I found them, but your clicks are what greet me everytime I turn it on.

First time in ages I sat through the credits!

They are beautiful!

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