Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 59

The camera produces a natural color balance result when shooting through
light pollution filters. The author captured this deep image of IC 1396 (bottom left), dark nebula Le Gentil 3 (center), and the North America nebula
through an 85-mm lens equipped with an IDAS LPS filter. Nineteen 4-minute exposures were stacked to produce this colorful result.

tripod star trails and time-lapse sequences, as well as
multiple individual shots.
Using the continuous high (CH) or continuous low
(CL) modes, you can shoot an unlimited number of
images continuously with a shutter speed of 4 seconds or
longer, at least until you fill the memory card or exhaust
the battery. Instead of a 999-frame limit found in most
DSLRs, the D810a can record up to 9,999 frames using
the interval timer function, permitting you to shoot
sequences you can later assemble into time-lapse movies.
The time-lapse feature is independent of the intervalometer and creates compressed movies. It includes a
useful smoothing function that attempts to adjust the
exposure variations between frames that can result in
brightness flickering. Unfortunately, the feature doesn't
save the individual image frames. Serious time-lapse photographers should stick with the intervalometer function
and save RAW files for more control in processing and
assembly of the final movie.

Through a Telescope
As suggested by my tests with camera lenses, the D810a
is excellent for deep-sky astrophotography through a
telescope. The camera has extremely low thermal signal
compared to other DSLRs. I shot a single 30-minute
exposure at ISO 200 with an ambient air temperature
of 65°°F and was amazed at the large dynamic range and
how well controlled the noise was. The resulting image
displayed no banding or pattern noise.

Left: Daylight
performance with
the D810a is very
good despite Nikon's
disclaimer.
Below: The D810a
full-frame sensor will
reveal problems that
aren't as apparent in
cameras with smaller
sensors. Vignetting
and mirror box shadowing are exaggerated in processing to
show these effects in
this image shot with
an Astro-Physics
130EDFGT triplet
apochromatic refractor at f/4.7 with AP's
original 0.75x focal
reducer. Flat field
calibration frames
can correct these
illumination issues.

Sk yandTelescope.com Februar y 2016

59


http://www.SkyandTelescope.com

Sky and Telescope - February 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky and Telescope - February 2016

Contents
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - Cover1
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - Cover2
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 1
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - Contents
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 3
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - A
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - B
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 4
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 5
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 6
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 7
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 8
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 9
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 10
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 11
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 12
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 13
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 14
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 15
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 16
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 17
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 18
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 19
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 20
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 21
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 22
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 23
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 24
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 25
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 26
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 27
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 28
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 29
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 30
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 31
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 32
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 33
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 34
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 35
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 36
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 37
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 38
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 39
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 40
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 41
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 42
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 43
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 44
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 45
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 46
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 47
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 48
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 49
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 50
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 51
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 52
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 53
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 54
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 55
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 56
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 57
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 58
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 59
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 60
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 61
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 62
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 63
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Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 65
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 66
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Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 70
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 71
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Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 75
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - 76
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - Cover3
Sky and Telescope - February 2016 - Cover4
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