social.trom.tf | Tio @ social.trom.tf

Tio

tio@social.trom.tf

A bunch of atoms that are curious about the world, but furious about the society. We should help all humans to have a decent life without any strings attached, so that we can understand us, the atoms, and the rest of the universe. And create a smarter and saner society.

Since 2005 I make documentaries, write books, and enable many trade-free platforms for everyone.

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@tio:matrix.trom.tf

https://www.tiotrom.com/

Tio

5 months ago •

Tio
5 months ago •

We went out again with the telescope and we saw Saturn, Jupiter, and parts of the Milky Way. Here are some photos - astonishing that they are made with a phone (Pixel 4A 4G).

Me and Sasha:

Edited a little bit the colors, light, and details. But not that much, a few minutes editing.

An "arm" of the Milky Way:

Improved a bit the colors and contrast. Not by much.

Our TROM telescope (no editing):

And the coolest of them all, Georgi with a head-lamp :)

No editing, straight out of the phone, believe it or not.

Am impressed. So fucking cool: great experience to enjoy the night sky with our own eyes and a telescope, and low effort great photos :).

#astrophography

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Rokosun

in reply to Tio • 5 months ago • •

Looks like you folks are having a fun time 🙂

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Tio

in reply to Rokosun • 5 months ago •

Yup quite great to watch the night sky :)

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Tio

5 months ago •

Tio
5 months ago •

Ok this is my Pixel 4A #astrophography adventure so far - https://www.tiotrom.com/2023/11/astrophotography-with-the-pixel-4a/

tio

2023-11-06 03:37:22

NEW BLOG POST:
Astrophotography with the Pixel 4A
Read it on my website (recommended):
https://www.tiotrom.com/2023/11/astrophotography-with-the-pixel-4a/
Or read it here:
The Pixel 4A 4G is a phone that you can buy for about 100-200 Euros second hand, and it is an amazing device to take photos of the night sky. Most of the time you point and shoot and do no other edits. Like here’s a photo directly from the phone:

Very challenging with the Moon in the center stage, and yet it did great.
Another one from the terrace:

But when the light is weird it cannot do a great job:

I mean it is a very good photo but here it is after I manually edited the RAW one from the phone:

You can eve see a bit of the Milky Way there.
Another sample. This one it did very well:

But then I went a bit insane and edited (perhaps too much) the RAW file (because yes the Pixel also shoots in RAW):

The amount of stars is INSANE! But I feel like I made it too artificial…
Next one is a sample of a photo with yellow light pollution:

That I tried to fix using the RAW version again:

I know I made it a bit too blueish…but I think it is better than the original one. In that photo you can even see the Andromeda Galaxy:

That’s WOAH! Amazing!
Tonight we went out to take some photos before the Moon would ruin it. Here are some of the photos we took. My favorite of the night:
This is straight out of the phone. Zero editing. I LOVE it. So much that it is now the Wallpaper for my phone. Quite funny…the wallpaper that the phone took :D.
The rest of the photos are a bit edited by me but not so much:

Here are the original ones directly from the ~~oven~~ phone:

I think it is mindblowing to be able to do these photos only with my phone. And this is only the beginning! I have a telescope and a mount for the phone, so I will try to point it at say Andromeda or some nebulas or the core of the Milky Way and photograph through the phone. The main issue is that I have to make my telescope track these objects else they will move too fast even for the “smartness” of this camera. I cannot wait! Fuck yah!
You know I’ve seen many photos of the night sky that are 100 times better than mine. And for one they do not excite me nearly as much, simply because the ones you make are personal. You made them. So you are really enjoying them!
But second, this is about going out, seeing the night sky with your own eyes! Talk to each other, observe, be amazed. Learn more about what objects are out there….what other worlds. That’s the fun part! So I really love that there is almost no effort in taking these photos with the Pixel. I am using the Pixel Camera in Night Mode. Once it detects that it is still enough, it goes into Atrophotography mode and you simply press the shutter button. It takes usually 4 minutes to do these photos.
It’s been a while since I updated the photo gallery on my website, but now I will more often!
You know I tried to edit the above photos, their RAW files, quite a bit tonight but I feel like I should not spend too much time on that. Because it may take the fun away. In any case, if anyone is interested I am using Raw Therapee and Darktable for editing. Both trade-free.
I also took Sasha’s Sony a6600 camera to see how it compares with the phone. For sure it can take a lot better photos since the sensor is a lot bigger. But it is not that comfortable to take it with you and set it all up. I kinda fucked most of the photos I took but this one is good:

Unedited. I tried to tweak the RAW file but the above one is already good. We can even see Andromeda with a bit of color :).

I will try to do more photos with that camera too, but am telling you nothing compares with the comfort of the phone for this. However the sony camera may take such better photos if I eventually will get used to using it, that I may put up with the discomfort of it.
Next I will try some longer timelapses. The Pixel already creates some that are just 1 second long but I will find a way around it. Till then, here are some that I made:
https://videos.trom.tf/videos/embed/faddaa3d-7d0e-456b-bcc4-de4a5efa734d?warningTitle=0

darktable
darktable is an open source photography workflow application and raw developer
^darktable

#astrophography

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Tio

5 months ago •

Tio
5 months ago •

Took a photo last night of the sky and I just fucking realized that I captured the Andromeda Galaxy by mistake!

If you zoom in you can see it a bit. WOW!

Tonight I will go out to take a bunch of photos, this time in RAW, to see what I can capture :D. These things excite me so much! These fucking things are real. HOW!?

#astrophography

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chava

in reply to Tio • 5 months ago • •

That's really cool! Hope you get some good shots to share later.

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Tio

6 months ago •

Tio
6 months ago •

My astrophotography adventure has begun :D - @Roma pay attention :)

Just took a photo now, from our terrace. Half Moon and with light pollution. Not ideal at all.
Device: Pixel 4A

The unedited JPG from the Pixel:

Awesome! No work, just let the phone do its thing.

Now here's the RAW from the Pixel 4A, that I edited for 20 minutes in Darktable:

The sheer number of stars is unbelievable! And the core of the MilkyWay was on the opposite side of the planet....imagine how it would look like when the core is visible and the moon is "invisible"!

I LOVE this! This is reality folks! Above our head.

So from now on I have setup my Pixel to take both RAW and JPEG. Just in case I wanna retouch some photos :). How awesome!

#astrophography

#astrophography @Roma

This entry was edited (5 months ago)

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Tio

6 months ago •

Tio
6 months ago •

@Aaron gave me his old Pixel 4a 4G and now I am doing the unthinkable: I am changing my phone! For the first time since 2016. I have a Samsung Galaxy S7 since 2016 and because I do not use my phone that much I did not care. But now that I have a new-old phone, I will go for it. Especially since my S7 started to crumble.

I have already installed CalyxOS on the Pixel and so far so perfect. I will make a detailed article about it all, but yah....happy to use an unused device and make good use of it! :)

It even has an Astrophotography mode so I can already start with that. Here are some quick samples form not-so-great-days to take such photos:

#astrophography

#astrophography @Aaron

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Tio

6 months ago •

Tio
6 months ago •

Divorcing myself from this retarded society

I need to divorce myself more from the society/politics/conflicts part of our world. It is insane what it has become. When Russia put hundreds of thousands of troops on Ukraine's border and were accused of preparing an invasion, they said that's entirely false. Then they invaded, then they called the war against Ukraine as a "special military operation".

They bombed hospitals and schools and residential or public spaces, killing so many innocent people...

UK, USA, and EU were "horrified" at these atrocities, while China was "on the fence" and Iran and the like were kinda cheering up for Russia and helping them.

Day by day, people dying, politicians lying. People were crying...

And now Israel drops thousan

They bombed hospitals and schools and residential or public spaces, killing so many innocent people...

UK, USA, and EU were "horrified" at these atrocities, while China was "on the fence" and Iran and the like were kinda cheering up for Russia and helping them.

Day by day, people dying, politicians lying. People were crying...

And now Israel drops thousands of bombs on Gaza, killing again so many innocent people. Creating a total disaster.

So much suffering, just like in Ukraine. And yet USA, UK and EU are cheering up for Israel.

Even helping them...

Suddenly there is no more genocide....

Israel says they only kill the bad people, despite the videos and photos showing the contrary. They say they are saints and are fighting against evil, because you see Hamas killed over a thousand innocent Israeli people and that's EVIL, so they must go and kill thousands more innocent people....because that's GOOD!

Not to mention what Israel has done to palestinians over the past decades....trapping them in an open prison basically...

Then Russia is like: Oh my god, this is genocide! Unbelievable! To drop bombs on hospitals and kill entire families. This is terrible!

And China speaking up against what Israel is doing, more than what Russia is doing. And Iran talking about "human rights"....

And Ukraine not putting any blame on Israel for doing what Russia is doing to them....

Add to the mix the Hamas and other groups that create a lot of misery and terror, and the values of the so called "Arab countries" that are full of shit, and the primitivism of religion overall.

Ukraine is also not an angel, or any other tribe for that matter. Politicians are lying, propaganda is a daily news, and people continue to suffer while at the same time we have problems like cancer killing so many people, tuberculosis that is treatable killing the poor by the millions; diseases, climate change, pollution....

But the thing is, many of these situations are still a result of our trade-based society. The destruction of our environment, enslaving people, making humans into consumers, and so on, are a result of this society.

But even when it comes to wars they are a result of boiling trade-interests on a high flame. Where politicians say all sorts of stupid things, create propaganda through social (ad) networks that also rely on trades, promoting nationalism and patriotism to get more votes, to then have these politicians rule over others, and have luxurious cars, do all sort of businesses, and gain more power.

In other words do you think the "head of states" really care about their tribe when they are almost always caught avoiding taxes, doing shady businesses, and stealing form their tribe?

They care about them and their families, but then they start to promote "patriotism" and "us the tribe" stupidity, to gain votes to be elected as "heads of states". And they use these platforms that care mostly about you paying them to promote your posts. The cycle of vomit.

The thirst for power comes mainly from humans being trained to trade to acquire, because the more you have the more power you have, and vice versa.

And then starting wars is part of the power thirst and the need to get more "support" from the "nationals".

A mix of rich people who lie and have power over others, and the others who are confused patriots, busy workers, and idiotic consumers. Going at war is easy.

And these things are not new at all. For thousands of years these things have existed. From the Roman empire to the Iraq war....

Conclusion.

This is a totally insane society, full of lies and idiots. A horror carnival. And I think the sanest way for me is to force myself to ignore this side of our society. Ignore everything that any politician says (I already do this anyway), ignore these conflicts that I cannot do a thing about and are wrapped in propaganda and misery; ignore this society and focus more on the natural world.

I want to try and do astrophotography to reveal what my eyes can't see. To go more in nature, to grow TROM and its many positive projects, to live a less stressed life, because the society is too retarded and chaotic to even make sense of it, let alone do anything about it.

#Israel #Palestine #ukraine #TradeRuinsEverything #astrophography #war

#israel #Palestine #war #ukraine #TradeRuinsEverything #astrophography blogs

This entry was edited (6 months ago)

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Dima

in reply to Tio • 6 months ago • •

Very good point Tio, and great artworks! Yeah, that's exactly my thoughts, like wtf, they bomb civilians in Gaza like crazy, and it's ok for EU and US, they even help doing this. And people opinions are divided, some are for Palestine others for Israel when in fact all of them committing brutal crimes and one side is no better than the other. Of course Gaza it is like an open prison for many many years already, which is also very cruel and inhumane. I was also quite sadden to see the reaction of EU... But that's politics. Good point, not to trust or even take seriously any politician, it's all corrupted and fake. They twist everything as its more beneficial for them.

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Rokosun

in reply to Tio • 6 months ago • •

You just pretty much summed it up in this blog post, politics is full of lies and propaganda man..... Every now and then I see these images of the atrocities caused by wars, on the internet, newspaper, etc..... be it in Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, etc.... Does it really matter which place is getting hit? Innocent people are getting hurt, and many die because of these wars..... This is very sad and awful...... 😔

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