space@ucbvax.UUCP (01/18/86)
Your best bet for getting a picture with your kids and the comet together is using a double exposure. Double exposures can be done in one of two ways: (1) you double expose one frame on the roll of film, or (2) you take two separate photos and double expose the photographic paper during printing. What I would do: I would take two separate shots. This way you can choose any two that you would want to combine. Secondly, by using an enlarger for performing the printing you can position the subjects on the final picture and even adjust their relative sizes. If you dont have a dark room for color printing you might want to find someone who does to do this for you. I haven't done alot of sky photography but I would guess that you would probably want to use at least a 500mm lens. The time exposure is going to require that you have the camera mounted on a motorized equatorial mount to account for the earth's rotation, otherwise the image will be blurred. Possibly you could rent something like a Celestron lens for the photo of the comet. Using a negative film, a shot of your kids against a dark background should yield good results in the printing. This shot could be taken with your 50mm lens. Your best bet is to find someone who does color hand processing of prints and tell them what you have in mind. They could probably best tell you what they need to get the picture that you want. I'm sure that you'll probably get alot of other advice on the best way to get the picture of the comet from people on the net. Good luck, Barry Pangrle U of Illinois Dept. Computer Science