Milky Way

almost forgot to post this one from my western australia trip couple months ago, taken at Nature's Window in Kalbarri National Park

Milky Way rising over Nature's Window by Tony, on Flickr

side note continuing to love my sigma 14mm art lens, got it basically day 1 and have zero regrets, amazing optics and a joy to use, almost tempted to invest in the exy nisi 150mm filter kit setup that allows the use of a cpl as well for this lens, optically superior to my 16-35L f4 IS (which is a very fine lens in itself) in pretty much every way except for maybe flare resistance (tough with the bulbous front element, but still quite good)
 
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Joules

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I agree, really nice images! I really like your color and the glow you give your milky way images, basketballfreak6! Any insight into your processing or tipps on where you got your technique from perhaps?

I gave Astro photography a first try at the end of last year and had two chances to be out during clear nights this year and enjoy it a lot. I find it hard to find a good balance between natural appearance and visual intensity though. I've attached my two favorites so far. One is during the darkest part of the night and the other a large panorama just before the end of astronomical twilight.
 

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Click said:
Awesome. Beautiful picture. Well done, basketballfreak6.

lion rock said:
Really 'mazing!
-r

Joules said:
I agree, really nice images! I really like your color and the glow you give your milky way images, basketballfreak6! Any insight into your processing or tipps on where you got your technique from perhaps?

thanks guys! Joules in terms of tips, trying to shoot from dark site on a moonless night is a given, exposure wise try to shoot it so the peak of the histogram is around the middle even to the right a bit, it will look overexposed on your lcd but really you're maximising SNR, processing wise nothing fancy, high contrast ("s" shaped tone curve) plus your standard raw processing stuff like saturation noise reduction sharpening etc, i used photoshop to make the stars smaller, couple ways around it you can purchase this astronomy tools action for a decent price which are a set of actions developed by someone or you can do it manually via the minimum filter method

i expose the foreground separately using starlight (some people light paint, some people even get to location early while there are still a bit of light in the sky, whichever works for you) then blend it using photoshop
 
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Joules said:
I agree, really nice images! I really like your color and the glow you give your milky way images, basketballfreak6! Any insight into your processing or tipps on where you got your technique from perhaps?

I gave Astro photography a first try at the end of last year and had two chances to be out during clear nights this year and enjoy it a lot. I find it hard to find a good balance between natural appearance and visual intensity though. I've attached my two favorites so far. One is during the darkest part of the night and the other a large panorama just before the end of astronomical twilight.
Fabulous!
 
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Click said:
basketballfreak6 said:
pano from top of Mt Ngungun in Queensland Australia, started our hike just before 1am, of course we had to pick the coldest recorded morning of the year, was just casually freezing to death waiting to get the shot

Awesome. Beautiful picture.

thanks mate!
 
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Joules

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I've been to a dark area near my city, the Lüneburger Heide, a couple of times, but each time something didn't go as planned and I didn't even get to see the milky where. Yesterday I went again, to watch some shooting stars while the wheater allowed it and was amazed at the darkness!
 

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Joules

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Thanks Click!

Please forgive me if this was answered already, but how do you guys stack images when the stars move in the frame? Especially with objects in the foreground. Thanks
I use Sequator, its a very nice free software that handles the alignment and stacking automatically. It only needs a little input like Starry Landscpae Stacker that tells it what's foreground and what's sky and that's it. It can also reduce light pollution.

It's not quite perfect with certain foregrounds though, I saw creating a few artifacts with a tree in one of my shots.
 
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had to wait like 8 hours to get this shot since gates to this location closes early so had to get on site before it did lol

Beautiful picture. Well done, Tony.
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