Milky Way

@ethanz
The Central Kalahari Park is really special and awe inspiring. And so the Kgalakgadi Transfrontier park. My favorite places for photography. No photoshop, but I did have to bring the exposure in the walls down with lightroom. A bit nerve wrecking doing your thing on the longdrop and the lions start roaring outside!
 
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Jul 29, 2012
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I really like the last picture. Well done, Bundu.
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Ok dumb question, so dumb answers appreciated..

Why is the Milky Way and for that matter the plane of the ecliptic curved in most images of the Milky Way/sky?
Is it a lens thing or is it some kind of atmospheric effect or the sun''s position off the galactic equator? Or any combination of the above.

Dons last picture does not demonstrate this effect but basketballfreaks6's does in spades. In that image a lens effect is more possible as he seemed put the lake in the middle and thus less likely to be in a distorted position.




Milky Way over Lake Moogerah
by Tony, on Flickr
Whereas this image of BBfreak has a level horizon and an apparently straight Milky Way.

 
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brad-man

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Jun 6, 2012
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Ok dumb question, so dumb answers appreciated..

Why is the Milky Way and for that matter the plane of the ecliptic curved in most images of the Milky Way/sky?
Is it a lens thing or is it some kind of atmospheric effect or the sun''s position off the galactic equator? Or any combination of the above.

Dons last picture does not demonstrate this effect but basketballfreaks6's does in spades. In that image a lens effect is more possible as he seemed put the lake in the middle and thus less likely to be in a distorted position.


"It's those Changes In Latitudes
Changes In Attitudes
Nothing remains quite the same..."

Beautiful images
 
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Went out last night to shoot Milky Way. I had my friend's 24/1.4 with me. It was late and I was tired so I forgot to try also with my Sigma 14/2.8. But the pics with 24/1.4 came out quite nice. Even I drove to North-WA trying to get away from light pollution, still there's quite strong light on the bottom.

Comments?
Good image. The light pollution in the image is great.
 
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Joules

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Jul 16, 2017
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Ok dumb question, so dumb answers appreciated..

Why is the Milky Way and for that matter the plane of the ecliptic curved in most images of the Milky Way/sky?
Is it a lens thing or is it some kind of atmospheric effect or the sun''s position off the galactic equator? Or any combination of the above.

Dons last picture does not demonstrate this effect but basketballfreaks6's does in spades.
The Milky Way always looks curved to the eye. The earth is a sphere and from our point of view on the earth, the Milky Way is a circle around that sphere. We never see the entire circle, since some part of it gets blocked by the earth we're standing on. So we see a half circle.

The seemingly straight and curved images come from differences in the field of view and potentially some distortion from the imaging process. The larger the section of the milky way, the more apparent the curve will become in images.

If you look closely, the two images you used as examples contain different sections of the milky way - the curved one has the full half cirlce. The other one just appears straight because the section of the milly way shown is too short to perceive the curve.

In addition, many images of the night sky are compesed of multiple shots. Panorama stitching software may introduce some distortion to deal with the extreme perspectives.

Perspective can get hard to imagine based on words alone. I suggest you try some ultra wide shots of the milky way yourself if you want to get a feel for it.

Edit: I guess another way to think about it: If something curves around you, meaning it is to your left, right and above you, how would you capture that in a 2D image? The left and right part is easy, just put it left and right of the images center (direction you're looking in). The "above" part is conveyed through putting it above the center in the image's 2D plane - but that automatically requires the thing to appear curved.
 
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Ok dumb question, so dumb answers appreciated..

Why is the Milky Way and for that matter the plane of the ecliptic curved in most images of the Milky Way/sky?
Is it a lens thing or is it some kind of atmospheric effect or the sun''s position off the galactic equator? Or any combination of the above.

Dons last picture does not demonstrate this effect but basketballfreaks6's does in spades. In that image a lens effect is more possible as he seemed put the lake in the middle and thus less likely to be in a distorted position.




Milky Way over Lake Moogerah
by Tony, on Flickr
Whereas this image of BBfreak has a level horizon and an apparently straight Milky Way.


sorry haven't been looking at the forums, but as Joules nicely explained it's a matter of perspectives and the scale in which you're seeing the MW

Don's picture the MW would've been high up in the sky therefore it looks straight when you're looking directly from under it, think for example an arch, if you're looking from in front it will look like well, an arch, but if you were to stand directly under it and look up it now looks straight

my 2 shots there that you linked both MW were setting towards the west so it was getting quite low, the first one was a pano stitch which gave a grander scale allowing you to see the arch, whereas the second tighter shot was a single frame, using a circle as an example, if you view it further out it's going to look like a circle, but if you zoom in heaps where you're only looking at a tiny section of that circle that tiny section you're looking at is going to look a lot more "straight", hope this makes some sense lol
 
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Ok dumb question, so dumb answers appreciated..

Why is the Milky Way and for that matter the plane of the ecliptic curved in most images of the Milky Way/sky?
Is it a lens thing or is it some kind of atmospheric effect or the sun''s position off the galactic equator? Or any combination of the above.

Dons last picture does not demonstrate this effect but basketballfreaks6's does in spades. In that image a lens effect is more possible as he seemed put the lake in the middle and thus less likely to be in a distorted position.




Milky Way over Lake Moogerah
by Tony, on Flickr
Whereas this image of BBfreak has a level horizon and an apparently straight Milky Way.

Amazing pic. I am a nature lover!
 
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