Milky Way

[tpatana]

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?

 

[jrista]

I think it looks great. Sometimes, distant light pollution can add an intriguing aspect to wide field night sky shots like that. It does tend to limit your ability to expose, and the darker the skies the better in the long run...but light pollution isn't necessarily a bad thing.

 

[Don Haines]

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?

Comments: Nice picture... the light pollution at the bottom seems to add to the image and gives detail on the landscape, yet fades off quickly enough to not overcome the details of the stars.. it works quite well together and makes it a more interesting image than just the stars alone.
Questions: What was the exposure and ISO?

 

[tpatana]

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?

Comments: Nice picture... the light pollution at the bottom seems to add to the image and gives detail on the landscape, yet fades off quickly enough to not overcome the details of the stars.. it works quite well together and makes it a more interesting image than just the stars alone.
Questions: What was the exposure and ISO?

Thanks for the comments.

Here's the settings: 15 sec, f/2, ISO 6400

I first shot at 30 sec, but peeking at the photos I noticed some star trails even the 24mm should be fine up to 30sec. So I decided to use faster shutter and higher ISO.

 

[rpt]

Lovely picture. Too much light pollution where I am. I wish I could take pictures like this.

 

[jrista]

Lovely picture. Too much light pollution where I am. I wish I could take pictures like this.

Ditto. I am actually going to try to capture the zodiacal light this fall by heading up to the continental divide. It is a long way from where I live (several hours drive), up in the Rocky Mountains, but I am hoping that going so far and so high (14,000 feet) will give me the kind of dark skies necessary to capture both the zodiacal glow and the milky way.

 

[privatebydesign]

Thanks for the comments.

Here's the settings: 15 sec, f/2, ISO 6400

I first shot at 30 sec, but peeking at the photos I noticed some star trails even the 24mm should be fine up to 30sec. So I decided to use faster shutter and higher ISO.

Not really, using the 600 rule a 24mm is only good to 25 seconds. For those unfamiliar with the 600 rule, take 600 and divide it by your focal length and that is the exposure time in seconds before the stars become trails. In this case 600/24=25.

 

[jrista]

Thanks for the comments.

Here's the settings: 15 sec, f/2, ISO 6400

I first shot at 30 sec, but peeking at the photos I noticed some star trails even the 24mm should be fine up to 30sec. So I decided to use faster shutter and higher ISO.

Not really, using the 600 rule a 24mm is only good to 25 seconds. For those unfamiliar with the 600 rule, take 600 and divide it by your focal length and that is the exposure time in seconds before the stars become trails. In this case 600/24=25.

That is a generalistic rule, and not necessarily accurate in light of the fact that final output size can vary greatly. It does not take into account varying pixel pitch either. For web scale, you can usually bump the 600 "rule" up to a 700 or 800 "rule". For print, you usually want to drop it down to 500 "rule". If you usually publish online, then you could get away with at least 30 seconds, if not a bit more. Larger pixels can also handle longer exposures than smaller pixels.

To get entirely accurate maximum exposure times for any camera setup, you can use the math on this page:

http://www.sahavre.fr/tutoriels/astrophoto/34-regle-npf-temps-de-pose-pour-eviter-le-file-d-etoiles

It is in french, but it is extremely useful stuff. It factors in atmospherics, diffraction, and pixel size in determining what the best exposure time is to avoid star trailing.

 

[rpt]

Thanks for the comments.

Here's the settings: 15 sec, f/2, ISO 6400

I first shot at 30 sec, but peeking at the photos I noticed some star trails even the 24mm should be fine up to 30sec. So I decided to use faster shutter and higher ISO.

Not really, using the 600 rule a 24mm is only good to 25 seconds. For those unfamiliar with the 600 rule, take 600 and divide it by your focal length and that is the exposure time in seconds before the stars become trails. In this case 600/24=25.

Yup! And take a look at this link. It has some calculations in there...
http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/30263/what-is-the-rule-of-600-in-astrophotography

 

[pj1974]

Great photo. I also really appreciate how the light pollution actually highlights the horizon.

The fade between yellow-ish (light) and black/blue (stars) is not too obtrusive, imho.

Well captured! What was the camera you used? I'm guessing a FF (perhaps 6D or 5DmkII or 5DmkIII?)

Paul

 

[lion rock]

I'd like to share a few.
This was the first opportunity for me to shot the Milky Way. Living in an urban environment do not allow for dark night sky. Was at the Pamlico River near the town of Aurora, NC., for a few days over Labor Day weekend.
These were shot with a 5D3 with a 24-70mm f/2.8 ver 1 at f/2.8 and ISO 3200.
The first was exposed for 15 seconds.
The second was exposed for 18 seconds. The light over the horizon on the right was from Aurora. Another in the middle was another small town. The foreground was the remains of hurricane Sandy damaged dock illuminated by house lights from behind the camera.
The third one was a goof. I set the lens at its wide end, fully extended, pointing vertically up. It started to slide back to the telephoto end, and a cuss and a curse before I could stop the lens drift and close the shutter. The effect was a bit like "warp speed". Interesting in a way. Exposure was for 35 seconds.

 

[svenrue]

Quite nice looking. I also started with short exposures, only had my 24-70 mk II and longest exposure was around 15s without startrails. Used to make about 20 Shots and stack them together to avoid noise. But thats far to time consuming.
Its much easier to do it with an Astro-Tracker like a Polarie or more expensive Astro-Trac. Now I do 3min exposures, 3min exposure without tracking and another one without tracking which is a little brighter for post.

You should make a picture for the foreground too, otherwise we don't see anything of it .

Here is what I shot recently, its not allready finished in post and the milkyway could not be seen because of the bright moon but have a look.

/svenrue

 

[CarlTN]

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?

Fantastic, the light pollution does not detract. I have much worse light pollution in my area...not to mention higher humidity and air that is less clear. I am only about 900 feet above sea level here.

Which body? Was this at f/1.4 aperture? How long was the exposure?

 

[tpatana]

Well captured! What was the camera you used? I'm guessing a FF (perhaps 6D or 5DmkII or 5DmkIII?)

5D3

 

[tpatana]

Was this at f/1.4 aperture? How long was the exposure?

As I mentioned above, F2 and 15 sec exposure.

I knew the 600-rule, but I thought 30 secs would be close enough. Pixel-peeping it wasn't, but I guess for web (at that size anyway) it would have been ok. But 15 sec came out nice too.

 

[rpt]

I'd like to share a few.
This was the first opportunity for me to shot the Milky Way. Living in an urban environment do not allow for dark night sky. Was at the Pamlico River near the town of Aurora, NC., for a few days over Labor Day weekend.
These were shot with a 5D3 with a 24-70mm f/2.8 ver 1 at f/2.8 and ISO 3200.
The first was exposed for 15 seconds.
The second was exposed for 18 seconds. The light over the horizon on the right was from Aurora. Another in the middle was another small town. The foreground was the remains of hurricane Sandy damaged dock illuminated by house lights from behind the camera.
The third one was a goof. I set the lens at its wide end, fully extended, pointing vertically up. It started to slide back to the telephoto end, and a cuss and a curse before I could stop the lens drift and close the shutter. The effect was a bit like "warp speed". Interesting in a way. Exposure was for 35 seconds.

I love the 0.5697332199654399000012554354609487t6548489... warp speed photograph.

 

[lion rock]

Thanks, RPT. Appreciate the compliments.
Sometimes we can appreciate our mistakes. Not often.

I'd like to share a few.

The third one was a goof. I set the lens at its wide end, fully extended, pointing vertically up. It started to slide back to the telephoto end, and a cuss and a curse before I could stop the lens drift and close the shutter. The effect was a bit like "warp speed". Interesting in a way. Exposure was for 35 seconds.

I love the 0.5697332199654399000012554354609487t6548489... warp speed photograph.

 

[rpt]

Thanks, RPT. Appreciate the compliments.
Sometimes we can appreciate our mistakes. Not often.

I'd like to share a few.

The third one was a goof. I set the lens at its wide end, fully extended, pointing vertically up. It started to slide back to the telephoto end, and a cuss and a curse before I could stop the lens drift and close the shutter. The effect was a bit like "warp speed". Interesting in a way. Exposure was for 35 seconds.

I love the 0.5697332199654399000012554354609487t6548489... warp speed photograph.

Thank you. Many a discovery were made by "MISTAKE". The big deal is to identify the difference between the "known" and the "unknown"... So "Vive la différence!"

 

[cellomaster27]

Love the photo that was with the first post on this thread.. been trying to do something like that but my photos always look..boring? Just the stars and lots of grey.. I get the general settings but am I missing something? How did you get the blue??

 

[tpatana]

How did you get the blue??

I guess same way than I get most photos I like: dumb luck.

Other explanation could be WB-slider?