Spiral Arm of the Milky Way above the Texas Desert

[Axilrod]

Finally got somewhere dark enough worth shooting some long exposures. So we headed an hour east of Lubbock, Texas, to where it is virtually pitch black. The moon was 1 day past new so it was ideal. Only thing that could have been better was the time of year, the brightest part of the Milky Way is only visible during the summer (in the Northern Hemisphere anyways). And it was in the 20's with wind chills near zero, but for 5 hours me and a buddy shot almost nonstop. I shot a time lapse with the 5D3/14LII/Dynamic Perception Stage Zero dolly, still working on that. Set up my friend with the Zeiss 21mm f/2.8/5D2, adjusted settings and he took it from there and actually got some great shots. I was shooting with another 5D3/24LII and 16-35mm f/2.8. Keep in mind these are individual exposures, most of the really insane pictures of the Milky Way you see are a bunch of stacked exposures, but I don't have a tracking mount yet so I couldn't do that.

Here are a couple of ones I liked from the first batch of shots I processed:

24mm f/1.4L @ f/2, ISO3200, 20 Seconds (That little bright disc to the left is a Galaxy!)

16-35mm f/2.8L II @ 22mm, f/2.8, 30 seconds (Little bit too long for focal length, but it turned out ok)

I know alot of astronomy buffs may be sickened by these, but the general public love shots that look like this. It was a learning experience and I'm thrilled to have had the chance to finally get some shots like these. I'm going back in the summer since that's when the brightest part of the Milky Way is visible.


Edit: I posted these a few pages up, figured I'd move them here:

16-35L II, ISO3200, f/2.8, 30 seconds (Used a Night Sky preset and exported to show you, post processing a bit too much for me, but you get the idea).

Here is one with nothing in the foreground, so kinda boring, but lot of cool stuff is visible
24LII, ISO3200, f/2, 20 seconds.

 

[RobertG.]

Hi,
Thank you for these great shots! I'm living in the largest city of central Europe (Berlin) and so I never saw the Milky Way myself. It never get's dark enough here.... No village or town is further can dozen miles away

 

[R1-7D]

Absolutely beautiful shots!

20 seconds, hey? That's all it takes to get all the stars like that without a dolly?

 

[skullyspice]

as a member of the general public, I say fantastic!
I would love to try this but its hard to find any dark sky here in L.A.

 

[RS2021]

Very nice. The galaxy especially.

So the top picture is off a fixed tripod and not on a equitorial mount? Is 20 secs not long enough to produce star trails?

 

[serendipidy]

Beautiful...I'd love to take some photos like that.

 

[Faxon]

Wonderful use of a 24mm lens for astronomy photos. Now I want that lens.

 

[Axilrod]

Absolutely beautiful shots!

20 seconds, hey? That's all it takes to get all the stars like that without a dolly?

Not sure what you mean about the dolly, I guess maybe you're referring to a tracking mount? Yeah this is what you get from 20 seconds when it's pitch black, that's the crucial part.

 

[Axilrod]

as a member of the general public, I say fantastic!
I would love to try this but its hard to find any dark sky here in L.A.

Thank you very much! Yes LA is littered with light pollution as is Atlanta (where I am). But lucky for you, you are much closer to dark skies than I am, pretty much the entire state of Nevada is pitch black, as is Utah. Take a road trip, it's absolutely worth it! Just make sure you go when there is a new moon!

 

[Axilrod]

Wonderful use of a 24mm lens for astronomy photos. Now I want that lens.

Thanks! Yes it's great to have a lens that fast but that wide. At the same time when you shoot wide open the stars on one side will start to turn into a weird shape, it even did it a bit on this one (at f/2) on the right side. But it's still an amazing lens for all kinds of stuff!

 

[Axilrod]

Very nice. The galaxy especially.

So the top picture is off a fixed tripod and not on a equitorial mount? Is 20 secs not long enough to produce star trails?

Yes, they are both just static tripod shots. I had a motion controlled time lapse running separately with my 14L that was doing 30 sec exposures, but the way that works is that it shoots, moves a fraction of an inch, then shoots again.

As for the star trails, you divide the focal length by 600 (some say 500 just to be safe) and that's the number of seconds you can do before the stars start to turn into a oblong shape. So:

600/24 = 25, so max exposure for 24mm is 25 seconds.
600/14 = 42.85, so you can go really long with a 14mm before the stars start turning into trails

Of course with a tracking mount you can do 5 minute exposures, or multiple exposures and then stack them (that's how you get really crazy results).


The key is getting somewhere with no light pollution. I mean where I was there wasn't a major city for miles. I could see more with my own eyes than I could in pictures I took in the southeast (even after processing!). You could see the faint outline of the spiral arm with the naked eye, it was breathtaking.

 

[emag]

Hmmmmmm.....might want to check your AFMA. You seem to be front focusing a parsec or two.....

Excellent work, I'm jealous of those skies. I have 5 scopes, two cameras (one Ha modified), several equatorial mounts and a home made slider.....and the Florida panhandle hasn't had two clear nights in succession since mid-November....particularly on weekends! Sheesh - I should probably drop the whole astrophotography thing and take up needlepoint.

 

[Mr Bean]

Wonderful use of a 24mm lens for astronomy photos. Now I want that lens.

Thanks! Yes it's great to have a lens that fast but that wide. At the same time when you shoot wide open the stars on one side will start to turn into a weird shape....

Beaut pic's. I've been trying a similar thing with the Zeiss 21mm f2.8. The Canon 24 1.4 suffers from coma (around the edges) when used wide open, as you have suggested. But that doesn't stop me from wanting to get one

 

[BrettS]

Nice. Thanks for posting. Interesting to hear your techniques. I'd like to try this some day.

 

[RS2021]

Hmmmmmm.....might want to check your AFMA. You seem to be front focusing a parsec or two.....

*chuckle* I am sure some pixel peeping measurbators thought you were bein' serious.

 

[RS2021]

Yes, they are both just static tripod shots.

I live in an urban environment in the snowbelt... I can only dream of nights like that. But occationally I see the easy Orion constellation... will give the nebula a go with the 100L for ~6 secs and see. It should be an easy target.

Of course forcast is always nice in January, you don't have to even look it up: "Cloudy"or "Overcast" or "Snow" or "Blizzard". :

 

[Axilrod]

Beaut pic's. I've been trying a similar thing with the Zeiss 21mm f2.8. The Canon 24 1.4 suffers from coma (around the edges) when used wide open, as you have suggested. But that doesn't stop me from wanting to get one

Thanks! And I thought it was called coma but second guessed myself at the last minute. You can see some on the right side of the first picture (and that was at f/2!). The ZE 21mm does an excellent job and has absolutely no coma whatsoever (and you can expose for up to 28/29 seconds vs the 25s of the 24mm). I was letting my buddy use that lens (he's relatively inexperienced) and adjusted the settings on the 5D2 for him and it was just point and shoot from there, and he got some AWESOME pics.

Only tricky part really is framing when it's pitch black outside, it's pretty difficult, especially considering the camera is usually very low and pointing up. Ideally I would have liked to scout the location during the day but didn't have the opportunity, but I'm still pretty happy with the results. I would have loved to have had the time lapse running upward towards the road sign in the 2nd pic, with the sign gradually getting bigger and the spiral arm passing in the background, but I didn't even notice the sign until a few hours into shooting (that's how dark it was!).

 

[Axilrod]

Hmmmmmm.....might want to check your AFMA. You seem to be front focusing a parsec or two.....

Excellent work, I'm jealous of those skies. I have 5 scopes, two cameras (one Ha modified), several equatorial mounts and a home made slider.....and the Florida panhandle hasn't had two clear nights in succession since mid-November....particularly on weekends! Sheesh - I should probably drop the whole astrophotography thing and take up needlepoint.

Go to the Indian Pass Peninsula! It's one of the few places in the southeast I found with a "black" rated dark sky. It's maybe an hour east of Panama City if I remember correctly. My family has a place inbetween Panama City and Destin off 30A and I have been trying to plan a trip to that peninsula next time I'm there. In the summer the brightest part of the Milky Way is the most visible, and you would be shooting South with nothing but ocean in front of you! Can't be that far from you if you're in the panhandle, go next new moon, it's totally worth it!


Here is the light pollution in that area:




Apalachicola National Forest is where you would want to go, except closer to the 98 sign underneath it, as close to the ocean as possible.

 

[Axilrod]

For those of you looking for dark skies, this light pollution map is great:
http://www.blue-marble.de/nightlights/2010

I put a screen shot of where I was, specifically between Plainview and Childress. For comparison, the second shot is of Georgia.

 

[RomanRacela]

@Axilrod - What was your ISO when you shot these? Was the moon out? If it was, what phase of the moon was it? I'm not sure if having moonlight is important so the foreground illuminated a bit. I too have had difficulty focusing at night.