Stars

[cletusjermal]

After seeing the several star pics on here i thought i would try it. C&C

 

[KmH]

Looks like it turned out pretty good.

I think the landscape orientation would give a much more expansive and panaoramic feel than the vertical, it feels kind of pinched.

If you study some about the Milky Way you can find some other directions to shoot that may offer more dramatic star fields. The Milky Way has some nice dust lanes.

 

[cletusjermal]

I was trying to get the milky way in the shot. It was running vertical through the pic but it didnt really turn out. It wasnt very pronounced that night though.

 

[KmH]

I was trying to get the milky way in the shot. It was running vertical through the pic but it didnt really turn out. It wasnt very pronounced that night though.

Every star you can see, is part of the Milky Way, our galaxy. But you're right, some parts of the Milky Way are more dramatic than other parts.

We can see a couple of other galaxies with our naked eye, but they are just faint, diffuse smudges of light.
If the closest big galaxy, Andromeda (M31), was bright enough to see all of it well, it is 6+ moon diameters across and at that brightness would cast Earthly shadows at night.

Milky Way - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[pgriz]

I was trying to get the milky way in the shot. It was running vertical through the pic but it didnt really turn out. It wasnt very pronounced that night though.

The issue you're having is that your sky isn't very dark. That is sky glow we are seeing in your shot and that dims the impact of the Milky Way. The only way to avoid this is to find a really dark sky location, or to arrange for a state-wide power outage and then shoot during the resulting dark time :er:.

I'd say pretty good for a first attempt.:thumbup:

 

[cletusjermal]

I was trying to get the milky way in the shot. It was running vertical through the pic but it didnt really turn out. It wasnt very pronounced that night though.

The issue you're having is that your sky isn't very dark. That is sky glow we are seeing in your shot and that dims the impact of the Milky Way. The only way to avoid this is to find a really dark sky location, or to arrange for a state-wide power outage and then shoot during the resulting dark time :er:.

I'd say pretty good for a first attempt.:thumbup:

Damn sky glow. I was out in the middle of the mountains of west virginia. I thought it would of been dark enough there but guess not. Guess ill have to try the power outage.

 

[DerekMellott]

Very clean, I enjoy this.

 

[reznap]

Damn sky glow. I was out in the middle of the mountains of west virginia. I thought it would of been dark enough there but guess not. Guess ill have to try the power outage.

Try doing this in Northeast Ohio... it's a joke how much light pollution is out here.

I think the shot looks great. The best way to get these to look really dramatic is to take lots of exposures and stack them in post. You stack them so the stars don't trail though, and the result is that the stars get brighter and the colors in the spiral really start to show up.

You could try this software: DeepSkyStacker - Free

 

[timlair]

Very nice. Settings?

 

[reznap]

Very nice. Settings?

You need an exif viewer...

# Exposure Time (1 / Shutter Speed) = 30/1 second ===> 30 second
# Lens F-Number / F-Stop = 4/1 ===> ƒ/4
# Exposure Program = manual control (1)
# ISO Speed Ratings = 2500

Used a focal length of 17mm... so maybe he has a 17-40 not listed in the gear list...

5dm2 is voodoo at 2500 iso...

 

[cletusjermal]

Very nice. Settings?

You need an exif viewer...

# Exposure Time (1 / Shutter Speed) = 30/1 second ===> 30 second
# Lens F-Number / F-Stop = 4/1 ===> ƒ/4
# Exposure Program = manual control (1)
# ISO Speed Ratings = 2500

Used a focal length of 17mm... so maybe he has a 17-40 not listed in the gear list...

5dm2 is voodoo at 2500 iso...

Yep, I just got the 17-40mm the other day. :thumbup:

How do you view the exif info? What programs can view it?

 

[KmH]

www.Opanda.com

www.photome.de

EXIF readrs - Bing

With Windows, right click on the image, at the bottom of the drop box click on properties, then click on advanced.

 

[Stosh]

That's a nice first attempt. I can barely make out more stars vertically through the center of the image. If this was taken just after sunset towards the south (or southwest), it's the southern milky way which is the most dramatic of the entire milky way. But like others said, you need very dark skies. If you feel you had dark skies, then you need to bring out more detail with post processing. You could also expose for 2-4 times longer than you did, but then you'll start to get star trails without having a mount that compensates for the earth's rotation.

 

[reznap]

You could also expose for 2-4 times longer than you did, but then you'll start to get star trails without having a mount that compensates for the earth's rotation.

That's why you take multiple exposures and use a program that'll stack them according to where the stars are. Stuff in the foreground gets very blurry unless you use a separate layer for the foreground.

 

[Stosh]

I'm all for stacking, but your best bet is to start with a good exposure in the first place. And yes, several good exposures is better than one.

It's difficult to start with a good exposure without a motorized mount because you have to keep it under 30 seconds. There are only 2 ways to get more data without increasing exposure time - higher ISO at the cost of noise, or faster f-ratio at the cost of dollars.