The Milky Way...

thedeepestsleep · Oct 23, 2011

My first Milky Way shot! Taken from Little Stony Man Cliffs, Shenandoah National Park.

mishele · Oct 23, 2011

And I wanted to see chocolate!! lol
Nice...how long was your exposure?

Compaq · Oct 23, 2011

Being someone starting to venture into wide field astrophotography, I'd very much like to know how this was taken. I've been worried f/4 (which is the widest I'm able to go) isn't fast enough for getting such detail in our galaxy. What's your exif info? When and at which altitude was this taken? This is not the part of the Milky Way that's visible to us right now..... at least not at godly hours. I've heard southern summer skies are the best for MW shots.

Was that silhouette edited in, or captured from the scene (and darkened in pp)? Either way, it really makes the shot and puts the galaxy into perspective. Ohh, and your lens would be nice to know as well.

Btw, nice shot!

thedeepestsleep · Oct 23, 2011

My exposure was 30 seconds long, at F3.5 and ISO3200. F4 should be fine. I took this last night, at about 3500ft. It was taken in Shenandoah National Park, which is in Virginia in the states. The silhouette was captured in the scene. I didn't have to darken it at all. My lens is a 18-105mm NIKKOR kit lens that came with my D90, which I used for this shot. For this sort of photography, you're going to want to use very high ISO's, like ISO3200, or higher if your camera can do it.

Thanks for your comments!

heroes19 · Oct 24, 2011

Wow, what a stunning landscape. I like!! By the way, Do you think will have a lot of noise if you use ISO3200?

Heitz · Oct 24, 2011

OP, why do you think that using a high ISO is preferable to a longer exposure? are you thinking another 30 seconds would give you blur due to rotation? I'm assuming you were using a tripod...

molested_cow · Oct 24, 2011

Did you tone map it? Seems to have a halo along the landscape.

Compaq · Oct 24, 2011

I'm guessing the halo is from a distant city or town, that orange thing down to the right looks much like light pollution.

My 40D can't go higher than ISO-3200, and that's using the High setting. Really wouldn't go that far up, I'd be capturing mosaics! I can shoot at ISO-1000 without getting too much noise. I'll have to experiment. That high ISOs require little light pollution, or else the sky will be blown with yellowish colours. Could you post your RAW file? I'd be interested in seeing what your capture looked like straight out of the camera.

rmstudios · Oct 24, 2011

thedeepestsleep said:
My first Milky Way shot! Taken from Little Stony Man Cliffs, Shenandoah National Park.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnbilous/6272846434/
The Milky Way! by Jon Bilous, on Flickr

Wow nice job.....

thedeepestsleep · Oct 24, 2011

Heitz said:
OP, why do you think that using a high ISO is preferable to a longer exposure? are you thinking another 30 seconds would give you blur due to rotation? I'm assuming you were using a tripod...

A longer exposure would cause there to be star trails, and less clarity on the milky way.

heroes19 said:
Wow, what a stunning landscape. I like!! By the way, Do you think will have a lot of noise if you use ISO3200?

Quite a bit, however it can be managed with noise reduction software. The NR built into LR3 is great for this.

molested_cow said:
Did you tone map it? Seems to have a halo along the landscape.

No, but I brought up the clarity very high in LR3 to help bring the Milky Way out more, and that caused a bit of haloing in the horizon. I did a re-edit however, and it looks much better.

Compaq said:
I'm guessing the halo is from a distant city or town, that orange thing down to the right looks much like light pollution.

My 40D can't go higher than ISO-3200, and that's using the High setting. Really wouldn't go that far up, I'd be capturing mosaics! I can shoot at ISO-1000 without getting too much noise. I'll have to experiment. That high ISOs require little light pollution, or else the sky will be blown with yellowish colours. Could you post your RAW file? I'd be interested in seeing what your capture looked like straight out of the camera.

Yes, there was a bit of light pollution glow coming in from Harrisonburg, VA there. ISO1000 is probably going to result in a very underexposed shot of the Milky Way, and bringing the exposure up in PP will add even more noise than if you just used a higher ISO. Maybe if you used a really fast lens you could get away with ISO1000 though...

Thanks for all the comments everyone!

Heres the SOOC shot...doesn't look so good on here, but thats because I exported a very small jpg of the original..

jwbryson1 · Oct 24, 2011

I like it overall. It's a bit blurry and there is some noise but overall not bad. Did you shoot this the weekend of 10/22 - 10/23 or the prior weekend of 10/15 - 10/16? We were at SNP on 10/15 and it was really clear, but this past weekend was supposed to be peak Fall colors and really clear again.

thedeepestsleep · Oct 24, 2011

jwbryson1 said:
I like it overall. It's a bit blurry and there is some noise but overall not bad. Did you shoot this the weekend of 10/22 - 10/23 or the prior weekend of 10/15 - 10/16? We were at SNP on 10/15 and it was really clear, but this past weekend was supposed to be peak Fall colors and really clear again.

I shot this on Saturday, the 22nd. We didn't make it down on the 15th or 16th. The sky was pretty clear, with just a few clouds. It was pretty hazy, not horrible though. The fall colors were definitely past peak at the highest elevations, but very nice in lower areas.

jordansgotfaith · Oct 24, 2011

Very good work for your first Milky Way shot. I've yet to venture into astrophotography...this photo is more encouragement for me to try it out. Keep up the good work!