I've been wanting to take a picture of the Milky Way with my new camera, but hospitals and meds kept me home for too long. We're way past Milky Way season now.
But why let that stop me? The bright core of the Milky Way is way below the horizon at the moment, but the wispy far end is still barely visible. So why not take a crack at it?
The photo on the left was taken with the camera on a normal tripod. Exposure time was therefore restricted to 25 seconds to prevent blur, and the stacking software could handle only ten images because the stars move slightly with each exposure. That's a total exposure time of about four minutes. The result is poor, but under the circumstances it was probably better than I expected.
The photo on the right was taken with the camera on my little equatorial mount. Exposure time was two minutes, which allowed the ISO setting to be lower. And since it was tracking the sky I could take as many images as I wanted. This photo is a stack of 40 individual images, which adds up to a total exposure time of 80 minutes.
It's pretty good! Because the camera is tracking the sky, the foreground changes slightly with each exposure. Put 40 of those together and you get a big blur. Normally I'd composite this with a single frame of the ground, but I decided to leave it so you could see the weird effect.
I'm looking forward to trying this in the summer, when the real Milky Way is visible.
Does that blur of the foreground from the stacking caused by the movement of the camera on the tripod?
Yes.
I’m still voting for the one on the left.
Great job Kevin! Glad you went out so that we can enjoy.
I see the righthand one as an allegory for current events.
Hah!
I'm trying to figure out how to take these types of pictures without spending a fortune on gear and lenses.
Here's what I do:
1) Olympus OM-1 (the digital type, not film)
2) Pana-Leica 12mm f/1.4
3) Big ass tripod
4) Cable release
You absolutely must have an f/1.8 or faster wide angle lens. The one I use is the equivalent of a 24mm lens on a full-frame camera like most Canon or Nikon bodies. If you are using an APS-C body an 18mm lens is where you want to start.
Next dial up the ISO to 6400 or so. Use the lens wide open and be sure you can focus to infinity properly (Olympus/OM System makes this easy, they have a special AF mode which takes care of it for you!). Make sure you use an appropriate shutter speed, there's an app called Photo Pills which will calculate this for you -- NOTE: do not use the rule of 500 speed, your stars will smear. For a 24mm lens this will be around 10 seconds, give or take a couple of seconds.
Finally, take a lot of shots and use star stacking software such as Sequator for Windows or Starry Landscape Stacker for Mac. 10 to 15 shots will help to eliminate noise in the final image while preserving the stars. And, oh yeah, don't crank up the exposure and saturation in post like Kevin did. I really prefer shots which capture what the MW actually looks like. But that's just me, most people seem to prefer the over processed look. Go figure.
Also, you need to find a fuck all dark place. Kevin likes the SoCal desert for obvious reasons. I like Yellowstone NP, or a lake up in the mountains near my home. Find your dark place!
Did Kevin ever say what his new camera is? It might be time for me to invest in an 18 mm prime lens, and figure out a remote release.