The Milky Way from La Palma

[pietervdv]

Hi all,

Last was i spent a week on the beautiful Canary Island La Palma. It was mostly

a hiking vacation but at night I couldn't resist to photograph the Milky Way.

The three panel mosaic was acquired on the peak of the Island (Roque de Los Muchachos)

next to the observatory at 2400m altitude.

The nightsky (and the silence) up there was the most impressive I have ever seen, the milky way seemed like

a smear a white paint from horizon to horizon.

I took a stripped down eq-3 in my suitcase and took this panorama with

my Canon 5d mkII (modified myself with a Baader BCF filter 2 days before I left).

Each panel is exposed for 1 hour (12 x 5 min at iso 1600 f/5.6) and stitched in Registar and some final tweaks in PS CS5

Hi res version here:

http://www.astronomi...ic la palma.jpg

Thanks for looking!

Pieter

[emadmoussa]

Scrumptious!!

[jammo]

Oh WOW!!!! that is a nice image, great colour

[Baselessum]

Got to be one of the most impressive milky way pictures I have seen, well done it's great

[swag72]

A super image - Very nice indeed

[CC_Japan]

Extremely impressive. It's been a while since I have seen milky way picture holding such an incredible amount of detail.

[Gib007]

Amazing image. Seeing how places like these have such amazing night skies makes me write up a list of "retirement locations". The worrying thing is that I'm only 27 years old, hahahaha.

[steppenwolf]

Lovely image from one of my favourite locations on Earth. The first time I saw the Milky Way from La Palma, I genuinely thought it was a cloud ...... Doh!

Well done, this is a beauty.

[Stargazer33]

That is absolutely amazing! I didn't know we could see so much of our Galaxy from inside it!

[iksose7]

Stunning Pieter! I was just looking into a holiday to La Palma a couple days ago, seeing images like this make me wish i could afford it!

[Digz]

That's great. I hope I'm as lucky when I'm there in December.

[fwm891]

Superb

[Welrod50]

Got to be one of the most impressive milky way pictures I have seen, well done it's great

Here, here

[Nibor]

Fabulous image!! - I like the falling rocks road sign bottom right!! - would love a holiday in La Palma!!

[andyo]

That is a superb shot

[NickK]

Looks like that with naked eye up Mauna Kea too (visitors centre is 2800m/9200ft, the booked/guided tours go up to 13000ft) 

[knobby]

Really nice job

[symesie04]

_{Gorgeous. What lens did you use?}

[pietervdv]

Thanks everyone for the nice comments!

_{Gorgeous. What lens did you use?}

I have used the standard zoom lens (F 24-105mm f/4L IS USM), the lens was set at 35mm.

I stopped down to f/5.6, but still some slight coma around the edges.

Best regards,

Pieter

[Psychobilly]

Stunning.... Any info on the 5D mk II mod?

I would quite fancy one of those myself....

Peter...

Sent from my GT-P7300 using Tapatalk 4

[pietervdv]

Stunning.... Any info on the 5D mk II mod?

I would quite fancy one of those myself....

Peter...

Sent from my GT-P7300 using Tapatalk 4

See following link how to replace the filter, this describes the filter change.

There are some very small and fragile connectors, so keep those hands steady....

http://www.lifepixel.com/tutorials/infrared-diy-tutorials/canon-5d-mk2-ir

I have installed the Baader BCF filter instead of this infrared mod.

[Psychobilly]

Cheers Peter I have done quite a few camera mods .. was it easy enough to get the FF Baader Filter?

There are some reasonable priced Mk II's around now ...  I wont be touching my MK III though...

[mftoet]

Great capture Peter! I would have suspected a little more red in the NGC 7000 area. Compared to M8 etc. the red in NGC 7000 is a bit dull. Any idea why?

A nice trick for registering large mosaics is to use a widefield image from a "colleague astrophotographer" to use that as a base. Even a sky chart from a planetarium program might work. That way you'll avoid large warps in your mosaic.     

[Quatermass]

brilliant image it looks fantastic

[pietervdv]

Great capture Peter! I would have suspected a little more red in the NGC 7000 area. Compared to M8 etc. the red in NGC 7000 is a bit dull. Any idea why?

A nice trick for registering large mosaics is to use a widefield image from a "colleague astrophotographer" to use that as a base. Even a sky chart from a planetarium program might work. That way you'll avoid large warps in your mosaic.     

Thanks Maurice, you have a point there, the h-alpha in Cygnus does not seem as bright as it needs to be. The camera settings, conditions and processing were the same, however I think everything pales compared to M8 in H-alpha.

I will take a look to register the images using a bigger overview of the area (thanks for the tip)