Milky Way on board a 747, over the Atlantic Ocean

[ALEXx360]

A few days ago, back from NYC, I wanted to try maybe the picture more complicated that I can do, take a pictures of the Milky Way from an airplane in flight.
The conditions were "good", clear sky (at 11km surprise me if it were the contrary), zero light pollution (Bortle 0), the problems were mostly technical: make a long exposure on something that moves at 598 mph (960 km/h).
The only solution was to make an exposure as short as possible, but capturing enough light, so I used a 28mm f1.8 wide open, setting the canon to 1600iso ( the maximum for my 450D) trusting that then during the post-processing maybe I could push to 3200 or 6400iso, for the exposition I went to attempts from 30 seconds down, I took 93 pictures of which only one good (with 10 sec exposure).
To obtain the highest possible stability I put the Gorillapod between the armrest and the fuselage, covering me with a blanket to block all reflections coming from inside.

Image taken on board a British Airways 747-400 on a flight from New York to London.
Time: 01:00 NY time zone
Location: Over the Atlantic Ocean, about 220 miles (350 km) from Halifax (Nova Scotia, Canada)
Altitude: 37000 ft (11000 m)
Speed: 598 mph (962 kmh)
Outside Temperature: - 68° F (-55° C)

Canon EF 28 f1.8 @ f1.8
Canon EOS 450D, 10 sec, 1600 ISO

Alex

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Awesome shot! It might be grainy, but it is absolutely unique

[Scott]

Thats nice Alex, you must have a lot of patience

[russ.will]

I simply love that and what an excellent way to kill time on a flight.

Russell

[tingting44]

Wow I'm gob smacked, great job!

[RT65CB-SWL]

Amazing!

[knobby]

Well I'm truly amazed... Well done

[leemanley]

genius !

[happy-kat]

That is awesome and that detail and colour and only 10 seconds wow

[wxsatuser]

Well done.

[NickK]

Superb!

[Kirscovitch]

Very nice shot!

[Landy Dave]

That is an amazing shot. The only one I have half as clear as that was taken from a small Greek Island during a power cut

[jgs001]

Excellent Alex, an unusual image, and certainly tough to capture.

[robbie c]

Brilliant image Alex well done 

I wonder what the chances are of SGL hiring a plane so we can all have a go at doing something like that 

[Sp@ce_d]

Fantastic... Thats a real eye opener.  I'm now kicking myself over all those night flights wasted sleeping!

[JohnC64]

superb shot, very inventive - just fabulous in the best "why - because i can" tradition.

[todd8137]

How do you manage to get no star movement ?

Pat

[Kbramley]

That's fantastic defo on my list to try on my next night flight. I tried imaging from a boat in Norway once, inky black skies but there was simply too much swaying even when the boat was stationary

[Robny]

That's a great shot!

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

[ALEXx360]

Thanks to all for the compliments

How do you manage to get no star movement ?
Pat

To avoid blur I used the best setting to get a great signal with only 10sec, then I used a gorilapod to keep the Canon as stable as possible.

[Amra]

Epic shot. I don't often go on any flights, but remind me to bring my camera!

[andrew63]

See it's made APD.  Well done.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

andrew

[Sp@ce_d]

See it's made APD.  Well done.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

andrew

Brilliant news... well deserved, congratulations Alex

[cloudbuster]

Including the wingtip makes this....well highly original!