Milky Way Rising 2014

[iksose7]

This is a 8 panel mosaic shot the other night during a clear spell. Its great to see the Galactic centre rising above the trees again!

This image spans from the constellation of Cassiopeia on the left all the way to the red supergiant star Antares in the constellation of Scorpius. Although the skies are quite dark here, the small village over the hill towards the South does give off some light pollution most nights. In this image it has worked quite well in combination with the clouds.

Eposure Details:

8* 20 seconds, f3.5, ISO 3200

Taken with a Canon 1100D at 18mm.

[tingting44]

wow, breathtaking! and only 8 x 20 sec subs! thats awsome!

btw how did you frame the mosaic? 4frames on the bottom and 4 frames on the top? or just 8 across 

and did you do 20 subs for each pane?

[iksose7]

Hey Martin, thanks!

The image is made up of 8 images in a row, each taken with the DSLR orientated in 'portrait' rather than 'landscape'. I did do a second row of 8 for above the milky way arch but couldnt get them to stitch properly, glad they didnt now!

And no, each panel was a single 20 exposure 

[nightfisher]

Very nice indeed, i would be very proud of that image, was the dslr on a tracking mount?

[iksose7]

Hey Jules, glad you like it 

No tracking mount involved here, just static tripod. Feels like a long time since i got back to basics!

[happy-kat]

Love it

What is the spiral like object captured bottom left just after the big tree silhouette please?

[markcol]

Superb image Callum, you must be really chuffed with a result like that!

Great work with (I assume) the kit lens, camera and tripod.

Mark

[iksose7]

Hi Happykat,

That spiral or smudge is M31 - the Andromeda galaxy! You can also make out the double cluster a bit further to the left and up a bit. I'm thinking about making a expanded view of this image tomorrow, inlaying some of the DSOs i've taken. I'll post it up here if i get around to it.

[iksose7]

Hey Mark, 

I am quite chuffed with it  i have attempted similar images in the past, mainly when i first started AP a couple years ago but they never turned out this well. I guess thats how ya know you are making progress! Although i never really do anything other than DSO imaging nowadays, like i said before its nice to get back to the simple stuff every now and then.

Oh and yes, the kit 18-55mm and tripod. Looking back on it i should of used my modded DSLR. But theres always next time!

[tingting44]

love to see the difference in comparison with this image with your modded and unmodded versions

and look forward to seeing the expanded version

[Knight of Clear Skies]

That's great, the clouds add to it. I've tried stacking images from a fixed tripod before, but they never come out as well as that. Maybe I should have another go, when the weather isn't good enough to set-up the tracking mount.

Did you also take darks and flats?

[Pete Presland]

i am loving that image, very inspiring to see static tripods and DSLR can create great images. definitely going out tonight weather permitting and having a go at this!

[iksose7]

Hi Knight and Pete

Its much easier than you might think!

For anyone wanting to try a similar image, just take your exposures - making sure they all over lap each other a little bit. For this image i had the DSLR on a ball head in a portrait orientation. After each exposure i moved the ball head at the base not the DSLR on the ball head arm.  This way i was guaranteed all the images were in a perfect straight line with each other making the stitching easier for the software. Take all images in RAW. The last two points i made are things i never did in the past for this kind of image.

Then all you do is drop the images into some software called Microsoft ICE. Its free and will do an excellent stitch most of the time. You then just play around until looks right. Post processing is also very important obviously. Thats where shooting in RAW comes in handy. I actually made a star layer in this image which i've only ever done in deep sky images. It worked well here to control the abundance of stars and make the Milky Way itself stand out.

And no darks or flats were used for this.

[iksose7]

I should also add that i tried this image with the trees light painted also. Not a good idea as you guaranteed that you will be able to see the joins between panels. Light painting is great for single images though and you could probably get away with it in an image like this if you had a very large light shining on all the trees constantly while you shoot.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Thanks, looking at the forecast I might be able to have a go at something tonight.

[iksose7]

Heres the expanded version with a few of my DSOs. Thought it would look a bit better but it was quite hard to fit them in and make it look reasonable. Had to leave quite a few out!

[happy-kat]

That is really clever thankyou

[tingting44]

This is totally amazing with the added dso's! makes a lovely picture a great epic picture! I wouldn't change a thing, really, really top work. You should send this in to apod

[happy-kat]

The top right close up is it 180 flipped?

[Andy Milner]

Amazing! Love the DSO additions.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[iksose7]

Thanks for the very kind words folks  its nice to get feedback and know you are improving

Yes it is happykat, well spotted! It was hard to get all the orientations spot on so they are not all 100% accurate. I left the blue horsey head like that purely because it looks more like a horse head that way haha. The horse head image itself is probably my least favorite of the lot, its a bit of a mess. I would love to re image it this year now that i have guiding and know what i'm doing! But unfortunately i just received my first scope so the 200mm lens might not get much chance to play for a while.

[prokyon]

Wow, stunning! 18mm and so many details, great work.

[jimmyjamjoejoe]

That is impressive. I'm in a fairly dark place and I cant get near that, even at 2.8. My processing sucks though, and to make it worse my computer has now gone pop x

[iksose7]

Thanks! I was surprised the kit 18-55mm could do this well. But yes, a lot of it does come down to little tricks in PS. When ever i star working on an image in PS i almost always think its going to go no where but theres a point where it suddenly starts to take shape. Usually for me its when i start working with a star layer, so that is my suggestion to you!

[tingting44]

id love a hi res version for my desktop wallpaper lol *wink,wink*