Some widefield shots outside Mallorca Planetarium

[Jayla]

I'm an SLR noob, but after a visit to the Mallorca Planetarium (well worth the €10 if you're out that way, tripadvisor link), I switched it into manual and took advantage of some good dark skies.

Taken on a Nikkon D5100 with 18-55mm lens.

I found the best results when using ISO 5000 and an exposure of 20 seconds, all shot in standard JPEG at "fine" setting.

Any tips on what to try next? I don't have a scope any more, so its purely camera/tripod only!

[Photosbykev]

I would certainly switch to raw captures rather than jpg, if the images were shot in raw you would be able to drag alot more detail and colour out of them. Having said that the sky looks wonderful there

[davefrance]

Without getting to technical, for starters you could try reducing the ISO to 800/1600 and take 20-30 shots RAW x 20 secs and stack in Deep Sky Stacker.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Nice captures. I went to Menorca last year, a couple islands over, and took my first Milky Way shots. The skies there were spectacular.

[Pete Presland]

+1 for switching to RAW and taking more frames to stack, around 15-20 should help.