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Photographing the Millky Way


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Hi guys,
never shot the milky before but went out last night to try and capture it but no luck my images weren't sharp and too much light pollution to see the Milky Way

Some nights the Milky Way is visible so for next time could someone help me understand how to take sharper less blurred images

I have a canon 450d with a sturdy tripod and also a remote shutter release and set the manual mode to a 20" exposure at f3.5 and ISO 1600 which captured a lot of stars and light but was blurred and no Milky Way was visible

Any tips or help would be appreciated

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Hi,

I would say that 20s exposure time is at the very limit with an 18mm lens before the stars start to trail. If it were me I would crank it down to 15 to 18s to ensure that the stars are a little more pin point, and have a play with the ISO range, perhaps start at ISO800 if LP is washing your images out. The most obvious first check of course is that you have good focus, personally I use live view at x10 magnification, and manually focus on a bright star.

Take a series of shots and stack them in deep sky stacker, you will be able to bring out some detail that way.

The image below is comprised of 5 x 20s exposures at ISO800 with a 24mm lens on a full frame DSLR, then stacked as suggested above. I hope that this helps

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You are going to need a good clear stable night, also dark and the lens will also need to be good.

I doubt a kit zoom will be sharp enough, the problem is one of cost, a good sharp prime lens is not cheap.

Settings sound half reasonable.

Would be better if there was some ability to track but then any bits of the earth in the picture will be blurred as they will in effect move.

In effect either the sky displays trailing or the ground does, but one will.

If you are expecting the stars to appear as stars then consider the name "Milky Way" that implies that the detail is a bit lost.

Not sure if the Canon noise reduction would help, that assumes it was Off.  ??

I suspect the lens is the weakest component, it is not going to deliver images as sharp as a £1200 prime lens. And in photography £1200 is not expensive.

A Sigma 50mm f/1.4 is £850, and I guess a wider one would be better, their 35mm f/1.4 is £800. The Canon 35mm f/1.4L looks good at £1000. Problem is for a good sharp image that is the sort of money involved.

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Scott, at this rate you are going to be astro-photographer of the year 2016 :)

You need a REALLY dark sky to get good milky way shots in my experience. Otherwise if you crank the ISO up you just get lots of sky glow. So yes, whacking the ISO up is one technique, but you need to be under a properly dark sky to benefit from that trick.

Blurry images could be multifactorial [not sure how to spell that]. Post up an image or email me and I'll post it up for you. Possible causes:

- You moved the kit

- The exposure was too long and the stars just trailed

- Focus was off

- The lens is not a prime lens and so will be more prone to aberrations

  - I found if I open the apperture to its maximum I get coma-like aberration mostly at the edges of the image, and this is reinforced with what is online

  - If you stop down the apperture, by increasing the f/ number by a couple (so if you shot at f3.4, try f/5 or f/5.6) this can help with aberration but reduces light capture

- The lens was misted (dewed) up

Someone in another thread asked about what kit to buy for this sort of imaging. I'll try and find that thread for you to look over. Your camera will struggle with noise at higher ISOs, so you may just have to get somewhere really dark and do a load of test shots and see what works best.

The other option would be to mount the camera on an equatorial mount (which needs to be well polar aligned) and track the milky way and do longer exposures - don't include an static, terrestial objects in this image though as they will blur our, you could subsequently photoshop your milky way image onto a horizon image to give the impression of a static mounted camera. If you want to try the option of mounting your DSLR on an equatorial mount, you could use a light pollution filter and try from home, but again it won't be as good as from a really dark site.

James

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