My first attempt at capturing the Milky Way

[the lemming]

I've had this project on my "To Do" list for some time.

 

Seeing as the nights are getting longer and there is a cold snap over the next few days, I'd quite like to have my second go at capturing the Milky Way.  The first attempt was at Seahouses, along the shoreline with a full moon adding insult to injury.  I'm guessing that a big full moon reflecting off the sea was a bad idea.

To help me be more sucessful this time, I very much would appreciate any help and advice to achieve this task.  I have a Panasonic micro four thirds camera with a 12-35mm f2.8 lens.  I appreciate that this is not as wide as I would like but them's the constraints on the project and my wallet.  I also have a sturdy tripod and a remote cable trigger to further reduce camera shake.

 

I'm guessing that the first thing I would need is a dark location.  Sadly I live in a very bright seaside town famed for its bright lights and replica Eiffel Tower.  You only get one guess.  :-)

 

I'd appreciate suggestions of dark locations in either Lancashire or, and I say this in a hushed tone, Yorkshire, but not much more than an hour and a half's drive from site to comfy bed.

 

The next part is capturing the Milky Way.  I shall be using Stellarium on my phone to give me a rough idea of where to point my camera.

 

When capturing the Milky Way should I:

 

Take one long exposure while trying to eliminate star trails.

Take thousands of images and stack them later on my computer

Take a video of the night's sky and then stack the video on my computer

 

If I am to take still images, what settings should I set my camera to?

ISO

Shutter speed

Aperture size

 

I accept that these are an awful lot of questions however the good people of this parish came good when offering advice on how to capture images of the moon and stack them to get the best image I could.

 

Cheers muchly.

 

:-)

[Galen Gilmore]

I am by no means, experienced in astrophotography. But here are my thoughts.

When doing wide field work, focus is a lot harder than it seems. That is probably your first and most important step. An image that has doughnuts for stars is a disappointing image. 

Shoot at 12mm and at f/2.8, and expose for as long as you can without getting star trails. At 12mm that should be about 25-35 seconds, fiddle with the ISO until you get an image that looks natural. Now take a bunch of those images, 10+ images, don't worry about calibration frames. Stack the images in Deep Sky Stacker, and process it to your liking in a program like GIMP or PS.

Good luck! Maybe someone else could give better advice than me.  

 

[JemC]

1 hour ago, the lemming said:

I'm guessing that the first thing I would need is a dark location.  Sadly I live in a very bright seaside town famed for its bright lights and replica Eiffel Tower.  You only get one guess.  :-)

Not to far from your famed location,

You could try Beacon Fell visitor centre, approx 22 miles from the replica tower, 

check out this site

http://www.darkskydiscovery.org.uk/dark-sky-discovery-sites/map.html

It is a place i plan on visiting at some point for exactly the same thing 

look forward to seeing what you capture,

[newbie alert]

For the milky way I'd suggest  a dark,dark location..with a setting moon..use the 500 rule on what size lense you're using and crank up the iso a little higher than normal settings..At the moment the milky way is slightly to the left of Orion.. and running up and over towards Cygnus ..take a test shot to make sure you have the dust lanes and then let the camera do it's thing..

[happy-kat]

I've not tried it yet but the program sequator looks like one to try stacking if your foreground includes static objects like trees or hill side. Practice using your camera so the one thing you don't struggle with is how to use it in the dark.

[the lemming]

1 hour ago, JemC said:

Not to far from your famed location,

You could try Beacon Fell visitor centre, approx 22 miles from the replica tower, 

check out this site

http://www.darkskydiscovery.org.uk/dark-sky-discovery-sites/map.html

It is a place i plan on visiting at some point for exactly the same thing 

look forward to seeing what you capture,

I was actually on Beacon Fell today getting the last few rays of the autumn sun.

 

I have given some thought to photographing there myself.

 

Edit

 

After looking at your link, I shall check out Dunsop Bridge as that should give better results.

 

Cheers

 

Cheers

[the lemming]

1 hour ago, newbie alert said:

For the milky way I'd suggest  a dark,dark location..with a setting moon..use the 500 rule on what size lense you're using and crank up the iso a little higher than normal settings..At the moment the milky way is slightly to the left of Orion.. and running up and over towards Cygnus ..take a test shot to make sure you have the dust lanes and then let the camera do it's thing..

I would be most grateful if you could explain what the 500 rule is, and what the dust lanes are.

 

Cheers

[JemC]

3 minutes ago, the lemming said:

I would be most grateful if you could explain what the 500 rule is

have a read of this

https://petapixel.com/2015/01/06/avoid-star-trails-following-500-rule/

But there is also a 300 rule for crop sensors, not sure how much of this is correct though?

http://bradycabe.com/blog/2017/2/the-500-and-300-rule-for-photographing-the-night-sky

 

[newbie alert]

5 minutes ago, JemC said:

have a read of this

https://petapixel.com/2015/01/06/avoid-star-trails-following-500-rule/

Beat me to it!!

By dust lanes i mean the dust within the milky way..

[newbie alert]

[the lemming]

Thanks everybody.

 

:-)

[rickwayne]

The Lonely Speck tutorial on the MW is what got me started. I think it's still a great resource: https://www.lonelyspeck.com/astrophotography-101/

I don't know how experienced you are at processing digital images, but epic-level captures of the Milky Way almost never look like very much on the rear screen. If you can display a histogram for your image, most modern (last 2-3 years) sensors will let you do a pretty good job "stretching" the exposure and contrast if the bell-curve-like peak of the histogram clears the left edge -- that is to say, if the darkest bits in the sky are even a little more than 0,0,0 RGB, you can process it to look amazing.

For example, here's a straight-out-of-the-camera shot of mine from a couple years ago, open in Photoshop. There's just sort of a lightish patch where the Milky Way should be, right? If this showed up on the back of the camera I'd have no idea if I'd exposed correctly or not. But half an hour in Photoshop and you get the second one. Of course, experienced astrophotographers will yuk it up over the light pollution, the trailed stars, and such. And the histogram shows that it's actually underexposed -- no clearance on the left side, so I introduced quite a bit of noise with processing. But it shows you what's possible.

As for focusing, the tutorials will tell you to use Live View and the pixel magnification feature; I always find that very challenging with wide-angle lenses at night. I usually wind up stopping down a bit (also helps the lens perform better generally, of course).

Have fun, and take awesome shots!