How to start working towards a picture like this?

[buzzc150]

I'm having my second go tonight with my dslr and Star Adventurer combo. Right now I'm just learning the very basics, playing around with camera settings etc. 

I think my next step is probably to start figuring out how to stack images. I've had a look through the forum but can't find an absolute beginners guide for idiots on image processing. What is the simplest software for me to start with ?

Id like to work towards Milky Way and foreground images like this. I've really no idea how to even start. Is an image like this a composite of many ? Do you take the foreground image and superimpose it on the other ? 

Thx

 

[rickwayne]

What computer platform are you running on? Do you use Photoshop?

Windows users frequently start with Deep Sky Stacker. Mac users might spend the US$39 for Starry Landscape Stacker, or use something like Siril, as might Linux users. The mavens go in for PixInsight, but that's really more for deep-sky objects.

Photoshop can do a simple median stack, or a mean stack for that matter, if you auto-align the images as layers, then convert them to a Smart Object and set that object's stacking mode.

Stacking provides noise reduction, letting you boost faint things in your image without ugly artifacts. It also helps bring out subtler tonal differences. So yes, images like this one are frequently (though not always) composites. The other issue is that during one long exposure, or a series of stacked ones, the stars move but the landscape does not, so you have to do something about that too.

(All right, all right, it IS the landscape that moves, but the camera's attached to the landscape so let's just not go there, OK? Ok.)

Stopping the stars' apparent motion is usually done via shorter exposures that don't show "trails", and stacking them, OR via a motorized camera mount that keeps the star framing constant, leaving you to deal with "only" the blurred landscape and the fact that some stars will have set during your exposures.

Criminy. Remind me why we do this, again? (Looks at image) Oh, right. That's why.

When I do landscape work like this, I usually use a combination of techniques -- a tracking mount to allow longer exposures without trailing, stacking the stars' images to give a much longer effective exposure, a NON-tracked, often much longer exposure of the landscape, then stacking the star images and compositing it with the landscape one in post. Also cussing. Important step, that.

[rickwayne]

And if that's not enough logorrhea for you, here's more: I really like the Lonely Speck tutorials on photographing the Milky Way. That's what got me addicted -- er, started. Yes. US$4,000 in and I'm started. But not addicted.

[Davey-T]

There are a few videos on Y'Tube of imaging the Milky Way.

Dave

[MarsG76]

This is most certainly a composite... foreground exposed and stacked maybe 15-30 seconds.. and the milky way the conventional way of sky exposure and stacks.... later combining all in PS, I suspect.

[buzzc150]

Thanks for the advice. 

Here's a few of the snaps I took last night. Not too bad I suppose. How can I make them better ? These are roughly 1 min exposures, f3.5, ISO 400 I think with my my bog standard Nikon D3400 and the 18-55 kit lens it came with.

I'm a Mac user. What are my best options for stacking software ?

[souls33k3r]

Like @MarsG76 mentioned, it's a composite image.

[MarsG76]

8 hours ago, buzzc150 said:

a Mac user. What are my best options for stacking software ?

I use Nebulosity 3... it's available for Mac and PC... and it's a great program.