Milky Way over Stodmarsh

[Felias]

After a cloudy day on Sunday, I took advantage of the clear evening to drive to Stodmarsh National Nature Reserve, to the NW of Canterbury. I had never been there at night, it was lovely being the only visitor and listening to the sounds of the birds while taking the pictures. The sky wasn't bad, I guess Bortle 4, I could easily see the Milky Way in Cygnus. At lower altitudes the light pollution was an issue, though. Sagittarius was exactly in the direction of Canterbury, so the photo is pointing towards the city lights at 5 miles from the marshes. Therefore, I couldn't get rid of the gradients, and also there are some stacking artifacts due to the passing clouds (half my pictures had some, it wasn't that clear after all), so there's a lot to improve. Nonetheless, I though I'd share it.

Samyang 16 mm, half a stop between F/2 and f/2.8, ISO 1600. Canon 77D, simply on a tripod, no mount. 98 x 20s lights, stacked in Sequator. Processed in PS and Lightroom. I light-painted the foreground, but only dared to try once -I didn't want to disturb the birds!

 

[Sunshine]

WOW, it is a beautiful image! 

[Felias]

15 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

WOW, it is a beautiful image! 

Thanks!

[FenlandPaul]

That’s a terrific image - 👏. Given how close to Canterbury you were, you’ve pulled some very nice detail out of the Milky Way.  Personally I love the effect of the horizon clouds in these sorts of images.

Nature reserves are lovely places at night, aren’t they?  Some of the noises are out of this world!  I think you were right to be conservative with your light painting - I’ve startled a couple of swans before and at night it sounded like a riot kicking off!  

[Ouroboros]

 Lovely image. Very effective with the foreground.  16mm is quite wide angle. I’m surprised there’s no curvature in the horizon.  I guess it’s a slice of a larger image.  By the way, unless they’ve moved it isn’t Stodmarsh NE of Canterbury? Just saying like.  I used to live near there. Glad to know it’s still Bortle 4.  I guess it was Bortle 3 when I grew up there in the 60s! 

[Felias]

11 hours ago, FenlandPaul said:

That’s a terrific image - 👏. Given how close to Canterbury you were, you’ve pulled some very nice detail out of the Milky Way.  Personally I love the effect of the horizon clouds in these sorts of images.

Nature reserves are lovely places at night, aren’t they?  Some of the noises are out of this world!  I think you were right to be conservative with your light painting - I’ve startled a couple of swans before and at night it sounded like a riot kicking off!  

Thank you! I like it too that the haze in the horizon separates the land from the sky, it gives a better depiction of us being in this piece of rock lost somewhere in the Galaxy! 😱 There was a lot of rioting among the birds on Sunday, even without my lights. I just didn't want to intrude... it is their home, not mine. 🦆🦢

 

8 hours ago, Ouroboros said:

 Lovely image. Very effective with the foreground.  16mm is quite wide angle. I’m surprised there’s no curvature in the horizon.  I guess it’s a slice of a larger image.  By the way, unless they’ve moved it isn’t Stodmarsh NE of Canterbury? Just saying like.  I used to live near there. Glad to know it’s still Bortle 4.  I guess it was Bortle 3 when I grew up there in the 60s! 

Thanks! And you are absolutely right, it is to the NE. I was just thinking that the photo was facing SW while writing the post, and mixed up things. The photo is slightly cropped on the left, but there's no noticeable curvature in my raws. Bear in mind that the 77D is a cropped-sensor camera, so the field of view is not that large. There is a bit of barrel distortion, but that's all.

[davew]

98 subs ! Now that's what I call a serious effort. No wonder your Milky Way makes my attempts look insipid  

Just out of a matter of interest, did you select the water as well as the sky in Sequator ? 

Dave.

[Felias]

11 minutes ago, davew said:

98 subs ! Now that's what I call a serious effort. No wonder your Milky Way makes my attempts look insipid  

Just out of a matter of interest, did you select the water as well as the sky in Sequator ? 

Dave.

Thank you! There's too much light pollution around here for a single shot to count, much less with only 20s since I wasn't tracking. I only selected the sky using the irregular mask tool.

PS: the water and the foreground are a single shot, blended with the stacked photo!

Edited October 6, 2021 by Felias

[davew]

1 minute ago, Felias said:

Thank you! There's too much light pollution around here for a single shot to count, much less with only 20s since I wasn't tracking. I only selected the sky using the irregular mask tool.

I've noticed on my own photos of reflections that the stars can show up if the water is selected and then you have two sets of stars. A suggestion of mine would be to take, say 20 subs or so as a test and restack them in Sequator and see if they begin to show. You never know ...

Dave.

[Felias]

1 hour ago, davew said:

I've noticed on my own photos of reflections that the stars can show up if the water is selected and then you have two sets of stars. A suggestion of mine would be to take, say 20 subs or so as a test and restack them in Sequator and see if they begin to show. You never know ...

Dave.

Yes, I was hoping to get some reflected stars, but there are only a couple at the bottom of the picture. The reflection towards the horizon is too light-polluted for them to show, or at least it seems from the raws I've scanned. Also, it was windy and the water was far from still. But it's a good suggestion, I'll try stacking some and see what happens, thanks.

[megrez]

Stunning!