First stab at the Milky Way

[StuartT]

I found a dark sky site about 30mins drive away so tonight I thought I'd try to image the Milky Way. Never attempted it before.

Using an 11mm lens with an APS-C DSLR I'd previously worked out (by experiment) that the longest exposure I could manage without trails was 10sec (I am using just a camera tripod, no tracking). So I shot at ISO6400 for 10sec wide open at f/2.8

Not hugely impressed with the results. What am I doing wrong?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 31, 2021 by StuartT

[Sunshine]

It is clearly there, nice first go!

[mcrowle]

Not a bad first attempt at all, Stuart!

You're not doing anything wrong, but it's probably worth taking a few frames, say 5 - 7 with the same settings, in quick succession. Then you can stack them in the free Sequator software to reduce noise, before increasing the contrast in the resulting TIFF file. That should enable you to bring out the Milky Way more.

Regards, Mike.

[bluesilver]

I am not an expert by any means,  but when i was taking a few shots of the milky way with my DSLR camera i set the ISO to 800,  i think 6400 is a bit much,  but try 800 and see how it goes.

Moonless night will also be a added bonus.

Edited October 31, 2021 by bluesilver

[StuartT]

1 hour ago, bluesilver said:

I am not an expert by any means,  but when i was taking a few shots of the milky way with my DSLR camera i set the ISO to 800,  i think 6400 is a bit much,  but try 800 and see how it goes.

Moonless night will also be a added bonus.

it's a moonless night. And I drove out to a Bortle 3 sky location. Then I followed this (which suggested ISO 3200 or ISO 6400

https://capturetheatlas.com/how-to-photograph-the-milky-way/#:~:text=To summarize%2C these are the,your white balance to 4000k

[adyj1]

4 hours ago, StuartT said:

Not hugely impressed with the results. What am I doing wrong?

Have you done any post-processing in an image editing software package? That's where you really get to make the milky way pop. 

The iso does seem high - what camera do you have?

Also, 10 seconds with an 11mm lens seems low - did you get eggy stars when you tried longer? Id be hoping for at least 20s. Are you using a remote shutter release, or the built-in delayed release? 

But regardless of that, definitely taking multiple exposures as @mcrowlesuggests and then a stacking them is the right way to go. I'd be looking at many 10's of exposures. 

[StuartT]

9 hours ago, adyj1 said:

Have you done any post-processing in an image editing software package? That's where you really get to make the milky way pop. 

The iso does seem high - what camera do you have?

Also, 10 seconds with an 11mm lens seems low - did you get eggy stars when you tried longer? Id be hoping for at least 20s. Are you using a remote shutter release, or the built-in delayed release? 

But regardless of that, definitely taking multiple exposures as @mcrowlesuggests and then a stacking them is the right way to go. I'd be looking at many 10's of exposures. 

I tried a stretch in Photoshop, but the histogram was already about right, so there wasn't much stretching to be done.

Yes, 10 sec was the longest exposure I could use and still get round stars (see original post). I was using the 10sec delay on my camera (to abolish shake). It's an EOS 750D

I'll try stacking next time then.

[Elp]

Hi, for 10 seconds theres a lot of stars captured and you've caught the Milky Way and also looks like Andromeda top centre (I could be wrong) so its a very good attempt. For comparison see my first attempts at Milky Way with an advanced compact camera from a Bortle 4:

1. Pinkish image, think it was a stack of 5 and very heavily processed (too much),

2. Other two images as it was taken no guiding single exposures ISO 2000 30sec, and with a slight post-process tweak.

Not my best but this was around 4 years ago when I was first starting and only had my camera and no other equipment (or knowledge of AP).

You get better the more you do it, generally I find ISO 800-1600 is the sweet spot for traditional camera AP though it depends on the camera noise and local light pollution.

Milky Way is also better during the summer months when the galactic core is visible.

[Andy R]

6 hours ago, StuartT said:

I tried a stretch in Photoshop, but the histogram was already about right, so there wasn't much stretching to be done.

Yes, 10 sec was the longest exposure I could use and still get round stars (see original post). I was using the 10sec delay on my camera (to abolish shake). It's an EOS 750D

I'll try stacking next time then.

For Milkyway and nightscapes imaging I prefer to use Lightroom Classic/camera raw in photoshop, and have a play around with sliders to make it pop out. Definitely stack next time out thou 

E2a quick edit on my phone with Lightroom mobile. 

Edited November 1, 2021 by Andy R

[StuartT]

6 hours ago, Andy R said:

For Milkyway and nightscapes imaging I prefer to use Lightroom Classic/camera raw in photoshop, and have a play around with sliders to make it pop out. Definitely stack next time out thou 

E2a quick edit on my phone with Lightroom mobile. 

Thanks for doing this. I have Photoshop 6 which doesn't open Canon RAW files (.CR2)unfortunately. So I have to convert them to TIFF to fiddle about with them. 
I think TIFF is the same as RAW (as in it doesn't compress or lose information), but please correct me if I'm wrong

Edited November 2, 2021 by StuartT

[Andy R]

1 minute ago, StuartT said:

Thanks for doing this. I have Photoshop 6 which doesn't open Canon RAW files (.CR2). So I have to convert them to TIFF to fiddle about with them. 
I think TIFF is the same as RAW (as in it doesn't compress or lose information), but please correct me if I'm wrong

I believe you’re correct regarding Tiff files.     If you do stack images next time use Sequator (as suggested earlier it’s free) for Milky Way and nightscape images. Also another alternative to Lightroom/camera raw for editing images is Darktable, again another free bit of software that’s rather good.  Loads of videos on YouTube regarding above software, nightscape images & Alyn Wallace are worth watching for imaging and editing tips. Good luck and look forward to seeing your next image, especially for bottle 3 skies. 

[StuartT]

14 hours ago, Andy R said:

Good luck and look forward to seeing your next image, especially for bottle 3 skies. 

Ok, I just checked and the site is a Bortle 4 not 3.

The nearest Bortle 3 to me would be a 3h drive 

[900SL]

I shoot full frame 20s at ISO 1600 f2.5 in bortle 2-3, usually have a problem with low lying dust in the air and thermal noise here at 25N.

With an APS-C you will be limited somewhat, given the star trail limit. Much better if you can stack 16 images using Sequator and either composite the horizon using PS or AP, or use Sequators horizon fix mode

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 3, 2021 by 900SL

[Alien 13]

On 02/11/2021 at 00:21, StuartT said:

Thanks for doing this. I have Photoshop 6 which doesn't open Canon RAW files (.CR2)unfortunately. So I have to convert them to TIFF to fiddle about with them. 
I think TIFF is the same as RAW (as in it doesn't compress or lose information), but please correct me if I'm wrong

Try converting the RAW files to Adobe DNG format instead, the software is free and can be set up to do batch processing etc. The DNG file or "digital negative" is a lossless RAW format that is more universally accepted than the Canon one and can be opened in PS just like a normal RAW file.

Alan

[900SL]

2 hours ago, Alien 13 said:

Try converting the RAW files to Adobe DNG format instead, the software is free and can be set up to do batch processing etc. The DNG file or "digital negative" is a lossless RAW format that is more universally accepted than the Canon one and can be opened in PS just like a normal RAW file.

Alan

I do that with the D5600 RAW files as my version of Lightroom won't recognise the type of RAw file the D5600 uses. I think it is 'Adobe DNG Converter'.

Better using unstretched RAW 14 bit files to work on rather than TIFF (smaller and quicker to process)   

[AstroGee]

I convert all of my canon RAW or CRAW images to DNG before processing. It works out well.

A lot of the trickery comes about in PP (Post production). that's where additional patience come in!