Thread: How to shoot the Milky Way?

I went out to the Black Rock desert Saturday night, and I wanted to try my hand at shooting the milky way. I've seen many spectacular shots of it, this one is pretty much what I am going for:


**Milky Way, by Dan Newton of Liquid in Plastic***

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I totally failed at the Milky Way, but I did get a nice star trail shot:



I failed because:
-there was a new moon at about 5% still too high in the sky. It is PITCH black out there, and after a few minutes out of the car, we could see the ground and our shadows.
-I don't know what I am doing well enough yet to pull it off

So what are the key ingredients to a good milky way shot?
I'll start with what I do (think I) know:
-20-30 second exposures to not get star trails, can't stack without tracking motor...that's what gets you the real vivid star colors (but can't have a foreground)
-Cable release / sturdy tripod
-No wind
-new or no moon is better
-Mirror Lockup / Live View
-Low ISO to keep noise down (? Right? A lot of the ones on Flickr say ISO 3200...?)
-Zero ambient light in the sky, which means sunset / moonset were at least two hours before you shoot
-Something interesting in the foreground, light to paint it with

Where am I wrong or missing a key ingredient? I really want to learn how to do this.

Would some of those shots above be ground/sky composites?

The way these types of shots are made is by jacking up the ISO to 1600-3200 to keep the exposure short to eliminate star trails. This is only now possible with newer bodies that have extremely low noise sensors--5D II, 1D IV, D3x etc.

In the past you'd have to use a motorized mount to track the stars.

Your list is good, except you want high ISO -- that lets you get enough starlight with short exposures. How long of an exposure you need depends on the focal length you're shooting at.

At 18mm, I can get up to 60 seconds with very little trailing like this (single frame at 54s):


At 35mm, I can only do about 15s before I get trails.

Many of the pics you posted as examples above are most likely composites (except for the second one).

The way to get good Milky Way shots is to either track the stars with a l-o-n-g exposure, or shoot lots of short exposures (no star trailing) and then stack them. The latter is the preferred method since it reduces noise. In either case though, any stationary object will show trailing. You'll then have to drop in a foreground to create a composite.

Here's a stack of the Milky Way in Cassiopeia (including Andromeda Galaxy) -- stack of about 15 10s frames on a static tripod:

Hey lane.

Check out this website (the forum)

Lot's of good info.


www.timescapes.org

I gave it a shot last night....











Wrong time of year / time of night I think. Found Cassiopeia but it was setting and low on the horizon.

Settings were ISO 1600, 2000, or 3200, 30 seconds. EF-S 10-22 at 10mm, MF. Processing was ACR --> Pshop --> Curves Adj. layer --> Neat Image for noise reduction --> JPG.

Anyone else have any pointers? I have a 50mm 1/8, tried that with lower ISO but on a 1.6x body the field of view is just too limited to show much.

Nice shots. Looks like you maybe caught a few globular clusters (#1 top left of center, #2 and 4 left of center)?

At 10mm, you could easily go 60 seconds or more and get a lot more stars without much noticeable trailing.

If you're getting Cassiopeia, look for Andromeda. I got this with a stack of 10 frames at 8s each (35mm, ISO1600):


A close crop of Andromeda from the above:

Those are dope Fuzz. I really want to try stacking next time too.

Hey can you recommend a good website that has a star chart app that updates for lat/lon and day, and has the milky way band on it? I used to have a great one on my ipod buy my wife thought it was dirty so she put it through the washing machine.

A good area to shoot at this time of year is the Milky Way through Cygnus. It rises around 10-11pm or so and is thick with stars and a very prominent dust band.

My first ever astro-shot last summer of Cygnus:

Originally Posted by Lane Meyer

Those are dope Fuzz. I really want to try stacking next time too.

Thanks. DeepSkyStacker is a free stacking program and very easy to use. Only thing is, you have to do a decent amount of post-processing to get the best out of the final stacked image.

Hey can you recommend a good website that has a star chart app that updates for lat/lon and day, and has the milky way band on it?

I use Stellarium, which is a great free software for planning -- has everything you need/want without being too bloaty (like Microsoft's World Wide Telescope). For when I don't have access to my laptop, I use Sky & Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas, which is one of the most widely used star atlases around.

Originally Posted by Lane Meyer

I gave it a shot last night....

I dig the gelled strobe on the foreground, it adds a lot of visual interest to the photo.

Have you thought about light painting the tree tops?

Originally Posted by dipstik

I dig the gelled strobe on the foreground, it adds a lot of visual interest to the photo.

I doubt that's a strobe. Long exposure and some very faint ambient light maybe.

Ha. It's a Petzyl. Regular old blue LED headlamp. I tried to paint the treetops, but my wimpy headlamp was too weak. Maybe I should get a 1,000,000 candlepower torch next time I'm at Cabela's. Or, I could have flashed the car headlights too.