Shooting the milky way galaxy

[jkshyt]

Hello everyone,
I have a question, I searched the forum and didn't find my answer.
Has anyone shot the milky way, if so; what lens, iso & aperture did you find worked best. Also, did you use; a single exposure, stacked or use a star tracker or something similar for a longer exposure?
Thanks in advance.

[Ken MT]

Have a look at this for starters.
https://petapixel.com/2015/01/06/avo...wing-500-rule/

then
https://petapixel.com/2019/03/11/a-g...the-milky-way/

[ST1]

You could look at this too, their App is great, not just for milky way images but photography in general. The downside it isn't free but in my opinion worth its cost.

https://www.photopills.com/articles/...entric-planner


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[jkshyt]

You could look at this too, their App is great, not just for milky way images but photography in general. The downside it isn't free but in my opinion worth its cost.

https://www.photopills.com/articles/...entric-planner


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Thank you, I have and use the app it is absolutely wonderful! I have yet to get an image worthy of printing though.

[jkshyt]

Have a look at this for starters.
https://petapixel.com/2015/01/06/avo...wing-500-rule/

then
https://petapixel.com/2019/03/11/a-g...the-milky-way/

Thank you!

[PentaxCharlie65]

I'm not an astrophotography expert by any any stretch of anyone's imagination, but have taken a couple shots with a little success. Essentially use a wide angle, shoot wide open, high ISO, and try to keep the exposure time to less than 30 seconds to avoid star trails. Also, use a sturdy, stable tripod. Attached photo is not excellent, just an example of what can be obtained. Photo taken with Pentax K-x, 18-55m kit lens at 18mm, f5, exposure time 15 sec, ISO 3200.

[xpatUSA]

I'm not an astrophotography expert by any any stretch of anyone's imagination, but have taken a couple shots with a little success. Essentially use a wide angle, shoot wide open, high ISO, and try to keep the exposure time to less than 30 seconds to avoid star trails. Also, use a sturdy, stable tripod. Attached photo is not excellent, just an example of what can be obtained. Photo taken with Pentax K-x, 18-55m kit lens at 18mm, f5, exposure time 15 sec, ISO 3200.

Not bad, Charles.

Is shooting wide-open the norm in astro-photography? I wondered about more sharpness offered by going down a stop or two.

[xpatUSA]

Originally Posted by PentaxCharlie65 Essentially use a wide angle, shoot wide open, high ISO, and try to keep the exposure time to less than 30 seconds ...

Is shooting wide-open the norm in astro-photography? I wondered about more sharpness offered by going down a stop or two.

Anybody?

[Astro]

In general astrophotography is practised without stopping down the telescope or camera lens. Light values are so low, capturing as much light as possible is the main aim.

Sharpness/focus is achieved using a Bahtinov Mask (https://astrobackyard.com/bahtinov-mask/) to create a symetric diffraction pattern for stars. (When focus is off, the diffraction pattern is asymetric.)

On the relatively rare occasions I have photographed a panoramic Milky Way I have exposed first for the Sky/Milky Way using maximum aperture. I then exposed specifically for the horizon/foreground. I have then bleded the results from the stack of sky images with the best of the fewer foreground images I may have taken.

I usually capture a sequence of images of the Milky Way in order to stack them. (As an alternative capture process I have sometimes used the video feature and then extracted a series of key frames for stacking).

As regards camera/lens combinations and exposure/ISO settings for the captures, experimentation with a range of settings is usually the way to proceed. It is fairly obvious that if a tracking mount is used, longer exposures and lower ISO setting are feasible.

I would guess that it is usually more likely that a tracking mount is not used for this type ofpanoramic captures, in which case relatively short exposures are necessary. There are a number of tables available on various astrophotography websites give appropriate exposure times to avoid star trails, thoigh again it is reativly easy to experiment to get an optimum image.

[xpatUSA]

thank you very much, James!

More than meets the eye, eh?

TTFN.