# Milky Way



## buckas (Jun 13, 2008)

After the disappointment of the meteor shower (cloudy!) a few weeks back the day after was crystal clear so went down to Elegug (Guillemot in Welsh) Stacks near me about midnight ~ went here as it's pretty much closest south facing point near me and knew where the Milky Way would be situated thanks to Stellarium great bit of free software for seeing where stars etc reside :thumb:

Tried to get some meteors aswell but none came out on camera but we saw some right stunners.

Read up astro photography leading up to it and settings were as follows:

Overall photo made up of 3 vertical sections stitched together each comprising of 4 photos taken at 25 seconds each @ f/4, ISO 3200 then stacked & lined up so as not to show trails (trail attempt gonna do soon) and "lighten" used in PS on each layer. Then the base image was 2 minutes @ f/4, ISO 3200 ( will remember to take big torch next time to paint the cliffs in on a shorter exposure) then comped in on PS.

Orange clouds are light pollution from I'd imagine the top coast of Devon, also had a lighthouse from Lundy on the image but cloned it out.










_5D Mark II & 17-40 f/4L_

Cheers for looking (and reading!) :thumb:

drew


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## Maggi200 (Aug 21, 2009)

Love it. The base rocks are too dark for my liking, but obvisouly the focus is on the sky and I love it! I would love to try some of this some time soon!


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## JoeAVS1 (Jul 8, 2008)

wow wow wow !!! Love that


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## Maxtor (Feb 23, 2007)

What a fantastic image. Truly blown away mate.

Love it. :thumb:


Maxtor.


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## bretti_kivi (Apr 22, 2008)

I think you need to come up here where light pollution is pretty much unknown 

Trails are cool, but I have a big hotpixel problem 

this was from Germany... I like the idea, I will be redoing with longer exposures, a power supply and at the summer house, i.e *complete* darkness










EXIF says 620s @ f8 / ISO 100. No filters. Hth!

Bret


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## Sharpy (Mar 25, 2007)

That is fabulous, I love it, I would have that hung on a wall!


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## buckas (Jun 13, 2008)

thanks guys



bretti_kivi said:


> I think you need to come up here where light pollution is pretty much unknown
> 
> Trails are cool, but I have a big hotpixel problem
> 
> ...


nice - it's pretty low here as well, as long as you're not looking towards the refineries 

my next attempt at night shots will be star trails

the trick is you don't need to have the shutter open forever - download this > http://www.startrails.de/html/software.html

basically shoot loads of shots at about 20s /f4 - ISO 1600 or whatever is even on motordrive/shutter release locked (otherwise if you leave it too long in between shots you will get gaps in the trails) and then shoot some shots with the same settings with the lens cap on, basically you use these frames in the final complilation image in "Startrails" to remove hot pixels/noise and jobs a goodun

the trick is to get loads of light in as possible hence the f/4 and high ISO - I thought the opposite prior to reading up on Astro photography as I approach it thinking maximum DOF/high f number but it's not the case just make sure the focus is spot on the stars

also will probably shoot it in the north of our county near the coast as no light pollution as will be needing to shoot north including polaris so I get some spin :thumb:

drew


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## Gruffs (Dec 10, 2007)

Awesome.

Really, really nice. As Sharpy said, it would look great on the wall.

Your cam has some really good high ISO performance huh (and a really good lens)?

This for me is the biggest limiting factor of my D40. I cannot go over ISO400 without getting horrendous noise on night and low light shots.

Not to mention the lack of experience and talent in general

It's so, so frustrating.


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## Auto Detox (Dec 22, 2007)

Awesome shots guys, very impressive the amount of work that goes into them

Baz


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## partrir (Mar 31, 2009)

Absolutley stunning. Well done. I'ld have that on my wall any day.


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## GIZTO29 (May 8, 2009)

partrir said:


> Absolutley stunning. Well done. I'ld have that on my wall any day.


Well put!:thumb: This is what inspires me
Phil


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