Milky Way in colour

[A.S.I.G.N. Observatory]

This one was fun to do.

Ten images on the static tripod, 35 seconds each. Four x darks subtracted.

Canon 400D
EFS 18-55mm lens
ISO1600

I turned up the saturation a touch as I was going for something dramatic.

I hope you like it.

Baz.

[Chopper Al]

Huge friggin' gulp!!!!

That is so beautiful. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I wish we could see stuff like that with our eyes!

Al

[ebann]

That's what I'm talking about! Who needs a telescope? Let's seem some more!

[ryn]

Amazing! :D

[Mr. Plow]

nice one mate. did you shoot this on the site of the observatory? or somewhere else in canberra?

[Karl Johnston]

Huge friggin' gulp!!!!

That is so beautiful. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I wish we could see stuff like that with our eyes!

Al
In my dreams I can :)

[Bollan]

Amazing shot. Your pp technique is seriously good!!!

[jgrussell]

Wow. Gorgeous. Just gorgeous.

[Aidenswarrior]

amazing work

[Jon Foster]

Ten images on the static tripod, 35 seconds each. Four x darks subtracted.

Baz.

Wow, very striking shot! What does the "Four x darks subtracted" mean?

Jon.

[Anke]

Yep, that's amazing! :)

[Maureen Souza]

Just beautiful!! WOW!!!

[MidnightSun]

Yea.......Baz.....:D:cool:;):D

[A.S.I.G.N. Observatory]

nice one mate. did you shoot this on the site of the observatory? or somewhere else in canberra?

Thanks to everyone for your kind comments.

Mr. Plow, I drove out to a place called Corin Forrest, about half an hour to the south west of Canberra in the mountains and set up in the scrub where I would not be disturbed.

Wow, very striking shot! What does the "Four x darks subtracted" mean?

Jon.
Jon, its a technique involving taking matching exposures with the lens cap on, which when registered with the actual image, is recognised for any "False light" in the dark shot and subtracted from the image.

Baz.:cool:

[Jon Foster]

Thanks for the explanation. I'll have to read up on it a bit.

Jon.

[CustomMinds]

good photo.

[Celestron]

Another nice one Baz !

[timescapes.org]

Beautiful colors here, Baz. What was the color temp?

[Finklenator]

nice

[evorgsumaf]

This one was fun to do.

Ten images on the static tripod, 35 seconds each. Four x darks subtracted.

Canon 400D
EFS 18-55mm lens
ISO1600

I turned up the saturation a touch as I was going for something dramatic.

I hope you like it.

Baz.

So you didn't move the camera? How come you don't get the trails? I tried this once, and the stars started to trail. You make it sound so easy, maybe I should give it another go.

[Bill Boehme]

Absolutely beautiful and skillful work, Baz. My appetite for getting into astrophotography is really being whetted by the nice images that you have been posting. I also appreciate all of your hard work in making a really useful website.

I have been slowly rebuilding an old Criterion Dynamax 8 SCT (work has been stalled for quite a while due to back surgery) and all these great images have inspired me to get busy and finish rebuilding it. Folks on astronomy forums have mostly said that the Dynamax is junk, but I got it for free, so it is hard to complain about the price. I had a knowledgable astronomer give it a quick check and he pronounced it as being good optically.

So you didn't move the camera? How come you don't get the trails? I tried this once, and the stars started to trail. You make it sound so easy, maybe I should give it another go.

My guess is that the stacking software takes care of aligning the individual exposures. Since they are only 10 seconds each, the amount of motion is negligible in an image this size.

[A.S.I.G.N. Observatory]

Thanks again everyone!:D

Beautiful colors here, Baz. What was the color temp? Thanks Tom, can you clarify? I'm not sure what you are asking. You mean the ambient temperature at the time of shooting? There was snow on the ground so it was pretty darned cold.:lol:

So you didn't move the camera? How come you don't get the trails? I tried this once, and the stars started to trail. You make it sound so easy, maybe I should give it another go.
That's right mate, I didn't move the camera. Each 35 second shot was taken successively one after the other. At 18mm, star trailing is not very noticeable in 35 seconds. Any longer it would have been though.

Deep Sky Stacker will look at each picture and even though each frame has a tiny amount of extra stars on one edge, while losing some off the other edge, it will stack them so that the stars all align with each frame.

Absolutely beautiful and skillful work, Baz. My appetite for getting into astrophotography is really being whetted by the nice images that you have been posting. I also appreciate all of your hard work in making a really useful website.

I have been slowly rebuilding an old Criterion Dynamax 8 SCT (work has been stalled for quite a while due to back surgery) and all these great images have inspired me to get busy and finish rebuilding it. Folks on astronomy forums have mostly said that the Dynamax is junk, but I got it for free, so it is hard to complain about the price. I had a knowledgable astronomer give it a quick check and he pronounced it as being good optically.



My guess is that the stacking software takes care of aligning the individual exposures. Since they are only 10 seconds each, the amount of motion is negligible in an image this size.
Glad to hear it bill and very pleased I could provide some small inspiration. Go for it with that rebuild mate, I have rebuilt and restored a couple of antique telescopes and found it most rewarding.

Baz.

[gcflora]

That's right mate, I didn't move the camera. Each 35 second shot was taken successively one after the other. At 18mm, star trailing is not very noticeable in 35 seconds. Any longer it would have been though.

Deep Sky Stacker will look at each picture and even though each frame has a tiny amount of extra stars on one edge, while losing some off the other edge, it will stack them so that the stars all align with each frame.


Thanks, Baz! I subscribed to this thread hoping that you'd answer that question. I am up at Springbrook behind the Gold Coast and there are clear skies at the moment. If all goes well I'll spend a few hours outside tonight trying to take my first star or galaxy photos. Thanks for the explanation.

Cheers, Craig

[evorgsumaf]

hat's right mate, I didn't move the camera. Each 35 second shot was taken successively one after the other. At 18mm, star trailing is not very noticeable in 35 seconds. Any longer it would have been though.

So is the key here the 18mm? If you were to zoom into say 200mm, you would have to use less shutter time, maybe 20 seconds instead of 35? (does that make sense?)

[A.S.I.G.N. Observatory]

So is the key here the 18mm? If you were to zoom into say 200mm, you would have to use less shutter time, maybe 20 seconds instead of 35? (does that make sense?)
The more you zoom in the longer the startrails will be for a given period. You need the time to gather the faint light.

My advice is unless you have some sort of polar aligned sidereal tracking mount, then stick to 18mm or less...

[BigB778]

Nice shot.. After reading this post and seeing the shot you got,i think i may have a use for my efs 18-55 after all... Good work

[markjpcs]

Very nice shot Baz!

[GPFocussed]

That is a beautiful photo. This is a great example demonstrating you don't need elaborate equipment to take great astronomy shots.

I have one question regarding this capture. Since you can't see it with your naked eye in the sky how do you know where to line up the camera to capture the milky way? Do you just line up certain stars and if so which ones?

[markjpcs]

You can see the Milky Way with your naked eye.

The Andromeda Galaxy and quite a few Messier Objects are also a naked eye objects.

Under dark enough skies that is.

[Jim06GTO]

Amazing photo! Thanks for sharing

[A.S.I.G.N. Observatory]

That is a beautiful photo. This is a great example demonstrating you don't need elaborate equipment to take great astronomy shots.

I have one question regarding this capture. Since you can't see it with your naked eye in the sky how do you know where to line up the camera to capture the milky way? Do you just line up certain stars and if so which ones?

From this particular dark site, I could see nearly everything in this photo with my naked eye. The difference is it had little or no visible colour naked eye and was substantially dimmer.

I can still see it all from my suburban home, but greatly reduced by light pollution.

[GPFocussed]

Thanks for the heads up Markjpcs & Baz! I will be heading north this weekend and I will give it a try!

[ejicon]

Which way to the milky way!!! :)