My first wide milky way

[MintMark]

Well, this is something I never thought I would be able to photograph from my suburban back garden. Here is my first wide field milky way photo. That's my roof guttering in the top left and a tree top in the bottom middle :)

Canon EOS1000D, EFS10-22mm at 10mm, 18x15s exposures at f4 and ISO1600 from a fixed tripod. I stacked the raw files in deep sky stacker. For some reason it wouldn't stack more than 5 minutes worth in one go. The mushy corners are from the stacking.

I used pixinsight LE to adjust the curves, generate and subtract the light pollution gradient and do noise removal. The red blotches at bottom and right sides... I think more precise background generation might help. I had real problems trying to bring out the milky way "clouds" without blowing out the stars (and losing their colours) or enhancing the noise. I used the SGBNR feature to remove the noise and preserve the stars but I'm not sure if I overdid it.

Still, for no dark site and no tracking, I'm pretty pleased! Who needs an astrotrac? I can post a light frame if anyone wants to see the soupy sky I started with...

[Jon Foster]

I like the shot. It turned out pretty good. I'd like to see a light frame too.

Jon.

[MintMark]

Hi Jon, I'm glad you like it! Here is one of the light frames I started with. I did take 7 dark frames during the evening but no flat or bias frames. I've got a lot to learn when it comes to processing these images.

[Adrena1in]

Hi Mark, whereabouts in Hampshire are you? Can you see the Milky Way when you look up, or is the light pollution too bad? I can see it clearly where I am, (a few miles north of Winchester), but the LP is still bad towards Winchester one way and Kings Worthy another. Have to shoot straight up really.

I think you brought the MW out really nicely there. I see you got the Double Cluster and also the Andromeda Galaxy, M31. (About a quarter of the way in from the left and about 1cm up on the images posted here. Amazing that something 2.5 million light years away will appear clearly on a 10mm photo! :) )

[MintMark]

Hello Andrenal1n. I'm in Whiteley, just north of the M27 near Fareham. I'm sure the motorway lighting is the glow in the bottom right of my picture. It sounds like you're out in the country, relatively speaking :) I often wondered if the coast would be a good place to go... one whole direction with no light pollution.

Looking up that night I could barely see the milky way as a strip of faint cloudiness, and only because I knew where it should be. It could have easily been clouds, which was one reason for trying the picture.

You're right, there is so much in this picture. Put another way, there's polaris in the top left and altair towards the upper right. So that's the whole quadrant in one picture! Did you spot the coathanger in the middle of the top right quarter?

Now I know that short exposures from a fixed tripod can do this it has helped me decide that it's worth going further and getting a tracking mount. I'll be able to do lower ISO and longer focal lengths. I still haven't decided between a proper GEM (that can be autoguided) and an astrotrac.

[MidnightSun]

Way to go....Beauty...

[Adrena1in]

:) I often wondered if the coast would be a good place to go... one whole direction with no light pollution.

Now I know that short exposures from a fixed tripod can do this it has helped me decide that it's worth going further and getting a tracking mount.

Yeah, when the Challenge #4 thread appeared here, to shoot something fairly low in the southern skies, (not good for me at all), I contemplated driving down to the coast and setting up to see what sort of shot I could get. Just shooting the stars reflecting off the calm sea would be cool in itself. Maybe one day.

As for tracking mounts, I've got an EQ-5 which is excellent for mounting my camera on. At 10mm you could shoot for a good 4 or 5 minutes and get no trails at all. I'm soon hoping to get another (CG5) mount with a new scope I'm buying, plus I've seen an EQ6 in Reading I'm tempted by. If you're serious about wanting to perhaps get a mount then let me know, as I'll very soon have one for sale. You'd be welcome to borrow one and see how you get on before you commit to buying anything.

EDIT: I'm now definitely getting an EQ6 mount. So in a few days I'll either have one or two EQ5 mounts spare! ;)