Milkyway nightscapes

thank you for the information. I will be looking into these lenses and more than likely upgrading. I truly appreciate the information.

NCHANT wrote in post #18031724
Haven't posted in a while as been traveling and hosting a few workshops

Here's some shots from our travels:

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/GZFc​ZL 'The Milky Mirror' by Mikey Mack, on Flickr

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/HJBL​nt Opo's Milky Way by Mikey Mack, on Flickr

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/GSu8​7n 'Galactic Glacier' by Mikey Mack, on Flickr

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/HHkj​Rb 'Out of the Blue' by Mikey Mack, on Flickr

https://flic.kr/p/HgLs​UW'On Top o' the World' by Mikey Mack, on Flickr

https://flic.kr/p/HDF1​jVSpace Wool by Mikey Mack, on Flickr

wow to every shot!

mattmiller03 wrote in post #18031164
So I am very to the forum but loveeeee taking photos. Not super great at it but I am certainly learning. I have a Canon T3i and I am looking at taking that with me to Northwest Ontario in a few weeks to capture a few shots just like these one. I figure its sooooo far north that I should be able to capture some decent Milky Way shots.

My question is for those who are very good at this, will I be needing some kind of rotating attachment to my tripod so I don't get any star streaks in the photo on a 30 second exposure? Or will just my tripod be sufficient enough to capture what I want to get.

Any advice to getting a quality shot with my current equipment?


Canon T3i, Neewer Grip, Neewer NW670 Flash, Canon 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 IS, Canon 55-250 f/4-5.6 IS, PNY Elite 64gb U3 Class 10 card

I'm not sure how far "north" we're talking about here. But there are two or three immediate issues.

The core area of the Milky Way is the most interesting section with the brightest region and the densest dust lanes. Unfortunately that core region is located at declination -30º (which means if you traveled to some location 30º south of the equator then it would pass directly overhead.)

Problem #1: So back to "Northwest Ontario" -- which is quite large... if you're in, say, Thunder Bay (on the shore of Lake Superior -- so it's sort of "west" but not all that far north considering Ontario goes all the way to the Hudson Bay) then that would be roughly 49º North latitude... about 80º north of the core of the Milky Way. So that puts the core region at a mere 10º above the horizon line, which isn't that great. And it only gets lower the farther north you go.

Problem #2: The farther north you get... the less "night time" you get. In Thunder Bay it won't actually be truly "dark" until sometime between 11:30 and midnight (by midnight it is definitely "dark"). But since the Milky Way barely gets over the horizon from that far north, you have to wait until the Milky Way is nearly on the meridian (the imaginary line going from North to South which divides the "eastern" and "western" halves of the sky is called the "meridian" in astronomy. The Milky Way is there at roughly 1:00am this time of the year (maybe a little sooner). Incidentally... pre-dawn twilight starts at about 2:30am (no kidding!) That's just after the Milky Way crosses the meridian. You literally only get about 3 hours of true darkness.

The farther north you go, the less hours of dark you get (and the lower the Milky Way is).

Problem #3: The duration of your images will be very short with your current equipment.

Divide 375 by the focal length of your lens and that's the number of seconds you can shoot before the image starts to look smeared because the stars are starting to grow "tails" (due to the Earth's rotation). So at 18mm it's 375 ÷ 18 = 21 seconds. That's not a very long exposure time.

To go longer (and allow for a lower ISO) there are a few options.

First is to use a wider lens. Rokinon makes a couple of lenses that are particularly wide... they make a 14mm f/2.8, a 12mm f/2.8, a 10mm f/2.8, and an 8mm f/3.5.

At 8mm you could shoot for nearly 47 seconds without star trails or smearing. But it is an f/3.5 lens. They also have a 10mm f/2.8 lens. That drops the exposure time down to 37.5 seconds (you might be able to push it to 40) and it's about 2/3rds of a stop faster so it's probably a better choice in terms of exposure options.

You could use also use a tracking head (e.g. Sky Watcher Star-Adventurer or iOptron SkyTracker are probably the more popular and more affordable.) Since the camera would be polar aligned (the camera can point anywhere you want, but the tracking head has it's axis of ration parallel to the Earth's axis of rotation so as the planet spins from west to east, the tracking head spins from east to west at the same rate and this "holds" objects in the field of view without moving. This means that not only can you naturally shoot longer exposure (a LOT longer) you also don't have to try to find the widest angle lens you can get your hands on... you can shoot with long lenses too.

There are some gorgeous deep-space nebulae that would look nice even with a 300mm lens -- but it's best to shoot these with a "modified" camera (internal UV/IR filter removed and replaced with a filter that allows for greater transmission of Hydrogen alpha wavelengths, but that does screw up the camera for normal photography so most people get a dedicated camera for this.)

Getting Milky Way shots works best if you can get farther south.

WOW!! Great information!!!!!!!!! I truly appreciate you taking the time to really explain all this to me. It is becoming evident that my basic equipment isn't the best (which I certainly knew when I bought it years ago) and I need to do some updating. I am totally fascinated by Astronomy Photography and I know that I must upgrade here soon.

I am going to a small town called Perrault Falls, Ontario. If you Google Maps the location its a ways up there. I go every year with my dad to go fishing and never took into consideration just how far north it would be and how far away I would be from the milky way.

While the Milky Way may not be a good choice for you, you could probably get some great nightscape shots using mountains and such in the foreground. There's plenty of other cool shots to get other than the MW...just look around up there, I'm sure you'll find plenty to shoot.

might have to switch up my strategy to do more landscape and wildlife photos. Oh well. Not a big deal. It was worth looking into. I am glad I asked questions on here before I went up and didn't get the shots I was looking for and got disappointed.

mattmiller03 wrote in post #18031951
might have to switch up my strategy to do more landscape and wildlife photos. Oh well. Not a big deal. It was worth looking into. I am glad I asked questions on here before I went up and didn't get the shots I was looking for and got disappointed.

If you really want to know more info also and see images people are posting from way up north in the UK check out this forum . These guys produce images some I've never seen cause Texas is way too low for the most part but not only are they knowledgeable about everything up north but mechanical wise is read stuff that is just amazing at things they do to get an image . Check it , maybe join if you want to ask them questions .

http://ukastroimaging.​co.uk/forums/index.php​?action=forum

thank you! I will certainly check it out for sure!!

mattmiller03 wrote in post #18031933
WOW!! Great information!!!!!!!!! I truly appreciate you taking the time to really explain all this to me. It is becoming evident that my basic equipment isn't the best (which I certainly knew when I bought it years ago) and I need to do some updating. I am totally fascinated by Astronomy Photography and I know that I must upgrade here soon.

I am going to a small town called Perrault Falls, Ontario. If you Google Maps the location its a ways up there. I go every year with my dad to go fishing and never took into consideration just how far north it would be and how far away I would be from the milky way.

Wave when you go through on the way up to Perrault Falls.

This was shot on the 502 just south of Dryden. It may not be the core but on a clear, dark night the milky way is visible with the naked eye.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/BDwP​Vc

This one was a beast to put together, had some alignment issues and I'm not happy about the high thin clouds (along with the airglow) that moved in and killed a lot of detail in the Rho Ophiuchi region. Altogether it's final resolution came out to ~17,000x~9,000 pixels, 3 rows of 4 shots per row shot with my Nikon D600 and Rokinon 85mm f1.4 lens.

PDX and NCHANT I wish you two could get together=both such brilliant and artistic minds. You two rule the MW!!!

I stop in Dryden every year to have breakfast at the Husky Gas Station and also to get my fishing license as well.

The reclining on a log shot is cool, but I love the close-up with the mountain and Antares

Even though the MW isn't as apparent in it, I love the third photo Nchant!

I've debated sharing this image. I know it is no where near as good as the stunning images in this thread but then again it's my first attempt.

Honestly the fact I was able to find it in the sky and that excitement when the exposure finishes and you see it on the lcd screen has me hooked. My wallet is about to get a bit lighter, planning on buying a 12mm f2 rokinon/Samyang lens.

Any suggestions and help would be greatly appreciated. Hoping to eventually get a nice panorama I can print on metal.

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