Milkyway nightscapes

Finally got down to the Goblin Valley area to try my hand at photography. Weather was good except for the wind which was pretty gusty last night. Anyways my very first milky way shot, hope you all like, also getting to see the milky way from north to south with no light pollution for the first time in maybe 20 years was spectacular!

Nice shot, Goblin Valley is one of my favorite places in the state, incredibly dark skies and much less crowded compared to the Moab area.

HorribleAvatar wrote in post #18118354
Finally got down to the Goblin Valley area to try my hand at photography. Weather was good except for the wind which was pretty gusty last night. Anyways my very first milky way shot, hope you all like, also getting to see the milky way from north to south with no light pollution for the first time in maybe 20 years was spectacular!

Wow, awesome shot!

A short clip of a 5+ hour timelapse I shot recently.

rezcar wrote in post #18118446
Wow, awesome shot!

A short clip of a 5+ hour timelapse I shot recently.

Awesome vid!!

Thanks! I hiked to the Wild Horse Window in the morning and I gotta say you're quite the trooper for hiking that with all your camera gear. I just took my phone and by the time I got there I was exhausted.

Arataki Visitor Centre about 20 minute drive outside of Downtown Auckland.

Amazing the shots we can get this close to New Zealand's biggest city !

2 shot vertical pano. A7mkii with Samyang 24mm F1.4

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/LXgY​vt

The Linn Cove Viaduct: one of the most popular stretches of the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/CqCK​T9

NPuter wrote in post #18123350
The Linn Cove Viaduct: one of the most popular stretches of the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina.

Outstanding! I've been up that way many times, but I see I'll have to try it at night now!

Thought I'd toss this one in here. Trying new techniques for dealing with light pollution. Even though its in a pretty dark area, there's a town right over the ridge that plays havoc with me.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/M8s2​vg

It seems like you managed it very well. Nice detail in the MW

My contribution

Serra d'Arga - Portugal

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/M755​Qy

For people who are getting these milkyway shots, are they visible to the naked eye already? I can't ever make out the milky way by eye and cannot capture any of it, but I know I'm not in the best place (atl, ga + 2 hours away). I'm not sure if I'm doing it wrong or just trying the impossible. Sorry I don't have any examples of what I've got. I can get a bunch of stars, and during the perseids I got an outline if you're imaginative lol. I'm giving it ~20-30 seconds depending, trying with f2.8 - f10 mixed with a little higher iso in some and 100 iso in others, but they all come out unable to see the milkyway.
any comments would be helpful, thanks!

pradag wrote in post #18127395
For people who are getting these milkyway shots, are they visible to the naked eye already? I can't ever make out the milky way by eye and cannot capture any of it, but I know I'm not in the best place (atl, ga + 2 hours away). I'm not sure if I'm doing it wrong or just trying the impossible. Sorry I don't have any examples of what I've got. I can get a bunch of stars, and during the perseids I got an outline if you're imaginative lol. I'm giving it ~20-30 seconds depending, trying with f2.8 - f10 mixed with a little higher iso in some and 100 iso in others, but they all come out unable to see the milkyway.
any comments would be helpful, thanks!

Keep in mind the Milky Way, like the moon, goes in phases as the earth rotates, it (the core) is not visible all night long and is only visible from ~March-late September. If the moon is up you won't see the Milky Way, it's too bright, you might be able to get some images with a faint Milky Way, but it won't be visible at all by eye. Use this website to find dark skies (good luck around ATL), for reference I can barely make out the Milky Way core by eye from a yellow/orange zone even on good nights:

http://darksitefinder.​com/maps/world.html

In a green zone it starts becoming more apparent, from a blue zone it's pretty obvious and from a grey or darker zone you can make out clear detail. From the darkest areas of Utah I can walk around at night without a flashlight because the stars/Milky Way is bright enough once my eyes adjust and I can clearly see dust lanes.

For camera settings (depending on your camera and lens) I would start with a 30 second exposure at ISO 1600 and as wide open as your lens will go (f2.8), that should produce an image of of the core that's pretty obvious, but you might have star trails depending on your focal length. From there you can work on dialing in the settings for your particular camera and lens. For more information, this is the single best astrophotography/Milky Way tutorial series (IMO) on the internet:

http://www.clarkvision​.com/articles/nightsca​pes/