Milkyway nightscapes

S.R.M. wrote in post #17964323
Always wear a hard hat when observing through a telescope... otherwise you might get hit in the head by a meteor!

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/FME2​sc Meteor by Stephen Mudge, on Flickr

HA! That is so awesome, what lucky timing!

Forgot to post this one, this picture has just about everything celestial you could image, including the brightest meteor I saw on the trip, and Comet LINEAR. On the left side the first light of sunrise is just starting, in the middle the moon (only 11% illuminated at that time) had just come above the horizon, and the Milky Way was at its peak height for the night with the Andromeda Galaxy also rising (on the left just above the cloud). Altogether 16 separate shots were used to stitch together the whole image.

All shots were 1 minute exposures, f2.8, ISO 1600, the Skytracker turned on for the sky and off for the foreground, then stitched in PTGui and processed in Photoshop/Lightroom.:

That is a great image.

pdxbenedetti wrote in post #17964833
Forgot to post this one, this picture has just about everything celestial you could image, including the brightest meteor I saw on the trip, and Comet LINEAR. On the left side the first light of sunrise is just starting, in the middle the moon (only 11% illuminated at that time) had just come above the horizon, and the Milky Way was at its peak height for the night with the Andromeda Galaxy also rising (on the left just above the cloud). Altogether 16 separate shots were used to stitch together the whole image.

All shots were 1 minute exposures, f2.8, ISO 1600, the Skytracker turned on for the sky and off for the foreground, then stitched in PTGui and processed in Photoshop/Lightroom.:

Been super busy with family engagements the last few days and have had zero time to edit more pictures, hopefully I'll have some more time this weekend. Looking forward to putting together all the timelapse photos I took.

That is absolutely stunning. Can I ask what your 16 shots covered? Is it 8 shots with tracker switched on to cover whole area and 8 identical shots with tracker switched off for foreground or did it take 16 shots to cover entire view?

It was 11 shots with the tracker turned on for the sky and then 5 shots with the tracker turned off for the foreground. One really big thing I've learned is that when you do these kinds of shots before sunrise it is REALLY important to get your images of the horizon nearest to the sunrise first, if you do them last the contrast between the horizon to sky transition becomes extreme and can leave artifacts when you try and merge shots of the sky with shots of the foreground. Blending shots like that means you need to have exposure levels at the transition point that are very near to each other, otherwise it looks awful. Mountains and trees on the horizon are tough, you can see the mountains on the right are very blue because of Rayleigh scattering of light from the moon/sunrise casts a very blue hue on them or behind them.

pdxbenedetti wrote in post #17964934
It was 11 shots with the tracker turned on for the sky and then 5 shots with the tracker turned off for the foreground. One really big thing I've learned is that when you do these kinds of shots before sunrise it is REALLY important to get your images of the horizon nearest to the sunrise first, if you do them last the contrast between the horizon to sky transition becomes extreme and can leave artifacts when you try and merge shots of the sky with shots of the foreground. Blending shots like that means you need to have exposure levels at the transition point that are very near to each other, otherwise it looks awful. Mountains and trees on the horizon are tough, you can see the mountains on the right are very blue because of Rayleigh scattering of light from the moon/sunrise casts a very blue hue on them or behind them.

thanks for the info

Gifted work. MOVE to Utah please and keep posting these.

MedicineMan4040 wrote in post #17964954
Gifted work. MOVE to Utah please and keep posting these.

Lol, I already live there, in Salt Lake City. It's a 3-4 hour drive to places like this for me, so not too bad.

pdxbenedetti wrote in post #17964832
HA! That is so awesome, what lucky timing!

Thanks! I was doing a timelapse and this was one of the frames.

Different Focal lenghts from the same position.

Nikon D600
Rokinon 14mm 2.8, @ f 2.8, 25'', iso 2000
Rokinon 35mm 1.4, @ f 3.2, 15'', iso 5000
Nikon 85mm 1.8G, @ f 2.8, 6'', iso 5000

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/FX2d​sU

aeroxmax4 wrote in post #17965249
Different Focal lenghts from the same position.

Nikon D600
Rokinon 14mm 2.8, @ f 2.8, 25'', iso 2000
Rokinon 35mm 1.4, @ f 3.2, 15'', iso 5000
Nikon 85mm 1.8G, @ f 2.8, 6'', iso 5000

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/FX2d​sU Focal lenghts by Giulio A. DAngelo, en Flickr

Funny that you tried this, during my trip last weekend I decided to experiment with surrealistic composition, I took roughly 1 hours worth of shots of the Milky Way core with my Nikon D600 and 50mm f1.8 lens on my skytracker mount. Then after I finished those exposures I took the 50mm lens off and put my 24mm lens on and took a foreground shot (I had started a fire to stay warm while I was sitting around waiting for the Milky Way shots to finish). I stacked the 50mm shots in Photoshop and edited them, then layered it over the 24mm foreground shot, this was the result:

Well that's pretty amazing!

pdxbenedetti wrote in post #17965956
Funny that you tried this, during my trip last weekend I decided to experiment with surrealistic composition, I took roughly 1 hours worth of shots of the Milky Way core with my Nikon D600 and 50mm f1.8 lens on my skytracker mount. Then after I finished those exposures I took the 50mm lens off and put my 24mm lens on and took a foreground shot (I had started a fire to stay warm while I was sitting around waiting for the Milky Way shots to finish). I stacked the 50mm shots in Photoshop and edited them, then layered it over the 24mm foreground shot, this was the result:

Wow! This is crazily detailed! I love how all nebulas are perfectly visible and give a very good feelfor the dimensions and layers! Thank you very much for postingthat!

pdxbenedetti wrote in post #17965956
Funny that you tried this, during my trip last weekend I decided to experiment with surrealistic composition, I took roughly 1 hours worth of shots of the Milky Way core with my Nikon D600 and 50mm f1.8 lens on my skytracker mount. Then after I finished those exposures I took the 50mm lens off and put my 24mm lens on and took a foreground shot (I had started a fire to stay warm while I was sitting around waiting for the Milky Way shots to finish). I stacked the 50mm shots in Photoshop and edited them, then layered it over the 24mm foreground shot, this was the result:

You're editing and photoshop skills are as awesome as you ideas and camera skills. I wish I had your skills.

OK, Poof (the she-boss) tells me we are headed to Utah in either June or July.
Should I pack the Rokinon 14mm?
and do you want to give lessons
I'll double check with her but I think she said we're camping at Natural Bridges Nat. Mon.