Photo of Milky Way from Plane

I am fascinated about this picture but certainly am stumped as to how well it was taken, from a moving plane. Read on...I would like to know your thoughts...

http://petapixel.com …window-airplane-atlantic/

Could this pic really be a composite? I mean a 10 sec exposure inside a plane....dont know. Kudos to the guy if Im wrong though.

probably not a composite. if you crackup your ISO really high, and the lens aperture is bright enough your shutter speed can be cut down to 1-2 seconds.

Not quite sure for this particular image, but I have seen the very similar image with all the exposure settings provided.

The one I've seen was taken in the airplane to Australia and the guy who took the image shot at 2 seconds with high ISO. probably you'll need very good latest model that can suppress the digital noise very well tho.

thanboora wrote in post #16977924
probably not a composite. if you crackup your ISO really high, and the lens aperture is bright enough your shutter speed can be cut down to 1-2 seconds.

Not quite sure for this particular image, but I have seen the very similar image with all the exposure settings provided.

The one I've seen was taken in the airplane to Australia and the guy who took the image shot at 2 seconds with high ISO. probably you'll need very good latest model that can suppress the digital noise very well tho.

Yeah but he claims a 10 second exposure and used a XSi....not that good handling noise.

Brain Mechanic wrote in post #16977928
Yeah but he claims a 10 second exposure and used a XSi....not that good handling noise.

ah.. apology for not reading all through it. Didn't know of what the actual photographer mentioned about his/her settings....

Then....I might have the same question....

Maybe plane's flight is quite stable and thinking that stars are very very far in distance that 10 seconds actually was a feasible setting??
I'm just guessing...

They explain it in the comments. The light source is so far away the 10 second exposure doesn't mean much. The earth is always moving faster than any jet and we still take pictures from earth.

chevyzen wrote in post #16977942
They explain it in the comments. The light source is so far away the 10 second exposure doesn't mean much. The earth is always moving faster than any jet and we still take pictures from earth.

Even with the explanations given, still I have my reserves. Look at the examples in the comments. In similar conditions none of them look similar. The more I think of it the more I think is a composite. In 10sec not even the slightest vibration from the plane is registered.

^^^ Ok, in my simple mind, I don't see how the earth is moving faster than any jet..otherwise, we would never be able to achieve destination when flying when flying with rotation!

However, I am thinking, was the movement of the plane serving like an "orbital tracking" movement somehow allowing the image to be captured without much star trail? <--- I doubt it but fun to think about...a flying barn door tracker

kezug wrote in post #16977956
^^^ Ok, in my simple mind, I don't see how the earth is moving faster than any jet..otherwise, we would never be able to achieve destination when flying when flying with rotation!

However, I am thinking, was the movement of the plane serving like an "orbital tracking" movement somehow allowing the image to be captured without much star trail? <--- I doubt it but fun to think about...a flying barn door tracker

Star trail shouldn't be a problem.

You can normally use 500/fl so in this case 500/28 or almost 18 seconds. Depending on flight direction, the plane speed could add or remove from the speed the earth is rotating. But not enough to invalidate the 500/fl rule.

The big issue in the plane is that the plane needs to be very stable - it must keep the nose pointing straight ahead and may not roll.

pwm2 wrote in post #16978016
Star trail shouldn't be a problem.

You can normally use 500/fl so in this case 500/28 or almost 18 seconds. Depending on flight direction, the plane speed could add or remove from the speed the earth is rotating. But not enough to invalidate the 500/fl rule.

The big issue in the plane is that the plane needs to be very stable - it must keep the nose pointing straight ahead and may not roll.

yes, the stability of the plane would be the biggest factor I think. I suppose if you snapped enough there could be a window of time that it just works out and the rest mostly unusable. I've never attempted anything like this, but know that even setting a tripod on a deck pointed at the stars and movement by me can create a very bad image.

One other thing to consider, no light pollution.

It's not like he took one shot and blam that was it. I have several shots of my own that are a combination of timing and repetition finally yielding a single sharp shot. I personally can see how this would work out for him. It's a long flight and there's plenty of time to experiment with shutterspeeds.

If the plane was flying at 600mph that would mean during an exposure of 10s the camera location has moved approx. 1.5miles from its original location. So surely unless the camera is locked onto target (fixed position) for the exposure there must be some star trailing ?? It may be that its just not evident given the size of the stars in the image and the relatively short FL (wide field) of the lens.
The 500/fl is based on static camera position so surely a moving camera the rule wouldn't apply without being modified somewhat ?

birderman wrote in post #16978960
If the plane was flying at 600mph that would mean during an exposure of 10s the camera location has moved approx. 1.5miles from its original location. So surely unless the camera is locked onto target (fixed position) for the exposure there must be some star trailing ?? It may be that its just not evident given the size of the stars in the image and the relatively short FL (wide field) of the lens.
The 500/fl is based on static camera position so surely a moving camera the rule wouldn't apply without being modified somewhat ?

I agree. Here is why I think this is bogus.

He claims to take 93 exposures. At minimum of 10 seconds that's 930 seconds or 15.5 minutes. He also claims some of the exposures were up to 30 seconds. Adding extra seconds from 93 exposures and setup time to put the camera up, covering up with blanket can easily push this to 25 minutes. So for 25 minutes the plane is flying for few hundred miles and this guy is able to get Milky Way to be in the same position in the sky?

In his picture you can see a wing of the plane. The wing of the plane is where the engines are. Engines on transatlantic flight are huge and produce a lot of vibrations. The closer you are to the engine the more vibrations you feel and its constant. When you can see the wing it means you are pretty close to it. There is also turbulence and the fact that he is hunched over the camera with a blanket for 10 seconds. So his Gorillapod is between his armrest & fuselage. He sits in the part of the plane where he can see the wing but the fuselage does not get any kind of vibration from the engine. He is holding a blanket and pushing it against the side of the window for 10+ seconds and his body does not generate even a slightest vibration on the armrest.

He is also able to use a blanket to make his environment completely pitch dark (inside & outside) to take a Milky Way picture in 10 seconds thru a window and without any glare.

He must be a ninja.

But the speed that the earth surface rotates is about 1600km/h or 1000mph at the equator. So another 600mph from the plane would still not break the original 500/fl rule. You would get a (500*1000/1600)/fl. So instead of 18 seconds, you would get 11 seconds. Assuming the plane flies with the earth rotation resulting in a faster rotation.

He would have big issues if the photo also included the horizon, since the plane movement would then move the camera a lot relative to the horizon.

But the movement of the camera relative to the stars are very small - if considering the rotation that happens during 10 seconds.

And if he wants to merge multiple photos, the movement wouldn't matter. The merge process would take care of the slow rotation that happens between each image. And the move sideways would be totally irrelevant compared to stars that are many light years away.

Remember that the earth doesn't just rotate around the axis, with an equatorial speed of about 1600km/h. Our planet is also rotating around the sun with a speed of over 100000 km/h. And that speed is there if you are in a plane or if you have the camera at a fixed location on a tripod. But that still doesn't stop people from merging a night of photos from the night sky. Because even the earth movement around the sun is hardly anything compared to the huge distances to the stars.

And not only that - our sun isn't even fixed. And it isn't as slow as a puny little airplane.

The only (!) issue here is how stable the airplane is during the 10 second exposures, to make sure that the image center of the capture doesn't rotate or move up/down/left/right more than a few pixels. So it wouldn't work well on a bumpy flight where the plane is constantly going twisting around.