Emerald Isle Milky Way

I could live with this weather every day if I could. Cool Clear and Dry! you couldn't ask for better weather, especially this time of year. If it weren't for the moon rising I would be out shooting DSO's with my telescopes and camera, but instead I decided to head to the beach, and it was wonderful.

The Milky Way from Emerald Isle Beach, North Carolina. 03 July 2010
@18mm f/3.5, 1x30 seconds, ISO 1250.

That looks gorgeous, wish we had places like that here (light pollution wise)

I hope you don't mind. I took a shot at processing your pic. There is alot of data there you just have to know how to bring it out.

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

looks too gritty...

A real beauty Tim. Looks like a great place to shoot the Sagittarius region. Judging from the Google map it looks like a good place to shoot the eastern sky in the spring/early summer.

There is a good bit of data in that single exposure Tim, nice work. With some slow step processing and Noel's tools you could bring out quite a bit .

PaintedSaint wrote in post #10473945
That looks gorgeous, wish we had places like that here (light pollution wise)

Thank You.
As you can see by the waves in the surf zone there is lights to my back from all the apartments and condos that are shinning out onto the water.

HaroldC3 wrote in post #10474100
I hope you don't mind. I took a shot at processing your pic. There is alot of data there you just have to know how to bring it out.

Thank you, However! Even though it was shot at ISO 1250 for 30 seconds, there isn't That Much image data. There is only so much you can actually do with a relatively short single exposure like this. And with a cheap EF-S kit lens as well. Additionally you tried to reprocess a Jpeg which didn't leave you anything to really work with. Nevertheless, there still wasn't much more with the RAW file either.
IMHO, yours looks over stretched which gives it that grainy noisy look. To much for my taste anyways. Sorry!

I tried to process to bring out and reveal more without revealing excessive noise. As a matter of fact I actually processed it twice and combined the two to come up with the compromise I posted.

xs5875 wrote in post #10475559
looks too gritty...

I agree, Even with the Raw file there just wasn't that much image data making it easy to over stretch giving me the same result. So I had to do what I could to come up with a compromise between too dark and dull and too much.

Nighthound wrote in post #10475676
A real beauty Tim. Looks like a great place to shoot the Sagittarius region. Judging from the Google map it looks like a good place to shoot the eastern sky in the spring/early summer.

There is a good bit of data in that single exposure Tim, nice work. With some slow step processing and Noel's tools you could bring out quite a bit .

The beach actually faces south-southeast. When I walked out onto the beach I was greeted by the Scorpius and Sagittarius directly in front of me over the ocean.

After my initial histogram stretch with levels and Curves I did use some of Noels tools.

• Make stars smaller, which helped with the elongation of the stars.

• Increase Star Color, for more color in the stars

• Local Contrast Enhancement, which enhanced the Milky Way.

• Enhance DSO, which helped bring out some of the nebulae such as the Lagoon.

• Space Noise Reduction

• Color Blotch Reduction.

tkerr wrote in post #10475700
IMHO, yours looks over stretched which gives it that grainy noisy look. To much for my taste anyways. Sorry!

No worries, everyone has their own tastes!

Nice shot for such a short exposure, Tim. I envy the dark skies.

Don