First attempt at Milky Way

Not sure what I'm doing wrong. I turned on my NR but don't think it was working, there was a ton of noise, but Topaz Denise fixed that. Canon 40D, 36sec, 10mm, f3.5, iso1600. Shot at 2144hrs on 7/7 at Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada.

Not bad. I think your selected exposure should work fine. How's the light pollution in that area? From what I can gather, it looks like some Vegas light bleeds into that area. So that may be hurting your shot a bit.

Light pollution wasn't bad at all. Las Vegas glow was 90 degrees tomy right and not that bad. I should have waited a few hours and let the darkness really set in.

socalrailfan wrote in post #10528232
Light pollution wasn't bad at all. Las Vegas glow was 90 degrees tomy right and not that bad. I should have waited a few hours and let the darkness really set in.

Nice shot. I'm in SE Mich and need to wait 60-90 minutes post sunset minimum to get decent black skies. Means 11:30pm or later, prior to WWII Michigan was in central time zone but due to war effort move to eastern time zone for easy shipping coordination, and never moved back! If you are in upper peninsula of Michigan on west end its light really late....guess not as bad as some countries where there is only 1 time zone.....

You will always see some advice on the ISO rating. I zapped down to 800 for the 40D and it does wonders. It doesn't feel right but with post processing you still get the results. Logic says, stars are faint and therefore the ISO 1600. In reality, the lower ISOs are fine.

Like your shot though - it looks great.

I think the problem with low iso is getting enough light in without blurring the stars from movement. There was great iso comparision here: http://forums.canonpho​togroup.com/showthread​.php?p=5225

But for some reason I can't access it register. Maybe if someone is a member there they can share the info.

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It's years since I last saw the Milky Way. And as a sailor I'm often out in complete dark, we saw it for no more than twenty minutes during a 5 day delivery trip while south of Ireland.

Sad is'nt it?

Lowner wrote in post #10533081
It's years since I last saw the Milky Way. And as a sailor I'm often out in complete dark, we saw it for no more than twenty minutes during a 5 day delivery trip while south of Ireland.

Sad is'nt it?

I could only imagine what that would look like... wow.

Nice shot. It'd be really neat (if you were close enough to them) to light up those mountains with a spotlight of some sort.