Milkyway shooting...

I'm going to be out in the hill country out here in Texas and was hoping to do some night shots of the sky... I've never been able to shoot the Milkyway and I would absolutely love to do so, but I'm just not too sure as to what to do to get a good shot. I know the darker the area the better. And now with my new star finder app on my iPhone I now know where to shoot...

I have a Canon 40D that I will be using on a tripod for the shot... Now I have a 70-200mm IS L 2.8, 50mm 1.4, and a 28-135mm kit lens... I'm sure the wider the better so I'm thinking that the kit lens would be the best to use at 28mm... If I am wrong please fill me in...

I guess I'm just wondering what is the best way to shoot the milkyway with what I have. Will I be getting star trails for long exposures? I have seen some amazing shots and I would love to have one as well of the milkyway... Just hope that I have something that can pull it off.. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks...

Gosh! Where to start? Well, have you had a good look in the Astro and Celestial Talk section? The first three threads are helpful.

Some quick answer to your questions...
1. Yes, dark is good, and for really dark that excludes moonlight.
2. For nice, wide star fields use your widest angle lens (35-135) with the aperture wide open. WHY? You need as much lens diameter as you can practicably get for stars: the wider the aperture the fainter the stars you can record. (Look up Deep Sky Photography.) BUT, that 50mm with its f/1.4 would give you a nice DEEP, if slightly narrower, field.
3. ISO setting. You do not have to buck it up too much. Set it to where you just miss out on noisy images. I'd guess ISO 200, absolute max 400.
4. Exposure times? With the 28 mm, you could go almost 1 minute without appreciable trailing. With the 50mm, say 20-25 seconds. That's using a fixed tripod. With an "equatorial tracking mount" you can go for hours.

Anyway, now go and look at the Astro and Celestial Talk forum
Good luck and let's see what happens. Am.

The milky way will be much more visible using your 50 1.4, the more light you can let in the better

With the 40D I'd start around 1600 ISO, aperture wide open, and 20-30 second exposures.

I'm just getting my first shots of the Milky Way. From here at home (city) there is no way, but out in dark skies I can see it with my naked eye and you know what? I always just thought it was just some high clouds moving in! Duh! Tips from my newby star struck eyes - when you're out there, take a number of shots in a row, then you can us this Deep Sky Tracker and get some awesome shots!

Program
Great tutorial

I'm hooked now!

cfortner wrote in post #10855178
The milky way will be much more visible using your 50 1.4, the more light you can let in the better

With the 40D I'd start around 1600 ISO, aperture wide open, and 20-30 second exposures.

True about the more light you can let in the better, but 50mm is no where near wide enough for good Milky Way shots...in my opinion. You'll get some good images if you know where to point the camera, but without tracking you really don't want to go any narrower than 18mm or so I'd say.

But on the other hand. While the 28mm gives you twice the sky and therefore twice the time if trails are to be the limiting factor, the difference between f/1.4 and f/3.5 is a factor of 6 in exposure length.
I'd go with the 50mm for that reason. Take some test shots at your highest ISO and zoom in on the images to determine the time limit by trailing. Wind the ISO back until the histogram just comes off the left edge if you can, otherwise drop it back at least one setting. Then rattle off multiple shots that you can stack later. You can take multiple sets and stitch them in Photoshop.
To get that milky way vista, you need to be <20mm focal length.

Some practical tips... you can focus manually using live view zoomed in to a bright object (star or planet). Or you can use autofocus if you get a bright star or planet right on the focus point. Once it has focussed switch the lens to manual and be careful not to touch the focus ring.

Use a remote shutter release or the self timer to take the shots.

Here's what I do with my old 18mm on a 400D.

Baz.