Milky Way

[mmklosek]

I remember beautiful images capturing Milky Way by David and Goutam. Can you tell more about how you capture them?

Thanks, Gosia

[DavidT]

Hi, Gosia! Thanks for remembering my Milky Way photo. It was taken during a trip to Death Valley back in March 2019. is the only time I ever photographed the Milky Way, so I hope I can recall the details. First of all, you need a totally dark sky. Death Valley is far away from city lights. It’s almost impossible to photography the Milky Way in our area. Secondly, it was taken around 4:00am on a cloudless night. In March, the Milky Way is relatively low on the horizon, so you are able to photograph the entire Milky Way from end-to-end with a super-wide angle lens using a panorama. In the summer, the Milky Way is almost directly overhead. The Milky Way is not visible during the winter months. I used a 14mm lens with a 2.8 aperture. A tripod is a must. I used a shutter speed of 30 seconds. ISO was set to 5000.

[Goutam Sen]

Hi Gosia,

Try Photopills guide. The app is the best for astro photography. Although I was not able to fully use it, because it’s too complicated.

https://www.photopills.com/articles/milky-way-photography-guide#step4

The picture you referred to was taken at Cambridge, MD (Eastern Maryland on Rt-50), another good location is Assateague Island, close to Ocean City, and of course Skyline Drive on Shenandoah national park. I used my 24-105mm f4.0 lens (24mm, at f4.0), ISO 4200, probably 20sec. I recently bought 20mm prime f1.8 for Milkyway this season. Plan to go out in a few wks.

[mmklosek]

Thanks for your replies. I have to try again – my experience was in Utah, truly in the middle of nowhere, and that night the Milky Way seemed almost within an arm reach. On my image, it looks that the brightest stars are oversaturated and the Milky Way is underexposed. It doe

In April, we will be in Arizona (the Grand Canyon) during the new moon, so I’m trying to get ready.

Thanks again, Gosia

[Author]

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