3 Milky Way Panorama-Montana

[Dale D]

No- this is not from a drone! But I am working on my Montana video and in the meantime, still working on some astro shots. I thought I'd pass these along.

I’ve been studying and working on producing this image for years! I have had many failures but this one finally was my first success.

This image was also shot at the top of a dark Montana mountain top, the darkest place I could find in Big Sky,Montana. It was shot between 10:45PM and 1:00AM. Aug. 29- the last new moon.

Most of my astro-photography consists of only starry skies or a vertical Milky Way. In fact, there is a Milky Way up there which stretches from horizon to horizon but can only be captured by using an “L” bracket to hold the camera vertically to encompass more sky and ground. Then, a series of vertical and overlapping shots is taken every 15 degrees on the tripod head. The straight lines are shooting stars. Unfortunately I cannot identify the bright spots, either planets or stars. Any help on this is welcomed.

In the panorama shown here, I shot at least 7 vertical shots with a 15 degree overlap. All of these images were then brought into Adobe Photoshop and “stitched” together. Once the completed panorama was completed, color adjustments were made to darken the sky and reduce the noise using Topaz Denoise.

I have also included only another shot of one arm of the Milky Way looking directly south.

I am now back in Miami and soon will begin putting together my Montana video.

Specs:
Nikon D750
Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 lens at 14mm and f/2.8
Shutter speed 20 second exposure
ISO 2000
Really Right Stuff tripod
“L”Bracket- camera vertical, 7 shots overlapped 15 degrees on tripod head
Processed Adobe Photoshop and Topaz Denoise

 

[JoelP]

Good job if capturing the Milky Way without star trails!

 

[badshah]

Superb! Well captured.

 

[MavicAir2Marc]

Awesome job Dale! I'm anxiously awaiting your Milky Way Hyperlapse.

 

[Gagey52]

Great shots Dale, well done. I’ve tried in the past, but I’m shite at it. Was thinking about buying one of motorised tripod heads to help. Thanks for sharing
Regards

 

[Dale D]

Good job if capturing the Milky Way without star trails!

I was able to capture all of the images rapidly, by reaching the time between exposures to less than 5 seconds. I rotated the camera on the tripod 15 degrees and hit the remote shutter release.

 

[PHZ]

Impressive once again! Thanks for sharing, Dale! BTW I loved your website. National Geographic has nothing iver you.

 

[Dale D]

Impressive once again! Thanks for sharing, Dale! BTW I loved your website. National Geographic has nothing iver you.

Thanks so much. I appreciate the Nat Geo comment! I would have loved to be a Nat Geo photographer!

 

[RockyMtns]

Great pics! On panorama 7, do I see a comet directly above the complete hilltop to the right?

 

[Dale D]

Great pics! On panorama 7, do I see a comet directly above the complete hilltop to the right?

Rocky Mtns I really wish I could answer your question but I am a real dummy when it comes to these stars.

 

[Dale D]

Awesome job Dale! I'm anxiously awaiting your Milky Way Hyperlapse.

I published it to this site last month.

 

[Lister]

I made this self portrait in Death Valley on the night of my 65th birthday.

Stars are hard. The only wide angle lens I had was F4, so this is a 30 second exposure at 3200 ISO on my long-gone Nikon D300.

That's not the sunset, that's Los Angeles, 150 miles away.

 

[Dale D]

View attachment 154526
I made this self portrait in Death Valley on the night of my 65th birthday.

Stars are hard. The only wide angle lens I had was F4, so this is a 30 second exposure at 3200 ISO on my long-gone Nikon D300.

That's not the sunset, that's Los Angeles, 150 miles away.

Not a bad result for the equipment you mentioned. As you know, a slower lens will cause star trailing, as will a longer exposure.The very high ISO will cause increased noise. Dark skies are getting harder and harder to find.

Stars are hard...until they become fun. I spent tons of time looking at videos, taking workshops, watching specialty videos on astro, and practiced a lot. The basics are a fast and a wide angle lens (f/2.8 or better), and a really good tripod and cable release. If you do video (timelapse) you will also need an intervalometer. Once you have the shoot on your SD card, the processing is also a learning curve.

By the way, my birthday is TODAY! (84 years old September 9,1938). So I did the images submitted with this thread at nearly age 84.

 

[Lister]

Not a bad result for the equipment you mentioned. As you know, a slower lens will cause star trailing, as will a longer exposure.The very high ISO will cause increased noise. Dark skies are getting harder and harder to find.

Stars are hard...until they become fun. I spent tons of time looking at videos, taking workshops, watching specialty videos on astro, and practiced a lot. The basics are a fast and a wide angle lens (f/2.8 or better), and a really good tripod and cable release. If you do video (timelapse) you will also need an intervalometer. Once you have the shoot on your SD card, the processing is also a learning curve.

By the way, my birthday is TODAY! (84 years old September 9,1938). So I did the images submitted with this thread at nearly age 84.

Good on ya, Dale. Happy birthday!

Yeh, the image is really noisy. Ten year old camera, long exposure, warm night.
The hard part was standing still for 30 sec. Took me a few takes to get this right.

 

[DaveS]

Great shots Dale and Happy Birthday!!!

 

[Dale D]

Good on ya, Dale. Happy birthday!

Yeh, the image is really noisy. Ten year old camera, long exposure, warm night.
The hard part was standing still for 30 sec. Took me a few takes to get this right.

Not to belabor the point but a typical star timelapse requires the average, about 3 hours, including traveling to the site and back, set up time and computer time. Here is an estimate of my time for this past timelapse.

Drive to site- 30 minutes each way (1 hour)
Set up and test shots- minimum 30 min. or 1/2 hour
360 exposures as follows (360 frames. divided by 24 frames per second to get a 15 second video show;
shutter 15 seconds, or 4 frames per minute. (60 seconds divided by 4)=90 minutes of shooting time (1 1/2 hours)
Total so far?=3 hours.
Now add the computer processing time (about an hour) and you get 4 hours to produce a 15 second film.

 

[Dale D]

Great shots Dale and Happy Birthday!!!

Thank you Dave. I felt very fortunate waking up this morning and walking to the breakfast table!

Dale

 

[R.Cowan]

Beautiful, thanks for sharing!

 

[RockyMtns]

For the Milky Way timelapse, were you able to program your camera to take the 10 second exposures (with 20 secs between), or did you have to use an intervalometer?
Thanks.

 

[Dale D]

For the Milky Way timelapse, were you able to program your camera to take the 10 second exposures (with 20 secs between), or did you have to use an intervalometer?
Thanks.

I used the Nikon D750 internal intervalometer
After multiple test shots I went with a slightly higher ISO (2000 instead of 1600) as well as a slightly longer exposure (20 seconds instead of 15 seconds).
Nikon D750
Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 lens at 14mm and f/2.8
Shutter speed 20 second exposure
ISO 2000