Air 2 (New version) Milky Way, galactic core

[mattitech07]

(Mavic Air 2) - I already posted my first result of this a few months ago, but I decided to rework this picture to improve it; this time I cropped out the foreground, because due to slight movements in between the exposures the foreground became blurry in the final Sequator stack. Plus, at least for me I find processing the Milky way with the foreground a bit tricky; so cropping it out allowed me to focus entirely on the Milky way.

Drones definitely aren't meant for this kind of photography, I tried this because that day I didn't bring the tripod for my phone; but flying also gave me a nice edge over some lights and obstacles that were obstructing my view of the core. And I was impressed to see how this thing floating in the air could achieve almost tripod-like stability, and produce 8 seconds exposures with minimal star trailing.

This is the result of stacking 35 raw, 8 seconds exposures in Sequator (a program thats mainly to stack Milky way and wide field astronomical images), to improve the signal to noise ratio.

Then the photo was processed in GraXpert (denoising and gradient removal software for astro images),Siril (post-processing) ,Cosmic Clarity (astro sharpening software) and a few final adjustements in Lightroom.

The result isn't as clear as what could be achieved with my phone on the tripod, but I'm very impressed that DJI drones can do this at all (given low wind conditions).

What you see here is the galactic core, the brightest and most active area of the Milky way, consisting of dense star regions and a lot of dust obstructing our view of the very center, that hosts star clusters, emission nebulae, X ray sources and even the supermassive Sagittarius A black hole, only visible through infrared imaging.

Here I had to upload a compressed jpg image, so here is the original png file as well:

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[AMann]

Very nice! I also appreciate your write up of how you did it, thank you for sharing that. Pretty amazing what you can do with such a small camera!

 

[Erk1024]

Wow. That's pretty amazing! LOL

 

[Rchawks]

Very cool, and you did it with a MA2!! I appreciate all the work and effort you put into this post! My wife wants to learn about the stars and then I seen this, impressive.

 

[RockyMtns]

I had zero knowledge of the processing software that you mentioned. How did you find out about them?
Great picture, and lots of effort to improve the original images!!!

 

[GFields]

Awesome photo!

 

[sarahb]

Beautiful

 

[mattitech07]

I had zero knowledge of the processing software that you mentioned. How did you find out about them?
Great picture, and lots of effort to improve the original images!!!

I found out mainly by first getting into simple long exposures with my phone, then gradually doing research on forums and seeing what all the other astrophotographers are doing, where everyone encourages the use of these software. Its truly a world of its own to discover.

 

[mattitech07]

Very cool, and you did it with a MA2!! I appreciate all the work and effort you put into this post! My wife wants to learn about the stars and then I seen this, impressive.

Great to see someone that shares the passion. I was so excited to see the Air 2 could do this as well

 

[RAC DJI]

Great photo and write up. I’m just starting into astrophotography and have come across some of the software you mentioned. I’m definitely going to incorporate my Mavic 3 Pro into my learning curve. Thank you for the great information.

 

[mattitech07]

Great photo and write up. I’m just starting into astrophotography and have come across some of the software you mentioned. I’m definitely going to incorporate my Mavic 3 Pro into my learning curve. Thank you for the great information.

Sure the bigger sensor in the M3P would help. Again, I think drones realistically can't be used for anything other than Milky way/ landscape or widefield, when it comes to astrophotography, and even for that, if I had the tripod for my phone in that occasion I would have used that instead of the drone of course. But there are a few considerations.

It was so fun to discover that these drones are so solid that they can achieve tripod like stability while in the air (with no wind), and even if as I previously stated, they are not really practical even for Milky way photos, I can definitely think of some occasions where they could make shooting possible when it may not be with a camera on the ground. Most notably it could make Milky way photography possible if you are standing on a boat, placing a tripod there and making stable exposures would be almost impossible; or maybe when you have low altitude clouds or haze blocking your view on the ground.

Or in another situation (that I found myself into), when you are in a dark sky, but you are constrained by nearby light sources; I once went to another Bortle 3 area near Austria, but the B&B i was staying at had some really bright lights, and the building in general blocked my view of the galactic core; during night time its not really safe to venture near valleys or rivers outside of civilization, so as I did with this shot, I brought up my drone again for some more Milky way shots; in this occasion I was quickly stopped as clouds rolled in, but I observed that even in that occasion, I was getting some pretty pin point stars.

 

[RAC DJI]

Thanks for the insight. I am getting setup with a camera, tripod and a 14mm lens for Astro photography. My interest in your post is that many locations I my area (Northern British Columbia) are surrounded by trees. Using a drone occasionally would be a fun but challenging way to get some great photos.