Milky Way over Mt Hope

[CMunzel]

[FUJI]

Just incredible.....

 

FUJI

[Denis]

That is cool Cheryl.......Very envious, that sort of image is on my 'what to take' list

[johntwo]

What a great image Cheryl.  Wouldn't have been half as good without the detail in the mountain a trees.  Just spot on.

[Hatter]

Wow!  That's really spectacular!

[Clicker]

Ooh Cheryl ...  do tell us more about this one ... ... it looks stunning .. where when and how please .... 

[CMunzel]

13 hours ago, Clicker said:

Ooh Cheryl ...  do tell us more about this one ... ... it looks stunning .. where when and how please .... 

Thank you for your interest, everyone.

Mt Hope is about 30 minutes drive from home: it’s surrounded by cropping land and there are no houses within view so quite isolated. I waited for the new moon when it’s darkest and headed out there while still light to set up my camera and tripod while not being sure exactly where the Milky Way would be in relation to the mountain. 

Its the first time I’ve taken Milky Way photos so I read some articles about the settings to use as a starting point. As you can see in the photo data, I used my Nikon 850 with a Tamron 24-70 Lens at its widest.  I used the 500 rule to work out the settings: dividing the lens length into 500 to determine the length of exposure in seconds ie. 500\24= 21 seconds. I rounded down to 20 seconds, and using live view, focused on one of the brightest stars. 3200 ISO and a remote shutter release.
The first shots showed the stars but the mountain was a black silhouette so I tried lighting the mountain and foreground scrub with my torch during the 20 second exposure. It was difficult to get the lighting even on the foreground with the torch (one of those very bright LED pocket torches) and avoid the light straying up into the sky. 
In photoshop, I adjusted the levels, burned and dodged to even out the foreground and sharpened it for print by converting to a Smart Object which also has noise reduction. 

Next time I do this, I’ll try different ISOs and exposure length. Further down the tract stitching multiple images and focus stacking. 
 

Any suggestions very welcome. 

 

 

[David995031]

Marvellous stuff.

[Denis]

16 hours ago, CMunzel said:

Thank you for your interest, everyone.

 'I used the 500 rule to work out the settings: dividing the lens length into 500 to determine the length of exposure in seconds ie. 500\24= 21 seconds. I rounded down to 20 seconds, and using live view, focused on one of the brightest stars. 3200 ISO and a remote shutter release'

 

 

I was with you all the way until you went off the rails with that sentence

[Hatter]

@Denis - the "500 Rule" is a "rule of thumb" to calculate the longest exposure you can use and keep the stars as points rather than trails.  It's based on the focal length because the longer the focal length the more the movement of the stars is apparent, and the shorter the exposure you can get away with.

 

[Ryewolf]

Excellent shot Cheryl.

[Denis]

18 minutes ago, Hatter said:

@Denis - the "500 Rule" is a "rule of thumb" to calculate the longest exposure you can use and keep the stars as points rather than trails.  It's based on the focal length because the longer the focal length the more the movement of the stars is apparent, and the shorter the exposure you can get away with.

 

I'm still none the wiser mate !

[Kobione]

Superb shot Cheryl, your effort was well worth it!