More Summer Milkyway shots

I was out the last dark of the moon to try some more summer milkyway shots. I was able to find some fairly dark sky not far north of where I live. I could really get hooked on shooting at night!

Both of these shots were four 30 second exposures, ISO1600, stacked together using Nebulosity.

And the second one, a little bit more light painting in this one with a more dominant foreground.

I really like the second one, Scott. I will have to try that sometime. It looks like Nebulosity works well but is not available for my camera.

Thanks Ken! I'd love to try some shots like this out in the Coldwater-Medicine Lodge area. I might be out there this fall during a new moon just for that. Lots of dark sky out there!

I just used Nebulosity for stacking the images, I didn't use it to control my camera. There are a ton of astronomy based stacking programs out there (and a couple of really good free ones), but Nebulosity was just so easy for me to use for the stacking I went with it.

Very nicely done Scott.

Beautiful shots Scott!....I really like the first one. The way the tree is framed really sets it off.

nice, Scott. Be warned: night photography IS addictive :). How did you manage to stack just the sky section? Does the Nebulosity program do this? I've never had any luck stacking night images with any sort of foreground object.

Great work with the star shots!

Scott, you might submit these to NASA atronomy web site. And have you searched out TWAIN ???? I think that's the acronym.
the fisch

hey these are very cool! can i ask a couple of dumb questions? in number two the softness of the trees is that due to the stacking software or noise reduction or wind? also, i sort of understand stacking for trails, but this is not trails. so im guessing the software aligns the stars here so you do not have trails? how does this not effect the foreground? and is the reason to stack in this instance again helpful to reduce noise? i made my first attempts last weekend and i did long exposures and they were very noisy...

Thanks everyone! I've got a lot to learn about this, but so far it has been really fun so I'm going to keep at it.

Drew: I shoot 'stacks' to build up more exposure time since I don't have a way to track the stars. And yes it does help reduce noise. The stacking software aligns the stars and the foreground is allowed to 'move', which usually results in a blurred foreground. In the second photo you can see some 'movement' of the trees especially between the 2 sets that were painted with light. I'm not really sure why the light painted trees appeared so sharp (Nebulosity stacks everything Rob), other than those parts of those frames must have just 'shown through' the stacks better because they were so much brighter. I've got a lot to learn about Nebulosity still.

I have gone back in on some shots and masked in the foreground from just one shot to eliminate the blur in the foreground caused by the stacking and 'movement' on the non star elements. This last shot has the tree and road masked in from only 1 shot. Hopefully when I upgrade my camera I can try some of these at ISO 6400 and won't have to stack to get the same level of stars captured. Sigh...always more gear to buy, darn.

PS. Do get the noise out of these shots I applied noise reduction in Lightroom before they went to Nebulosity and after they were stacked I used Noiseware on the blue channel and then on the entire photo. Straight out of camera the 40D is very noisy at ISO 1600. I still need to work on noise reduction techniques as I have softened parts too much for my taste.

I am in awe of your Milky Way images. I read the link you posted and have thought about trying my hand . . . but at my age I tend to go to bed too early. Keep them coming.

Well done! Really like them.

#1 is just outstanding, but the last one is very nice as well. I think you did a great job on the processing. I've always wanted to try my hand at night shooting, but just haven't mustered up enough courage yet or found a suitable place.

Beautiful work, Scott. Better than any night sky shots I've taken.

Hi Scott, they are both beautiful, but that first one is beyound beautiful.

Wow, these are fantastic star images. Did you take these in Kansas? I would have thought there would be a little more haze this time of year.

Thanks again everyone. Next new moon is coming up August 9th, can't wait to get back out there!

Ed: Yes I took these in Kansas, around Linn. We had a cold front come through and dropped the temps and humidity down for the night (I think 56%). Too bad that kind of weather didn't stick around long.

A great resource I've found for finding dark skies is: http://www.jshine.net/astronomy/dark_sky/ I used it to find the location these were shot from.

Beautiful shots, Scott, and quite an interesting technique you're using. Keep 'em coming!

thanks for your help :)