Milkyway over Washington County fishing lake

I'm still obsessing over photographing the milkyway. I thought maybe I would be over it by now, but I think my 'problem' is getting worse. I was back in north central Kansas this weekend with my Dad for some dark skies and we went to a state fishing lake hoping to try for some star reflections in the water. It was way too windy for that and being Labor Day weekend, the lake was packed (duh!) and I couldn't even get close to the water. We did find a nice location away from all the campers overlooking the lake.

This is a stack of four 25 sec exposures, 20mm lens, f2.2, ISO 1600. I finally figured out that infinity focus on this lens is not anywhere close to the mark on the lens and I got a much better focus and improved star shapes I think compared to previous attempts.

Nice image Scott.

Fantastic night shot, Scott. It looks like you have got the technique down.

Scott, have you looked at TWAN? The World At Night.

I think the spelling is correct. They have a group who post night photos.

Neat shot. There does not seem to be much noise with the 4-stack... cool. Of course the small photo may not show that kind of stuff.

What program? Photomatix?

the fisch

you've caught the night bug, Scott :). Overall, I like the image, and really need to get out and try this technique some more. There appears to be a straight horizontal line running through the image, where the light pollution would probably end.

Good looking shot. I like how well defined the stars and milky way are.