Milky Way over Joshua Tree

[JimFox]

This was from last week in Joshua Tree. It was a new moon, so my goal was Deep Space Astro with my tracker and long lens, but as mentioned in my Timelapse, I also set up 2 cameras to shoot timelapses all night long while I was working the Deep Space.

This shot is taken from just one of the frames in the middle of my Timelapse. What's awesome with the timelapse is I can kill 2 birds with one stone. I can get a complete timelapse, and then just pull out whatever frame suits me to process individually for a stand alone shot.

An Evening with the Milky Way | Focal World

This is a single image, processed once for the ground and then once for the sky, and I just blend the two parts of the same image back together. Despite it being a new moon, what's awesome with shooting with a fast f1.8 lens like the Sigma 14mm f1.8 is it just let's in so much light!

ISO 3200
25 seconds
f2

For those curious, I will include a straight out of camera image to show just how well lit the foreground is with the f1.8. Now I wasn't shooting with a canyon before me like Ben recently did, so I had to my advantage that my ground layer was all above ground.

Straight out of the camera, simply converted to a jpg.

Final image, very minimal work, after the blend it was just a bit of the warp tool on the ground layer to help correct for a bit of the WA distortion.

 

[AlanLichty]

That's a lot of light for a moonless night. f/1.8 looks like a nice way to do astro work.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Good one Jim. And thanks for showing your settings and the unprocessed version, very informative.

 

[JimFox]

That's a lot of light for a moonless night. f/1.8 looks like a nice way to do astro work.

Thanks Alan.

 

[JimFox]

Good one Jim. And thanks for showing your settings and the unprocessed version, very informative.

I added that with you in mind Ben as I thought you would find the SOOC shot informative and hopefully instructive to see how helpful it is to expose brighter (without blowing out) at night.

 

[Ben Egbert]

I get sky's that look like that, but seldom ground. I am thinking about a trip to Bonneville near May 31. The moon rise is at 1:26 and is 66%. I cant tell from the illustration if that's 66% dark or 66% bright. Might be too bright at 66%.

 

[JimFox]

I get sky's that look like that, but seldom ground. I am thinking about a trip to Bonneville near May 31. The moon rise is at 1:26 and is 66%. I cant tell from the illustration if that's 66% dark or 66% bright. Might be too bright at 66%.

The moon will be 68% on the 31st. The moon rises at 12:47am on that night (depending where you are) so it would be washing out the Milky Way. Remember I had no moon on this shot.

Either you go out tonight or tomorrow night to use the moon, or you would need to wait until June 13th to 16th if you are looking for a moon assisted Milky Way.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Jim, according to Photopills, the moon sets at 1:17 AM. I think I want a rising moon so I can have the moon in the east and the MW in the south

 

[MonikaC]

I like the composition, Jim. The blue in the sky looks kind of bright/saturated to me, especially the bit right around the MW.

 

[JimFox]

Jim, according to Photopills, the moon sets at 1:17 AM. I think I want a rising moon so I can have the moon in the east and the MW in the south

On the 31st? I think it will wash out the Milky Way for you. You typically want the moon in the west not the east.

 

[JimFox]

I like the composition, Jim. The blue in the sky looks kind of bright/saturated to me, especially the bit right around the MW.

Thanks Monika.

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Nice setting for a MW and the ground layer has enough light to show details. The warp to correct wide angle distortion is a nice choice as well.

I am with Monika in terms of blue intensity in the sky

 

[sweetgrass]

Cool image Jim and thanks for the info! I just got my Sigma 14mm f/1.8 today and can't wait to get out with it next week while hanging out at Padre Island State Beach. Now I just need to figure out Photopills and Sky Guide.

 

[Douglas Sherman]

This was from last week in Joshua Tree. It was a new moon, so my goal was Deep Space Astro with my tracker and long lens, but as mentioned in my Timelapse, I also set up 2 cameras to shoot timelapses all night long while I was working the Deep Space.

This shot is taken from just one of the frames in the middle of my Timelapse. What's awesome with the timelapse is I can kill 2 birds with one stone. I can get a complete timelapse, and then just pull out whatever frame suits me to process individually for a stand alone shot.

An Evening with the Milky Way | Focal World

This is a single image, processed once for the ground and then once for the sky, and I just blend the two parts of the same image back together. Despite it being a new moon, what's awesome with shooting with a fast f1.8 lens like the Sigma 14mm f1.8 is it just let's in so much light!

ISO 3200
25 seconds
f2

For those curious, I will include a straight out of camera image to show just how well lit the foreground is with the f1.8. Now I wasn't shooting with a canyon before me like Ben recently did, so I had to my advantage that my ground layer was all above ground.

Straight out of the camera, simply converted to a jpg.
View attachment 39464


Final image, very minimal work, after the blend it was just a bit of the warp tool on the ground layer to help correct for a bit of the WA distortion.
View attachment 39465

That is beautiful, Jim.

 

[Tom Narwid]

Nice shot and good demo.

 

[JimFox]

Nice setting for a MW and the ground layer has enough light to show details. The warp to correct wide angle distortion is a nice choice as well.

I am with Monika in terms of blue intensity in the sky

Thanks Jameel.

Using the Warp tool has been my go to method to correct for WA distortion for years now. Using the Lens Correction tool will correct for it, but at the expense of losing a lot of the image. I always hated that. With the Warp Tool, nothing is lost.

 

[JimFox]

Cool image Jim and thanks for the info! I just got my Sigma 14mm f/1.8 today and can't wait to get out with it next week while hanging out at Padre Island State Beach. Now I just need to figure out Photopills and Sky Guide.

Awesome Sonny! I can't wait to see the star images you are able to be shooting down in Texas and also your dark skies of New Mexico.

For the record I don't use Photopills. I just use an app that tells me the moons phases, their times, and gives me a quick look at a Moon Phase Calendar so I can plan trips at a glance. I then use SkyGuide when I am on location to figure out where I want to compose the image at.

 

[Jim Dockery]

Most excellent, but agree with comments on blue sky.

 

[JimFox]

Most excellent, but agree with comments on blue sky.

Thanks Jim! I am glad you liked it. I like the blue of the sky, so I will leave this one as it is.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Jim,

This is great, and SUPER helpful to see the raw and post processed versions of this. I also went back and looked at the original timelapse too, very cool. Trying to figure out my plans for Haleakula Crater in a few weeks - this is certainly a timely post for that for me.

ML