How do I get started with Milky Way photography?
Milky Way photography is a fascinating and rewarding genre of night sky photography that can capture the beauty and mystery of our galaxy. However, it requires some planning, equipment and technique to achieve good results. Here are some basic steps to help you get started:
- Find a dark location away from light pollution, preferably during the Milky Way season (February to October in the Northern Hemisphere).
- Use a camera with a fast and wide lens (f/2.8 or wider, 24mm or less) and a sturdy tripod.
- Set your camera to manual mode and adjust the settings: aperture to the widest, ISO to 3200-6400, shutter speed to 10-25 seconds (depending on your focal length), white balance to 4000K, and focus to infinity or on a bright star.
- Compose your shot with some interesting foreground elements to add depth and context to your Milky Way image.
- Use a remote shutter release or a self-timer to avoid camera shake and take multiple shots.
- Post-process your images using software like Lightroom or Photoshop to enhance the contrast, colors and details of the Milky Way.
- Use a camera with a fast and wide lens (f/2.8 or wider, 24mm or less) and a sturdy tripod.
- Set your camera to manual mode and adjust the settings: aperture to the widest, ISO to 3200-6400, shutter speed to 10-25 seconds (depending on your focal length), white balance to 4000K, and focus to infinity or on a bright star.
- Compose your shot with some interesting foreground elements to add depth and context to your Milky Way image.
- Use a remote shutter release or a self-timer to avoid camera shake and take multiple shots.
- Post-process your images using software like Lightroom or Photoshop to enhance the contrast, colors and details of the Milky Way.
These are just some general guidelines to get you started with Milky Way photography. For more tips and inspiration, you can check out some online resources like PhotoPills, Capture the Atlas or Photography Life.
Planning
How to Use Photopills to Plan Your Milky Way Photography
Author: Aaron King
Date: May 14, 2017
Aaron's tips and trips to easily use the PhotoPills app to plan your Milky Way photography.
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The Milky Way Over Jackson Hole
Author: Mike Jackson
Date: August 30, 2019
On any clear night, the Milky Way is often visible in Jackson Hole.
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ARTICLE
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Shooting
How to Focus the Milky Way Under the Night Sky
Author: Aaron King
Date: January 20, 2018
Have you been out under the Milky Way and have had a hard time getting your focus? Focusing on the stars is one of the most difficult aspects of Milky Way photography. On any clear night, the Milky Way is often visible in Jackson Hole.
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How to Photograph the Milky Way
Author: Adam Woodworth
Date: March 03, 2020
Panoramas are one of the most fun and dramatic ways of capturing the Milky Way over a landscape, created by stitching multiple exposures together in software to capture a much wider field of view than you could capture in a single photo.
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ARTICLE
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Milky Way Photography: The Definitive Guide
Author: Antoni Cladera
Date: 2020
The idea behind this article is to help you tell better stories through your Milky Way photography. Taking great photos is not enough. They need to be truly remarkable.
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ARTICLE
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Photograph and Edit the Magic of Astrophotography
Author: Isabella Tabacchi
Date: February 23, 2018
As a landscape photographer, I always found myself amazed by the scenarios we can find in nightscapes and the magic of stars. It's our galaxy, our house and we are just little bodies in such a big scenery made of about 100 billion stars and planets.
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ARTICLE
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In Depth Milky Way Timelapse Tutorial for Beginners
Author: Zvonko Petrovski
Date: Not dated
Making a timelapse is usually a long and hard process. There are so many things that you have to keep in mind. To help you out along the way, Ian Norman has created a pretty detailed tutorial for shooting timelapse sequences of the Milky Way.
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ARTICLE
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How to Photograph the Orion Nebula
Authors: Peter Lawrence, David Tolliday
Date: October 22, 2020
The region of the sky know as Orion's Sword is regarded as an easy object to photograph in many ways. Even a camera with a normal lens on a simple tripod will recordM42, Orion's distinctly reddish glow.
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ARTICLE
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Post Processing
Easy Milky Way Processing for Beginners in Lightroom
Author: Aaron King
Date: March 31, 2017
Aaron goes through how he uses Lightroom to post process his Milky Way images.
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Simple Milky Way Panoramas
Author: Nightscape Images
Date: December 18, 2018
Have a look at how I take simple milky way panoramas without any complicated formulas or equipment. We look at the method I use to actually take the shots and also delve into the software to stitch the images together.
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My Most Powerful Astrophotography Processing Secrets
Author: Astro Backyard
Date: October 16, 2019
In this video, I share the most powerful image processing techniques I use in Adobe Photoshop. These are the rather simple steps you can use on your next astrophotography process session.
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How to Post Process Milky Photos Using Lightroom
Author: Rusty Parkhurst
Date: Not dated
This article will take a look at how to use Adobe Lightroom to post process Milky Way images. It's note the only way to do it; it may not even be the best way.
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ARTICLE
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How to Shoot Milky Way Photos with Image Stacking to Clean Up Noise
Author: Daniel J. Stein
Dated: April 17, 2021
a game-changing technique that you have probably may have already heard about: image stacking.
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How to Post Process an Astro Image
Author: Nick Page
Dated:
Some genres almost require post-processing of images to fully finish them, astrophotography being one of them. The post-processing techniques involved are rather particular, and this excellent video tutorial will show you how to edit an image with the Milky Way combined with a light-painted landscape, all using Photoshop.
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Blogs to Follow
Peter Zelinka
Author: Peter Zelinka
Date: On going
Peter is a pretty active blogger on the topic of Astrophotography.
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