Here is a second composition that does not use a blue hour foreground. In fact, both the sky and the foreground are taken from the 15 image stack from SLS, processed separately. SLS not only reduces the noise in the sky, but also the foreground. I think I like it better than the original composition.
Here is a rework of the image based on the feedback I received. I toned down the brightness of the Milky Way and foreground. Also corrected the magenta color cast in the mountains. Let me know what you think.
The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
My intent for this image was to capture the Milky Way with the beauty of the colorful aspen trees in fall. I was visiting Colorado a couple of weeks ago in the Ridgway area for some fall landscape photography when I ended up on County Road 7 one evening under clear, moonless skies. I used Photo Pills to check the position of the Milky Way right after dark. It was a little further to the right of Mt. Sneffels than I would have liked. I drove down the road and back looking for the best composition that would place the Milky Way in the same frame as the yellow aspens and mountain range in the foreground. After settling for what I considered to be the best spot, I composed my image. I shot a blue hour image for the foreground, and waited until dark to shoot a series of 15 images of the sky to be stacked later in Stary Landscape Stacker.
Specific Feedback
I am satisfied with the composition of this image overall, but would welcome any critique anyone has to offer with it; i.e. would cropping help? This is a composite image comprised of a blue hour foreground and a stack of 15 sky images. I am looking for critique specifically with respect to my post processing of the foreground and sky. Is the foreground too dark or too light? Is the color balance between the foreground and sky acceptable? Is the Milky Way too bright?
Technical Details
Camera: Nikon Z7ii
Lens: Nikkor Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S, at 24mm f.l.
Foreground Exposure: 20 sec, f/6.3, ISO 100
Sky Exposure: 15x 15 sec, f/2.8, ISO 6400 + 5 Dark Frames
Sky images stacked with Stary Landscape Stacker
Processed with Adobe Lightroom Classic and Photoshop
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
Interesting composition. At first I was wondering where the light on the mountain range on the left is coming from. I would not think the MIlkyway itself sheds that much light. But given that the mountains were in blue hour it now makes sense. At the same time your placement of the Milkyway does give the impression that it is the light source. As far the exposure on the Milkyway, I like it and you did a good job holding it back so that the core is not blown out, but it does feel a bit to birght for my taste. In any case, your effort paid off nicely. Congrats on a great photograph.
Keith, you could try tuning down the foreground light. See how far you can go with it and still retain the foreground detail you want. Possibly work sections individually with masks. Would also have been nice if the Milky Way had centered itself up for you, but love the location and viewpoint you picked. Very nice shot.
Thanks, Youssef. I was also thinking that the light on the trees in the left part of the frame was a bit bright, but one might imagine that the moon was illuminating it outside the frame.
A very nice image! My first impression is that I want to see just a little less FG and more of the MW but composition is really difficult to plan ahead when you are doing a blue hour FG. I love the light on the FG but think it would be better to slightly tone down the brightest area. I love that there is some mystery to the light source!
The mountains have a bit of a magenta cast – I wonder about taking that down a bit, but not sure what it would do to the rest of the FG. If it’s not good the adjustment could be masked.
The MW core is a bit bright for my taste and would be easy to back off.
This would be a nice location for spring, when the aspens are starting to have some leaves and the MW could be captured farther to the left and at a nice angle. Some moonlight might give good FG light, but these is definitely magic to what you captured here.
With the NR we have these days, I have had excellent results for MW images with the Enhance feature in LR, although I haven’t tried to compare it with using SLS. I’m wondering if you have compared the two? I don’t have a lot of opportunities for the MW but would love to know!
Thank you, Diane, for your critique. I will try your suggestions. I did shoot a second composition with the Milky Way more to the left, but of course I had to shoot the foreground under dark skies, which produced a flatter image. I haven’t processed that image, yet. If had to do it over again, I would have included more Milky Way and less foreground.
With regards to the SLS vs Lightroom’s Denoise function, I did do a comparison of the two methods. I found that using Lightroom’s Denoise on a single image produced noticeable artifacts in the sky, which appear as “squiggly” lines. The LR result appears sharper than the SLS image, however I set the sharpness to zero before I executed the Denoise in LR. Also, the colors in the SLS stacker image appear more saturated. Here are the results:
Interesting… I don’t see the squiggly artifacts at the magnification here but I know exactly what you mean. Interestingly I saw them very clearly when I was using the trial version of the newest DXO denoise thing, and more prominently in night skies than in other images. Maybe it gets confused by the density of stars. I’ll do more tests but here’s a 200% enlargement on a MW shot SOOC and with LR Denoise at the default 50%. (ISO 3200) The two are layered with a diagonal split. Topaz Denoise Low Light model at defaults was about the same. I’ll do more tests when I get dug out of the current hole…
Diane, the artifacts seem to be more prominent within the Milky Way on my images. Here’s a 200% crop from LR Denoise at 50 from SOOC from my raw image. I hope you can see them here.
Definitely see them here, and yes, it’s the same things I have seen before. I’ll pull up some more MW shots and see what I can discover – that’s a very easy test and will get my mind off hoping my tracker can finally see the comet tonight!
Here’s a quick look – and you’re right, LR Enhance creates these worm artifacts. Not sure where I got the impression it hadn’t. (I tried it on 5 different shots with different bodies and lenses. It seemed to be better of the sharper ones.) Here is a quick comparison – a screenshot at 200% of a layered PS file with a mask. The UL is Enhance, the LR is Topaz Denoise Severe Noise at the Model Pref’s. Same result with several others I tried.
I think you may have hit on an important factor, that the artifacts are worse in a dense part of the sky.
If you look carefully at the unedited raw file and compare it to the locations of the “worms” in the enhanced file, you can just barely make out the same structures. It seems as if the LR AI is interpreting these faint patterns as something that needs to be enhanced.
It does look like that. And it would be interesting to know where the underlying structure is coming from. In my captures through my 400mm refractor there is nothing like that to be found – certainly not in the calibrated and analogously “stacked” file, and not even in the individual files. My astro camera has a Sony sensor and the refractor is a glorified telephoto lens.
Here is a shot of the Trifid and Lagoon nebulae in the galctic core. The stars are clean. I guess it’s just patterns in the sensor noise. The astro camera is cooled to -10 C and there is further NR done in processing.
I have several sets of 15 or so frames that I meant to use to try SLS. I’ll have to dig them out. Sounds like it is the way to go if possible.
Neither is there anything like it with my astro camera (ZWO ASI6200MC). Do you use a Nikon camera for your landscape astrophotos? I would be curious if these patterns show up the same with Canon or other makes. Impressive image, by the way.
Thanks!! I have the ASI2600 MC Pro, with the Askar FRA 400. (And I despise the reducer. Trashes stars on the edges even with the APS-C sized sensor. But not the horrible distortion we get with daytime lenses – just peculiar donuts. ) My “wide angle” MW shots have been with a progression of Canon bodies and lenses, the R5 for the last 2 years.
I went out this evening to look for the comet, but couldn’t find it with binoculars. I don’t have a flat horizon, so maybe it was below the tree line. The next few nights look like they will be cloudy, but I am hoping to photograph it sometime.
My deep sky astro setup is a Stellarvue 130mm refractor on an Astrophysics GTO Mach 1 mount. The native focal length is 900mm f/7, but I have a .72x reducer/field flattener, giving me about 650mm f/5. My main camera is the ZWO ASI6200MC Pro, but used a Nikon D810A prior to that. I have an SBIG STi-mono guiding camera, and use the ZWO ASIAIR Pro for autoguiding. To be honest, I haven’t done any deep sky astrophotography for several years. It became too much work to set up all that equipment, then have clouds roll in (I live in Ohio, so …). I’ve been thinking about buying a William Optics Redcat 51 and a smaller tracker for portability. I use Pixinsight for processing images.
OK — we’re on very similar pages! My Skywatcher EQM 35 Pro is relatively portable. We don’t have the greatest skies (Bortle 4 and increasing air pollution it seems). We’re out in the country but in a shallow bowl with no low horizons, but it’s not bad for anything high. I have a piece of rebar nailed down behind the house to plant the tripod for southern skies and use the seams on a driveway turnaround for shooting north. That gets me close enough for easy PA. I love the ASIAIR for guiding and finally got an autofocuser. I also use PI and it’s gotten so much easier in the last few years!
The comet is still too close to the sun for our western horizon. The GoTo failed to find any stars to refine the aim and then tracked into a tree. I’ll keep trying — should have a few more nights before it sails away. And now there is another one coming in a couple of weeks!
Wow, Diane! Those are some outstanding astrophotos you have on your website. I wish I could achieve the sharpness and clarity that you captured in your deep sky images. Were these all taken with the Askar 400mm?
Thanks, @Keith_Lisk! You have a wonderful body of work with night skies and astro!
The images in my gallery are in reverse chronological order and go back to 1998. I got the current rig in October 2022 and the first image done with it that is on the web site is Comet C-2022 E3. But since then I have increasingly learned how to get better data. At first I didn’t even know how to guide and finally just got an autofocuser. And I’ve learned how to do better with PI and they have come out with methods that are easier to use. My processing improved a lot when I learned to do star removal and process stars and the object separately then recombine. So I’ll be redoing old things as well as adding new ones – skies permitting. (We recently went about a year without a clear dark sky!!)
Many are with various Canon equipment over the years and a few of the early ones are with an old Astrotrac. I should put better annotation on the pictures.
