I had a run of bad luck trying to capture a Milky Way image this year–cloudy/overcast skies every time I went out. Last night I decided to go to a local beach in case the skies were not clear again and not spend hours traveling to and from the location. I was skeptical because of light pollution and the crescent moon lighting up the sky a bit. I tried anyway and came away with something I rather like with the Milky Way rather subdued but still visible with the moon and Venus providing some interest to go along with the interesting patterns in the sand.
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Technical Details
Is this a composite: Yes
Exposure/focus blend: one frame for the sky and four stacked for the foreground. I took eight frames for the sky but the stacking blew out the moon so I opted for one frame for the sky and applied some noise reduction.
Dean, I am not practiced at Milky Way photography. Yes, you came away with this excellent image. Having the moon and Venus (is Venus the star under and right of the moon) is quite unique. For the fun of it I ran Tony Kuyper’s TK8 with darks triple play with this result that has a bit more punch. Though, you may need to adjust exposure on the foreground after running the triple play.
Thank you, Larry. I’m fairly new to Milky Way/nightscape photography. Yes, Venus is the bright object under and to the right of the moon. I like your edit with slightly more contrast–to me barely noticeable (in a good way) for the sky and more noticeable in the foreground. I use a different Photoshop panel (Lumenzia), but I am inspired to try working more on the contrast.
It’s wonderful to be able to capture and process this much detail with the usual moisture in the air at the coast. Where is this, if I may ask? I’d also love to know what lens you used, was it wide open, and if the image is cropped? The lens doesn’t have the corner aberrations so common to many and that is so desirable for Milky Way photography.
Thank you, Diane. The location is Fort Funston in San Francisco California USA. I think I was able to avoid the worst effects of light pollution based on no artificial lighting in the immediate vicinity and pointing the camera away from the city lights and out into the ocean. I used the Nikon Z 20mm 1.8 lens wide open at 1.8 (with a Nikon Z 6). This lens seems to be well regarded for having minimal coma and in my experience I agree. As far as cropping I changed from the in camera 2:3 ratio to a 4:5 and then straightening out the horizon resulted in a very slight crop (overall going from 4024 x 6048 to 4002 x 5003).
Amazing to have that much clear, dark air right on the edge of the city! I’ve tried nightscapes on the Sonoma Coast (I’m up in Santa Rosa) with no success so far. Tonight we have an offshore dry wind but the moon is a little too far along, and with the fire danger I’m staying close to home.
I’ve heard The Sony 20mm f/1.8 is a fantastic astro lens and your Nikon must be its equal. The large image you posted shows perfect stars in the corners!
I used Sequator in my attempt to stack the sky part of the image. I have successfully used it before (to reduce noise), but for some reason the moon went from roughly how it looks in the edited image I posted to much larger white blob. The only thing I can figure is that while the software does well to track the movement of the stars it cannot handle larger objects like the moon.
This is really nice Dean. I think the processing of the foreground is very well handled, I like the dark look, but with just the right level of luminosity in the highlights in the sand and water. Not many Milky Way images incorporate other elements that are as bright or brighter than the core of the Milky Way, but I think that situation works very well for you here. Nice work.
