Critique Style Requested: Standard
The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
Well, another month has passed and this evening I went out to photograph the new crescent moon of the 11th month in the Islamic calendar, known as Dhul Qi’da (The Sitting Month). It turned out that the moon was only about 1 degree away from the Pleiades. I started photographing the moon about 30 minutes after sunset when the moon was still about 10 degrees above the horizon. I normally do not wait around after getting the crescent, but tonight I wanted to wait until the sky became darker with the hope of also catching the Pleiades with the moon. At about 8:45 pm PDT, I could see that both Atlas and Alcyone (the two brightest stars in the photo) were showing up on my LCD screen, even though I could not see them with my naked eyes. I could not see the other 5 stars on the LCD screen. But after getting back and bringing the images into ACR and PS, I could faintly make out all seven of the seven sisters! If you look closely at the enlarged images all seven of the sisters are there.
Specific Feedback
Any feedback is welcomed.
Technical Details
Nikon D850, Nikon 400mm f/5.6 MF lens, at f8, 1/2 second exposure, ISO 3200. Photographed at 9:04 pm PDT, the sky was getting dark and I needed to raise the ISO to keep the shutter speed less than 1 second to keep the moon from blurring and stars from trailing.
I processed the image in ACR with just some exposure adjustment and some noise reduction, but just slightly so as not to erase the stars. In PS I duplicated the layer and added a layer mask to block everything except the stars. Selecting the stars was tough, but I managed to get just enough pixels for them to show up in the selection. I then set the copied - masked layer to lighten blend mode. I added a curves layer and increased the overall contrast slightly to accentuate the earth shine on the moon and then a brighten/contrast layer with the same star mask and I lowered the contrast and brightened the stars a bit to bring them out better. Once I had the stars clearly showing, I copied the layers and merged them into a smart object and applied the ACR filter and applied noise reduction to sufficiently reduce the noise brought in by the high ISO. I did crop the image, about 10% to remove a blurry tree on the right edge of the frame.
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1 Like
Fantastic!! I love the murky sky and the bit of FG.
Was this shot the 8th? I shot it last night (the 9th) but didn’t realize the Pleiades was that close. I tried for it the 8th but it was too dim against the twilight sky to find. The horizon to the west has some trees and I should have gone to a better location, but I’ve been super busy lately.
Haven’t had time to look at the shots yet, but I didn’t get any FG. There was a nice view of the earthshine but it was too dim for the small aperture I had. I was pixel-greedy and had the 2X on the 100-500 so I had f/13. Dumb. The crescent I did get showed a lot of atmospheric turbulence (as always) so there was no reason to go for magnification. Maybe I’ll remember that lesson for the next opportunity?
Diane,
It was taken on the 8th. Sunset was at 8:07 pm and by 8:30 the crescent was clearly visible. My first photo that evening was at 8:34 pm and I could not tell from my LCD on the camera that Pleiades was coming through. It was not until around 8:45 or 8:50 that I could see Atlas and Alcyone on the LCD. So I decided to wait until the sky became darker hoping for more contrast between the darkening sky and the stars that they might appear better. I thought that the later photo was better so I did not even look at the earlier photos until yesterday and discovered that even the photo made at 8:34 had the stars, and since I used a lower ISO even came out better. Then I started to second guess myself that maybe these were not the seven sisters, so I took the Pleiades photo I made back in February, since I used the same lens and placed it on top of the photo and the main seven stars lined up perfectly. I am including both of those here to compare.
I am also adding the unprocessed RAW file from the 8:34 photo and a crop of just the section that has Pleiades. The contrast needs to be boosted to see the stars better and then creating a mask for just the stars to brighten them up with successive curves layers was necessary to really get to appear.
The unprocessed RAW file
The crop of just the section with the stars, circled in red
1 Like
Some month I’ll manage it!! (I hope…) Maybe it was already behind trees by 8:30. I looked hard and long.
Last night (9th) I had set up the star tracker to try for the North American Nebula, and I got some shots of earthshine. (Practice for the next lunar eclipse, which I’ve never had a chance to track.) Will see what I can do with them, but the crescent was probably too bright at the shortest exposures I tried. So different from my daytime camera! With it, I got decent exposures of the crescent but the earthshine was too dim.
Hi Youssef, may I ask how you selected the stars?
John,
In PS I zoomed in to like 400% and using TK zone masking tool placed the eyedropper on the blemish of a star and clicked on its tone. Then made necessary adjustments to the mask to the stars as close to white and everything else black.
Got it. I was brainstorming on how to select stars awhile back, and came up with a method I’ve found to be useful for some photos that is pretty quick.
I duplicate the image on a new layer, and then use the various noise filter options (Despeckle, Dust&Scratches, Noise Reduction, etc.) to remove the stars. I then set this new layer to difference mode, which is black where the image is the same and white were it is different. Because the stars are now missing from the new layer, the end result is that the stars are white and the rest of the image is black. In the Channels palate, I then click on the RGB channel which loads this as a selection. I then add an adjustment layer which loads this selection as a mask. Finally, I delete the layer that I used to remove the stars. (Obviously you have to mask out areas you don’t want effected, for example the moon in your image.)
The end result is you end up with a quick mask of the stars which you can then edit however you see fit. (I often blur the mask just a tiny amount, and then fade the blur so that it only lightens; that makes the stars ever so slightly larger.) Give it a try and see what you think. (If my description is too vague, let me know and I can be more detailed with images.)
John,
Thank you! That description makes total sense. I will try it out. On this photo and see if it will work.
1 Like
Clever, @John_Williams – I’ll give this a try, too! I’ve been meaning to try to dig out some stars from the recent eclipse. I need to see them a little better to try to composite the star field shot with my tracker and its astro camera, which has slightly different resolution. I finally just got the correct star field in the 2017 eclipse. I need to post it.
Good deal. Let me know if the technique works for you.
