The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
I am still attempting to photograph the Milkyway on 4x5 transparency film, and while the 4x5 camera on the star tracker completes its 3-hour exposure, I have time to use the digital and play around. So I focused on the heart of the Milkyway, which I have posted before but I was not satisfied with the single exposure I presented last time. This time around I have many images stacked to help reduce noise and get subtle colors to come through.
Specific Feedback
Any feedback on this attempt is most appreciated.
Technical Details
Nikon D850, Nikon 50mm f/1.8 MF lens, at f1.8. 22 separate exposures at 10 seconds each as the camera was not tracking. Each RAW file was opened in ACR and adjusted. All were brought into PS aligned and stacked as smart objects with a median stack filter applied. The stack was then flattened and brought into Siril where Starnet++ was used to make a starless image and a star mask. Starnet++ could not remove some of the stars near the borders of the image due to coma distortion. The starless image was stretched in Siril, then brought into PS again as a 32-bit image and the coma-distorted stars were carefully cloned out, and the file was saved as a 32-bit tiff. Then the star mask was then synthesized to produce round stars, a new feature in latest version of Siril. Then the starless image and the synthesized star mask were recombined with the stars being stretched. The image was then saved as a 32-bit tiff and brought back into PS for final editing as a 16-bit image so that layers and smart filters could be used. TK luminosity masks were used to adjust contrast, vibrance, and saturation.
It took way to much time to figure out how to do this. I hope the effort was worth it?
Hi Youssef,
wow, that looks great. Shooting the Milky Way Core with a focal length of 50mm without a star tracker is not easy.
But your result looks nice and clean. At least in the resolution that you provided.
So in my opinion the effort was worth it.
Well done!
These kinds of images amaze me because we had only our imaginations for what lies beyond the sun and the moon. Now with relatively normal gear, folks like you who have gained some knowledge and expertise can bring us these types of photos that have never been possible. While I could do without the signature as big and prevalent as it is, it’s a fine photo.
Super, and definitely worth the trouble! I love this view of the galactic center, with the dust lanes reaching out to Antares and the Rho Ophiuchi region of nebulosity. You got intriguing color and I think the starless route is a worthwhile one, as is the ability to correct for the inevitable lens artifacts with pinpoint light sources.
I’m on my laptop on the road and look forward to having a better look at this when I get home in a couple of days. I shot this region with a 50mm lens on a simple tracker several years ago and hope to be able to do a better version of it soon. (The Sigma lens was not awful but slightly over-rated.)
I’m back home now and had a better look at this and am still full of praise! I’m on a Mac and haven’t used your software, but a re-do of this object is definitely on my list.
I just had a chance to shoot the Milky Way at 28mm in a dark sky, and did a set of frames to see if I can align them for NR. I haven’t tried that in PS – does it do a good job? (I’ll try it asap.) Or is something like Starry Landscape Stacker (or Starry Sky Stacker) better? Or there must be a way to get the subs into PixInsight to do it, as well.
I’m curious how you are managing to mount a 4x5 on a tracker? It must be a monstrous tracker?? Are you able to guide? My modest tracker would follow nicely but gear teeth meshing would give some shake every few seconds. I can get away with 45-60 sec exposures without guiding if I throw away those shaky images, which are about 30% of the frames.
Beautiful, @Youssef_Ismail ! I like the subtle colors, and the simplicity of the scene.
BTW, I hope you got some images you like with your film camera, and that you will share them here. I’ve been doing more and more film photography lately, both 35mm and medium format 120 film, so I’m very interested in how your turned out!
Some of the technical aspects of this are beyond me, but I do love this region of the Milky Way. I have this “thing” where I try not to take a Milky Way image without including this portion! Really nice image!
This is definitely the best part of the Milky Way – it is the center of our run-of-the-mill little galaxy. The farther south anyone can shoot from, the higher above the horizon it will be. In the southern hemisphere it can be almost straight overhead.
Beautiful!! Well done. I cannot offer any suggestions because I haven’t any knowledge of astro photography but you defiantly do. Even in my 15" dobsonian telescope, the views aren’t this good. I look forward to seeing more of your work.
Wow! Thank you for the editor’s pick. I did not think the run-of-the-mill astro image of the Milkyway would have warranted it, but very appreciative.
