There are many misconceptions about photographing the night sky. Many good photographers I have spoken too about the subject often seem to think you need to have a powerful telescope with special built in computerized tracking equipment. Nothing could be further from the truth. The only equipment you need is a digital camera equipped with a wide angle lens and a sturdy tripod. With this simple setup, you can capture the night sky in all of her glory. However, there are a few preliminary things you need to know first before taking full advantage of the opportunity.
What You Need To Know: The light you are attempting to capture has traveled to us from, in some cases, tens of thousands of light years away, and in other cases over hundreds of thousands and even millions of light years away. A light year of course is the distance light will travel at 186,000 miles per second in one year. That's a long, long ways and multiply that by thousands of years...well you get the idea at just how far away these things are and how faint the light truly is once it arrives.
The Milky Way Galaxy is what is known as a Barred Spiral Galaxy. This means the center of the galaxy resembles a stretched out bar-like area of stars with multiple pinwheel like spirals whirling out and away creating a tumbling wheel like appearance almost like a flat tumble weed spinning in space.
Our solar system which includes our sun and all of the planets resides way out in the suburbs along one of the minor spiral arms...roughly a little over halfway out from the center. We, along with all the planets, orbit around the sun at an incline to the overall plane of the Milky Way. From our vantage point we see the Milky Way edge on, however, because of our orbit around the sun and the seasons, the center of the Milky Way is only visible to us during the summer months in the northern hemisphere. That is because our night sky faces toward the center during those months and away from the center toward the outer edges during the winter months. This is important to know when it comes to photographing the Milky Way for it is during the summer when it is most visible.
Where and When to Find it: Although the Milky Way is visible beginning in the spring, it is only visible during the very early hours of the morning like 2:00 - 3:00 AMish, and then it will be low over the horizon. The best time to see it at a reasonable hour begins in late June through August with the optimum time being during the month of July. It can be found hovering reasonable early in the evening high in the sky as you look toward the south. It splits between the Constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius.
 |
| Goldpaint Images Photo |
The Setup: You will want to set your camera exposure on Manual and then set you shutter speed all the way down to the Bulb setting. Technically you can set the shutter to a 30 second exposure as well to accomplish what we are wanting to do. You will want to use the widest angle lens you have and set the aperture setting to it's widest opening...like f/2.8 or f/3.5...depending on the kind of lens you have. You will also want to set your White Balance to Auto and your ISO to something like 800 or 1600 to start with. When it comes focusing, you will put you lens/camera into manual focus mode, and rotate the focus ring all the way out to the infinity setting. When dong this, remember the actual infinity focus point is actually located slighting behind or before you reach the full rotation of the focus ring. So, turn it all the way out, the back it up a just a little to find you lens' best infinity focus.
Point your camera toward the Sagittarius / Scorpius constellations located low in the southern sky and using your cable release, fire off a 30 second exposure. You may want to download a sky tracker APP onto your phone which will help you find your way around the night sky.
Point your camera toward the Sagittarius / Scorpius constellations located low in the southern sky and using your cable release, fire off a 30 second exposure. You may want to download a sky tracker APP onto your phone which will help you find your way around the night sky.
You Need A Dark Sky: In today's world especially if you live east of the Mississippi River you will encounter what is known as light pollution. This is that bubble of light emanating from towns and cities that pollutes the lower regions of the sky, especially near the horizons. Light Pollution can obscure the view of the stars and the Milky Way. To be able to effectively capture the Milky Way, you will need to move away from the city into a dark area several miles away. If you can place the city lights behind you and see the southern horizon without any lights, you will be able to capture better quality images. If you are fortunate enough to live west of the Mississippi River, you will be able to find adequate dark spaces from which to operate not too far from the city. It might take a bit of creative research on your part to find a suitable location, but it is necessary in order to capture effective photographs of the Night Sky.
Also, you will need a clear, dark, moonless night. The moon is very bright and will fill the night sky with a bright light that will flood your camera and cause a white-out situation when making a long 30 second exposure. Hazy skies will reflect a lot of light pollution as well and will obscure the night sky much the same way a bright moon will.
Composing Your Shots: Composition is just as important in photographing the night sky as it is in any other type of photography. You will want to line up the Milky Way so it presents a pleasing and interesting night sky story. There are features being captured like what is known as The Dark Horse region which is near the center of the Milky Way that provide a great structural anchor to your photos. Also, by including objects on the ground in your composition, you bring a sense of place and timeliness to the image. Barns, trees, skylines, rock formations, water reflections all make great backdrops. Just remember, there is more to capturing the night sky than simply pointing your camera skyward.
Why a 30 Second Exposure: A 30 second exposure will be about the maximum amount of time you will be able to use because stars will begin to create long trails after much more time than that. It kind of depends on the type of lens you are using. An 18mm lens will let you easily shoot up to 30 seconds. With a 14mm lens, you might be able to increase it upwards to 40 seconds. But, use 28 or 35mm lens and you will be able to only use about 20 seconds. The longer the focal length of the lens, the more compressed the exposure times become. You can use a star tracking devise which offsets the movement of the stars across your field of view to increase your exposure times. The are several commercial ones available or you can construct an easy to build Barn Door Tracker that works quite well. This will be discussed in Part 3 of this series. However, they are not necessary to capture wonderful images of the night sky.
Composing Your Shots: Composition is just as important in photographing the night sky as it is in any other type of photography. You will want to line up the Milky Way so it presents a pleasing and interesting night sky story. There are features being captured like what is known as The Dark Horse region which is near the center of the Milky Way that provide a great structural anchor to your photos. Also, by including objects on the ground in your composition, you bring a sense of place and timeliness to the image. Barns, trees, skylines, rock formations, water reflections all make great backdrops. Just remember, there is more to capturing the night sky than simply pointing your camera skyward.
Post Processing: Almost every digital photograph can benefit from a post processing tweak or two. Photographs of the night sky are no exceptions and in fact it is probably necessary to apply some post processing to obtain the best results. Post Processing needs to be limited to tweaks to contrast, brightness, and maybe saturation. I would recommend you shoot in the RAW format and/or open your JPG images as a RAW file using Photoshop. From here you can tweak the Exposure value, Blacks, Brightness, Contrast, Clarity, and Saturation, among other things to elevate the image from a nice basic capture into a real eye catcher.
There is a rising trend in the photographic world focused on capturing the wonders of the night sky. By employing simple methods, anyone can join this exciting form of photography. Capturing the night sky and especially the Milky Way is a wonderful extension of your photographic talents. With minimal effort, you can find a dark location and then with a little knowledge of the night sky, you can capture wonderful, eye opening photos. Give it a try sometime. You might discover a new and exciting way to express your photographic desires.
No comments:
Post a Comment