Tomas Tria Tirona Photography
Milky Way over Taal Volcano
Tracked, stacked, blended, composite. An image that was months in the planning and making.
It all started last year with an idea of capturing the Milky Way over Taal Volcano. Using Google Earth and Sequator, I found the proper time and place to take the necessary photographs.
The first part was capturing the Milky Way. After doing recon of the places where I can photograph the Milky Way's centre over the volcano, I narrowed the place at GreenATS restaurant. There was no moon on the early morning of 25 February 2020 when the first part of the image was made. Several photographs of the Milky Way were shot while the camera tracked it with the Skyguider Pro. Then a foreground shot to anchor it. Photographs were stacked in Sequator and the dark foreground was merged (vertical panorama) with the Milky Way. Oh, and yes, that's a meteor streaking. The first light frame of the stacked set had that meteor. Stacking erased it but with a bit of Photoshop, I brought it back, making sure it was "placed" behind the cloud.
The second part was done on 9 March 2020 during the supermoon. I needed light from the moon to illuminate the foreground. Setting up at the exact same spot, several long exposure photographs were taken from 10pm to almost midnight. Having selected the best one, it was first post processed to make it easier to blend with part 1 in Photoshop.
Parts 1 and 2 were then combined in Photoshop and saved as a TIFF file. Post processing was then done on the overall image in Luminar 4. The result is this image.
Technical details:
Gear: Lumix GX85+Leica Summilux 15mm f1.7 on the Skyguider Pro
Stacked Milky Way image: 21 photographs, f1.8, 15s, ISO800 + 1 dark foreground shot in the same settings, taken on 25 February 2020 around 0416-0428hrs.
Taal Volcano foreground: single frame, f8, 128s, ISO250, taken on 9 March 2020, 2246hrs.
Location: GreenATS restaurant, Tagaytay, facing southeast
Used Google Earth and Sequator for timing and location scouting. Sequator for stacking. Photoshop for putting all together. And Luminar 4 for post processing.
Milky Way over Taal Volcano
Tracked, stacked, blended, composite. An image that was months in the planning and making.
It all started last year with an idea of capturing the Milky Way over Taal Volcano. Using Google Earth and Sequator, I found the proper time and place to take the necessary photographs.
The first part was capturing the Milky Way. After doing recon of the places where I can photograph the Milky Way's centre over the volcano, I narrowed the place at GreenATS restaurant. There was no moon on the early morning of 25 February 2020 when the first part of the image was made. Several photographs of the Milky Way were shot while the camera tracked it with the Skyguider Pro. Then a foreground shot to anchor it. Photographs were stacked in Sequator and the dark foreground was merged (vertical panorama) with the Milky Way. Oh, and yes, that's a meteor streaking. The first light frame of the stacked set had that meteor. Stacking erased it but with a bit of Photoshop, I brought it back, making sure it was "placed" behind the cloud.
The second part was done on 9 March 2020 during the supermoon. I needed light from the moon to illuminate the foreground. Setting up at the exact same spot, several long exposure photographs were taken from 10pm to almost midnight. Having selected the best one, it was first post processed to make it easier to blend with part 1 in Photoshop.
Parts 1 and 2 were then combined in Photoshop and saved as a TIFF file. Post processing was then done on the overall image in Luminar 4. The result is this image.
Technical details:
Gear: Lumix GX85+Leica Summilux 15mm f1.7 on the Skyguider Pro
Stacked Milky Way image: 21 photographs, f1.8, 15s, ISO800 + 1 dark foreground shot in the same settings, taken on 25 February 2020 around 0416-0428hrs.
Taal Volcano foreground: single frame, f8, 128s, ISO250, taken on 9 March 2020, 2246hrs.
Location: GreenATS restaurant, Tagaytay, facing southeast
Used Google Earth and Sequator for timing and location scouting. Sequator for stacking. Photoshop for putting all together. And Luminar 4 for post processing.