Utah Astrophotography
#31 The Beginning
For the month of December I've decided I'm going to count down my 31 best Milky Way shots of the year, each day posting a different shot counting down what I think is my best/most favorite shot of 2016. I'll try and provide the story behind the shot as well the technical details regarding how it was taken and edited.
So to start the countdown I figured I'd start with my first Milky Way shot of the year. After having spent all winter reading and learning as much as I could about tracking and editing techniques using my iOptron Skytracker mount I was excited to put it to use shooting the Milky Way. It was early March and still very cold, but I decided to head up to Rockport Reservoir to get some shooting in. The reservoir was still mostly frozen over and it was still pretty damn cold at night. That night was also the first time I had really shot airglow, which was kind of a surprise given how close to Salt Lake City I still was, I did not expect to be able to see the phenomenon given the light pollution.
Using the tracking mount (and reading the wonderful tutorials by Roger Clark) gave me ideas on how to image the sky in a way to really reduce noise, bring out details, and create a shot that represents the highest quality I think can be produced. It allows me to stop down my lens to sharpen stars, lower ISO to reduce noise, and capture enough light to bring out the most in the night sky. Of course using a tracking mount means that you take long exposures of the sky which causes the foreground to be blurred, this means learning advanced editing techniques to merge foreground and sky shots in post-processing. This has caused my post-processing to be an ever evolving methodology that has changed significantly as I've learned new techniques, new tricks, and practiced new ideas. So with this edit I've combined everything I've learned over the course of the year to maximize detail, color, and creativity while keeping noise to near zero and (hopefully) not making a wildly over-processed looking shot.
This is a panorama of 8 shots total, 4 for the sky and 4 for the foreground, taken with my Nikon D600 and Rokinon 24mm f1.4 lens. As with all my images I create using a tracking mount, all the shots were taken back to back, I also try my hardest to make all shots have the same exposure settings. In this case the sky shots were 2 minute exposures at ISO 400 and f2.8, the foreground shots were 2 minute exposures at ISO 800 and f2.8.
I shoot at a white balance setting of 5000k, this white balance is as close to accurate as one can shoot the night sky. Most people shoot at white balance settings in the 3000-4000k range which is not an accurate white balance and produces an image that is too blue. There is a back and forth about the balance between art and science for Milky Way photography among photographers, I'm unwilling to sacrifice the accuracy of a shot based upon scientific backing in this regard and I will do my absolute best to produce an image of the night sky that has the correct color balance. People are certainly free to produce an artistic shot of the night sky, color balancing it any way they choose, but among the hardcore astrophotography community you will find an agreement that shooting at a white balance setting around 5000k is the most accurate DSLR cameras can be set at to produce a natural image of the night sky. If people are curious about reading the reasoning, the actual science, behind this I highly recommend reading Roger Clark's series at www.clarkvision.com/articles/color.of.the.night.sky/
#31 The Beginning
For the month of December I've decided I'm going to count down my 31 best Milky Way shots of the year, each day posting a different shot counting down what I think is my best/most favorite shot of 2016. I'll try and provide the story behind the shot as well the technical details regarding how it was taken and edited.
So to start the countdown I figured I'd start with my first Milky Way shot of the year. After having spent all winter reading and learning as much as I could about tracking and editing techniques using my iOptron Skytracker mount I was excited to put it to use shooting the Milky Way. It was early March and still very cold, but I decided to head up to Rockport Reservoir to get some shooting in. The reservoir was still mostly frozen over and it was still pretty damn cold at night. That night was also the first time I had really shot airglow, which was kind of a surprise given how close to Salt Lake City I still was, I did not expect to be able to see the phenomenon given the light pollution.
Using the tracking mount (and reading the wonderful tutorials by Roger Clark) gave me ideas on how to image the sky in a way to really reduce noise, bring out details, and create a shot that represents the highest quality I think can be produced. It allows me to stop down my lens to sharpen stars, lower ISO to reduce noise, and capture enough light to bring out the most in the night sky. Of course using a tracking mount means that you take long exposures of the sky which causes the foreground to be blurred, this means learning advanced editing techniques to merge foreground and sky shots in post-processing. This has caused my post-processing to be an ever evolving methodology that has changed significantly as I've learned new techniques, new tricks, and practiced new ideas. So with this edit I've combined everything I've learned over the course of the year to maximize detail, color, and creativity while keeping noise to near zero and (hopefully) not making a wildly over-processed looking shot.
This is a panorama of 8 shots total, 4 for the sky and 4 for the foreground, taken with my Nikon D600 and Rokinon 24mm f1.4 lens. As with all my images I create using a tracking mount, all the shots were taken back to back, I also try my hardest to make all shots have the same exposure settings. In this case the sky shots were 2 minute exposures at ISO 400 and f2.8, the foreground shots were 2 minute exposures at ISO 800 and f2.8.
I shoot at a white balance setting of 5000k, this white balance is as close to accurate as one can shoot the night sky. Most people shoot at white balance settings in the 3000-4000k range which is not an accurate white balance and produces an image that is too blue. There is a back and forth about the balance between art and science for Milky Way photography among photographers, I'm unwilling to sacrifice the accuracy of a shot based upon scientific backing in this regard and I will do my absolute best to produce an image of the night sky that has the correct color balance. People are certainly free to produce an artistic shot of the night sky, color balancing it any way they choose, but among the hardcore astrophotography community you will find an agreement that shooting at a white balance setting around 5000k is the most accurate DSLR cameras can be set at to produce a natural image of the night sky. If people are curious about reading the reasoning, the actual science, behind this I highly recommend reading Roger Clark's series at www.clarkvision.com/articles/color.of.the.night.sky/