skypointer2000
Regensberg
This is the medieval town Regensberg. I can see it from my backyard and have therefore been aware for a long time that it would make a nice foreground for a nightscape. Unfortunately, Switzerlands biggest city Zurich, with its bortle 7 light pollution dome, is located only 16km to the south-east of Regensberg - exactly in the direction of the rising core. I therefore decided that an image with the Milky Way behind Regensberg was impossible and tried to forget the shot.
The thought however kept nagging me and during the last new moon, I finally decided to sacrifice a clear night and give it a try. As I have scucessfully captured the Lagoon Nebula with a telescope from my backyard, I knew that I had to do a longer focal length deepscape, if I wanted to have a fighting chance.
To get a clear view, I set up my equipment a few hunderd meters from my home. After successfully capturing the foreground, the first sky images did not look very encouraging, but the Lagoon Nebula was visible on my LCD and so I kept shooting. After a while, I installed my seldom used light pollution filter and captured a second, filtered sequence.
Stacking the exposures in Photoshop confirmed that I had captured - something. The gradients in the light polluted sky however looked very ugly. It was time to switch to more powerful tools.
After extracting the background gradients and processing the filtered sequence with PixInsight, I could hardly believe how much detail my camera had recorded. The colors however still suffered from the light pollution filter.
Processing the unfiltered sequence yielded better colors, but less detail. I therefore combined the two stacks and blended them with the untracked foreground, I had captured before the Milky Way moved into position.
If somebody showed me my image a few weeks ago, I would have been convinced it was a fake. Now, after actually capturing it, I can hardly believe the quality I was able to extract from the meagre looking data and I wonder what other seemingly impossible scenes are waiting to be captured.
EXIF
Canon EOS 6D, astro modified
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L ll IS USM @ 142mm
Skywatcher AZ-GTI mount
Guided with a ZWO ASI 385MC and ASIair
Sky:
30 x 40s @ISO800 f/4 with nachtlicht° light pollution filter
40 x 40s @ISO800 f/4 without filters
processed with PixInsight and PS
Foreground:
12 x 30s @ISO800 f/2.8
Regensberg
This is the medieval town Regensberg. I can see it from my backyard and have therefore been aware for a long time that it would make a nice foreground for a nightscape. Unfortunately, Switzerlands biggest city Zurich, with its bortle 7 light pollution dome, is located only 16km to the south-east of Regensberg - exactly in the direction of the rising core. I therefore decided that an image with the Milky Way behind Regensberg was impossible and tried to forget the shot.
The thought however kept nagging me and during the last new moon, I finally decided to sacrifice a clear night and give it a try. As I have scucessfully captured the Lagoon Nebula with a telescope from my backyard, I knew that I had to do a longer focal length deepscape, if I wanted to have a fighting chance.
To get a clear view, I set up my equipment a few hunderd meters from my home. After successfully capturing the foreground, the first sky images did not look very encouraging, but the Lagoon Nebula was visible on my LCD and so I kept shooting. After a while, I installed my seldom used light pollution filter and captured a second, filtered sequence.
Stacking the exposures in Photoshop confirmed that I had captured - something. The gradients in the light polluted sky however looked very ugly. It was time to switch to more powerful tools.
After extracting the background gradients and processing the filtered sequence with PixInsight, I could hardly believe how much detail my camera had recorded. The colors however still suffered from the light pollution filter.
Processing the unfiltered sequence yielded better colors, but less detail. I therefore combined the two stacks and blended them with the untracked foreground, I had captured before the Milky Way moved into position.
If somebody showed me my image a few weeks ago, I would have been convinced it was a fake. Now, after actually capturing it, I can hardly believe the quality I was able to extract from the meagre looking data and I wonder what other seemingly impossible scenes are waiting to be captured.
EXIF
Canon EOS 6D, astro modified
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L ll IS USM @ 142mm
Skywatcher AZ-GTI mount
Guided with a ZWO ASI 385MC and ASIair
Sky:
30 x 40s @ISO800 f/4 with nachtlicht° light pollution filter
40 x 40s @ISO800 f/4 without filters
processed with PixInsight and PS
Foreground:
12 x 30s @ISO800 f/2.8