Beginner's guide to taking your first milky way photograph - 5 stacking and tracking

 This is the fifth blog in a series of posts in which I share what I am learning on my ‘journey’ towards obtaining a good milky way night time image. In my second year chasing down this aspiration, last year was dabbling and learning lots. This year, I want to ‘nail’ one or two good milky way landscape images. It’s a mission! Whether I can deliver on it or not is a moot point though!

If you have just arrived at this page, you may want to go back and read the first four posts in this series before reading this one. They sort of follow a logical order.

This blog post series shares what I have learned thus far to help encourage those of you seeking your first milky way image. Remember I am still at the very beginning of my learning journey. I am no expert. I claim no expertise in any way at all. A complete novice in photography and astrophotography. This entire blog is written from that perspective – a chronicle of my learning journey written by a beginner for other beginners. I know very little about anything frankly but therein lies the attraction. If I can do it with my very limited knowledge – then so can you; and probably better, as I am a rather slow learner at the best of times.

As always, if I have made any mistakes in my posts, I apologise. Please drop me a comment highlighting the issue and I will correct it immediately.

Please note: I will not be going into huge depth about how things work and why we do things the way we do. I’m not dismissing the importance of having a theoretical understanding – its critical – I’m just saying it’s not the focus of these blog posts. My aim, is to just get you out there, obtaining a first milky way image.

 

To help you achieve this, I will outline some simple answers to these questions:

1.            What equipment do we need?

2.            What advanced planning is needed to ensure success on the night?

3.            What base settings can we use to help us get success?

4.            What foreground composition considerations do we need to make?

5.            What are the different techniques for getting a milky way photograph?

6.            What do we need to consider if we want to do a milky way selfie shot?

7.            How can we improve our milky way photography skills?

8.            What is a ‘beginner’ workflow for post editing our milky way photographs? 

 

Our fifth question then - What are the different techniques for getting a milky way photograph?

Up to now in this series of blog posts, I have been looking at doing single exposure images of the milky way in a landscape setting. I touched on occasionally, an alternative method, doing two separate images – one exposed for the sky; the other for the foreground. We then blend these in post editing to create one single image.  At its simplest, I call this technique ‘exposure blending’. We might return to this technique later in the post.

However, there are a series of other techniques that we could use to get our first milky way image. The key concept, isn’t it, is about getting as much light as we can to our sensor through longer shutter speeds or wider apertures – but this can bring the problems. Longer shutter speeds introduce movement errors; wider apertures mean more of our scene will be out of focus.

However, there are other approaches we can adopt which can mitigate some of these impacts:

·        Star stacking

·        Using a star tracker

·        (Long exposure foregrounds)

·        (Focus stacking)

This is a post series by a beginner for beginners with the aim of helping you obtain your first milky way landscape image. Once over that first hurdle, you will be so keen to get other better images that you will advance your own learning rapidly through YouTube tutorials, on-line reading and plenty of practice. I am a very slow learner as you will have already deduced from previous posts – so it takes me time to assimilate and understand the basics!

 

This is one of the very first tracked/stacked/blended exposures I took

6 tracked images of 120" each, and stacked in deepskystacker. 

I then did a separate foreground exposure and blended them very badly together post editing.

The sky shots were done 100m away out in a desert section. I had been warned about mountain lions roaming the area so I remained close to the motel ranch entrance. It was a very dark sky location and when a ranch domestic moggy suddenly appeared between my legs meowing loudly, it is the closest I have come to a major instantaneous heart attack! 

So, lets investigate the technique of star stacking.

In star stacking – you take multiple photographs of the sky and stars using short shutter speeds. These are then aligned in software which creates a single final image – like an average of them all. This approach reduces the amount of ‘noise’ in the image.

If you do deep sky astrophotography (my other passion) then you will be familiar with ‘stacking’ multiple images.  Stacking allows you to use faster shutter speeds for pin point stars, and smaller apertures/higher F-stop numbers to improve the depth of field in your image, the focus of the stars and reduction of aberrations.  It sounds counter intuitive doesn’t it – faster shutter speed and narrower aperture – but because you have taken lots of images and stacked them together – you are getting, effectively more light into the final image.

What equipment will I need for star stacking?

·        Tripod and ball head

·        Intervalometer

·        (Lens warmer)

·        (Star Tracker)

 

What would be good starting settings for star stacking?

Firstly, you compose your scene. See my previous post about compositional tips.

Then we set our base astro settings. I start with ISO 800 or 1600; F/2.8 and then a shutter speed that is matched to my lens focal length (see my post on settings). I’ll go for a shorter shutter speed than the 300 rule suggests for my crop sensor camera so that I can ensure pinpoint stars.  It is however a balancing point as a shorter shutter speed means I will not get as much detail out of the fainter areas of the milky way. ISO wise? You can correct exposure during post editing. I find that on my camera if I use too high an ISO it produces images with lots of noise – which is what I want to avoid.

How many photos to take? I take many in quick succession. Nothing about camera position or composition gets changed between exposures. I tend to take between 10 and 15, depending on my base astro settings. 15 photos at 10” = 150” of integration time (the combined exposure time total). 150” is approximately 2 and a half minutes – that is a lot of light gathering! But there is another reason why between 10 – 15 is ideal – during that shooting time – the stars above are moving – well changing position as it is us on Earth who are moving beneath them. Anyway, the stars positions will change significantly, the more exposures you take. Keep it simple!

It is the opposite when doing deep sky astrophotography – the more images you stack, the better the final image is likely to be. With no foreground to consider, you just must periodically reframe your target back into the middle of your frame.

 

This was a single exposure shot 

What about the foreground element in these milky way shots?

If I am star stacking, I make it a personal rule that I am doing a separate foreground image, from, as far as possible, the same tripod position and ball head angle. I am exposing for the foreground specifically, not worried about star trailing and will probably be thinking about hyperfocal distance or focus stacking. I will be using a lower ISO. I may well try and take each exposure at a shutter speed of 1 – 4 minutes. I’ll be watching the histogram with an eagle eye. In saying all this, a friend, also a beginner, prefers to go for one long shot using the hyperfocal distance method – so a shot somewhere around 4 – 10 minutes. I’ve not tried this approach – I would worry about something moving within the shot during that time. For example, on my south coast, there are plenty of fishing boats out at night – a moving fishing boat will leave a significant trail across a 5-minute image!

I have explained these techniques regarding foreground images in a little more detail in my previous post on camera settings for milky way photography, which you can access here: https://undersouthwestskies.blogspot.com/2025/02/beginners-guide-to-taking-your-first_20.html

 

What are the advantages and disadvantages of the star stacking approach?

Advantages:

·        more integration time but with benefit of narrower apertures and shorter shutter speeds

·        reduced noise visible in final image which means more detail is revealed and a better noise to signal ratio – this is because multiple photos average out the noise resulting in clearer images

·        stacking software tends to remove satellite and airplane trails (not always, but most of the time)

·        pin point sharp stars

·        increased detail for post editing work especially with regard to colour accuracy

Disadvantages:

·        the time it takes to do multiple exposures

·        potential alignment issues if there has been wind movement during the taking of the images; some star trailing if you left too longer gap between the multiple exposures

·        increased post editing time – extra steps and complexity using some of the software; and you must raise your game in terms of understanding some more complex editing techniques (which is my current BIG problem!)

·        potential loss of detail in the foreground – my sequator images always appear with blurry foregrounds which are dark and lacking in detail – hence my shifting to taking a stacked star sky image and a separate stacked or single long exposure foreground image and blending them post editing to one image

·        over aggressive smoothing and averaging during stacking software processing – leading to an over smooth image which lacks milky way/star detail

What software will you need to stack the images you collect?

There are three pieces of software that can stack your collected images

·        DeepSkyStacker – free and great for sky shots with no foreground

·        Sequator – for images which are predominately sky and a small amount of foreground (around 10% or so)  Windows platform

·        Starry Landscape Stacker for Mac users

I will do future posts soon about using Sequator (for beginners) and a similar post for DeepSkyStacker – as I use windows platforms. It will be part of my post about post editing work flow for a milky way image. Although I won’t do anything on using Starry Landscape Stacker – I will post some useful blogs and YouTube tutorials which give details for Mac users to follow.

 

A stacked shot using sequator for the first time

I clearly got my base astro settings wrong in this image sequence

How can we use a star tracker to gain our milky way image?

I love my star trackers. I have two – an Ioptron Skytracker Pro and a Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro. The former I use for milky way imaging; the latter for that and for deep sky astrophotography as well. I am considering an upgrade of the SWSA2i to a SWSA gti GOTO model but that is all the subject of a future post!

So, if you are new to the concept of star trackers – what are they?

Trackers go between your camera and your tripod and they move your camera in rotation with the Earth so that your stars are followed precisely with your camera and there is no star trailing. Basically, a tracker is motorised and allows you to compensate for the rotation of the Earth.

It brings huge benefits:

·        You gain far longer exposures – I can easily get up to 3 – 4 minutes on the SWSA2i with no problem. Using my milky way lens – I can get 5 minutes+ easily if I wished.

·        That is a huge amount of light capture and a higher signal to noise ratio for a single exposure.

·        It results in images with less visible noise ad better colour accuracy

·        Images have more detail within the sky and are sharper throughout. Perfect!

·        Moreover, I can use narrower apertures and lower ISO’s – so I can go to ISO 800/1600 maximum consistently. Narrower apertures also lead to less aberrations and vignetting

I wrote a previous post on how I set up my SWSA2i with step-by-step guidance:

https://undersouthwestskies.blogspot.com/2025/02/beginners-guide-on-how-to-set-up-and.html

Here are my steps:

1.       Level my tripod – I have a bubble level on my tripod but I also use a small spirit level as well.

2.       Attach my equatorial wedge mount to the tripod – I don’t use the wedge that came with the SWSA – it was the first thing I replaced as I found the original insufficiently precise for my deep sky astrophotography – instead I use a William Optics wedge. Far superior – well engineered. However, I want to stress that for milky way photography with smaller lenses and camera weights – I found the original wedge was more than satisfactory.  The wedge by the way is also known as an altitude-azimuth mount! One of the things you must ensure on such a wedge is that you have set your latitude – your angular elevation. Don’t forget to do this.

3.       The tracker mount now goes on top of the wedge and I make sure it is securely mounted and that the level of the tripod hasn’t changed.

4.       At this point I might add in my optional counterweight kit – to balance my lens/camera rig and reduce wear and tear on the motor itself.

5.       Before going any further, I will now carry out the Polar Alignment procedure using the little polar illuminator which comes with the SWSA – I will outline this process in more detail later in this post. I also use a green laser pen to line up with Polaris – mine attaches to the viewfinder on the tracker – making it so easy.

6.       Having ensured an accurate polar alignment, I now attach the base plate and ball head to the tracker mount. I prefer a ball head but you might use some other accessory to attach your camera – a two-way head; a MSM Z plate etc. Be very, very gentle – try not to move the tripod or mount even a fraction – otherwise your polar alignment will be out and you will have to start the set up again.

7.       On goes my camera/lens combo. I use a L bracket on my DSLR (see previous post on camera settings). I add on any accessories – so dummy battery pack, intervalometer etc. However, this is where you can throw out your polar alignment so,

8.       Redo your polar alignment or at the very least re-check it again. Fine tuning may be required.

9.       Now do some test shots – I turn the tracker on and do a 30” and 60” test shot to see that the tracker is working properly and that there is no star trailing. Zoom in to the review image – check the corners, the centre – are stars pin point sharp dots? All being well – I now do test shots at 120” and 180” as well. Pinpoint dot stars – then I am ready to go.

 

My Polar Scope app to help locate Polaris correctly 

What is polar aligning?

A tracker has to have its rotational axis aligned with the north celestial pole (NCP) or the south celestial pole (SCP). In the northern hemisphere – we can use Polaris which sits close to the NCP and this is what I am focusing on now in this blog post. Getting sharp pin point stars really does rely on getting polar alignment correct.

How to locate the NCP and the SCP

If I use my 14mm Samyang lens, then I can get away with just a rough alignment to Polaris. I use my green laser pen which attaches to my tracker polar scope. Quick and easy.

 For a precise polar alignment, I will use the polar illuminator, the green laser pen and an app that comes with the SWSA tracker. It shows precisely where to place Polaris in my polar scope reticule for any given time in a particular day.  I will adjust both altitude and azimuth knobs until I get this precise locating of Polaris.  When this adjustment has been made and my various knobs have been tightened, I check that my hemisphere switch is set to north.

 

The polar clock inside my SWSA app 

What are my base astro settings and additional equipment for tracked images of the milky way?

·        Aperture F/2.8 although do some test shots to see which aperture gives you best result. There is a case to be made for stopping down to something like F/4.0 - you can do longer shutter speeds to make up for this - the narrower aperture will bring better focused, sharper sky and greater depth of field within a scene

·        Focal length 14 – 35mm max

·        Shutter speed 120 – 180” normally. Sometimes I will go up to 240 or 300”.

·        ISO 800 (although I often find my Canon 800D performs better at ISO 1600 for some strange reason) If it is windy – reduce your shutter speed length and increase your ISO a little.

·        Check your histogram – most of the information should be in the midtones zone. Zoom into one of the nebula that will appear in your milky way core image an see if that is correctly exposed and detailed – if so – all is good

·        Remember a tracker will blur a landscape element – so if you use a tracker – separate sky and switch off tracker for separate foreground images to later blend post editing.

·        I use an app with my tracker that also controls my camera settings – you made need an intervalometer. Have a lens warmer on standby as well just in case of high humidity/fog. You camera will get warm taking longer and more numerous exposures.

I hope this blog post has given you an overview of stacking and tracking techniques. I found the videos below particularly helpful. 

 

As always, any mistakes, please forgive me - post a correction in the comment box below and I will get it sorted in the main post text above. Similarly, any further tips, thoughts or observations on tracking and stacking for milky way images, let me know below. 

It just remains for me to wish you clear skies - stay safe, have fun

Steve 

Beginners guide to taking your first milky way photograph - 4 Composition

 Beginners guide to taking your first milky way photograph – 4

This is the fourth blog in a series of posts in which I share what I am learning on my ‘journey’ towards obtaining a good milky way night time image. In my second year chasing down this aspiration, last year was dabbling and learning lots. This year, I want to ‘nail’ one or two good milky way landscape images. It’s a mission! Whether I can deliver on it or not is a moot point though!

If you have just arrived at this page, you may want to go back and read the first three posts in this series before reading this one. They sort of follow a logical order.

 

A single image exposure with some foreground light painting

My first effort at light painting

After reading the post, come back and re-examine this photo

Did I try to follow any of the compositional tips I outline below, and to what success, if any? 

This blog post series shares what I have learned thus far to help encourage those of you seeking your first milky way image. Remember I am still at the very beginning of my learning journey. I am no expert. I claim no expertise in any way at all. A complete novice in photography and astrophotography. This entire blog is written from that perspective – a chronicle of my learning journey written by a beginner for other beginners. I know very little about anything frankly but therein lies the attraction. If I can do it with my very limited knowledge – then so can you; and probably better, as I am a rather slow learner at the best of times.

As always, if I have made any mistakes in my posts, I apologise. Please drop me a comment highlighting the issue and I will correct it immediately.

Please note: I will not be going into huge depth about how things work and why we do things the way we do. I’m not dismissing the importance of having a theoretical understanding – its critical – I’m just saying it’s not the focus of these blog posts. My aim, is to just get you out there, obtaining a first milky way image.

 

To help you achieve this, I will outline some simple answers to these questions:

1.            What equipment do we need?

2.            What advanced planning is needed to ensure success on the night?

3.            What base settings can we use to help us get success?

4.            What foreground composition considerations do we need to make?

5.            What are the different techniques for getting a milky way photograph?

6.            What do we need to consider if we want to do a milky way selfie shot?

7.            How can we improve our milky way photography skills?

8.            What is a ‘beginner’ workflow for post editing our milky way photographs? 

 

Our fourth question then - What foreground composition considerations do we need to make?

This is the one area I am hopeless at. Knowing the theory is one thing – remembering to put it all into practice on a night session – is completely something else. I just don’t seem to remember it all! Maybe I need a simple check list. If you have been following this blog – you will know I like check lists!

What I do know, from quick internet image searches, is that the Milky Way is a fantastic subject for a night time landscape photograph, as long as some basic compositional thinking has been applied!

So, in no particular order, here are my tips for getting a good foreground composition on the night.  This works for both single exposure images and for dual image shots – where you shoot the sky and the foreground separately and blend together later in post editing.

Before we look at the list of tips – when do we take a separate foreground shot during our shooting session?

I personally try during blue hour just before twilight ends and darkness begins. But, I have also done them when its been really dark. I tend to do my foreground shots first and then any separate night shots immediately afterwards – but that is just me.

The other thing I would emphasis at this point is this – find your compositions during day light hours! I talk more about this in my ‘planning post’ -  what I do know is that your choice of foreground composition will make or break your final image and it is easier to find a good composition in the day time than in the dark! From foreground to background will be in view and easily seen; you can align features in the landscape more easily; and most importantly for me seeking milky way compositions – I must be looking for things in a southerly direction, for that is where the Milky Way will be in my northern hemisphere sky.

Watching a lot of videos by Peter Zelinka, ‘Nightscape Images’ and Alyn Wallace, I have always been struck by one thing. They are all very clear that your nightscape image should tell a story and pull a viewer into the scene.

 

What factors do I consider before deciding on a final composition?

·        What is the rationale/target audience for the photo? What is the story I am trying to tell?

·        Which way is the Milky Way orientated? (Vertically – then great for vertical compositions; low in the sky and in an arc – then great for a horizontal composition). 

·        What is the subject/context of the shot – how does it connect celestial sky with terrestrial ground?

·        How can I use a milky way orientation to enhance a particular night-time landscape shot? Is there a particular foreground location that will enhance my focus on the Milky Way?

Here I focus firstly on the nature of the terrain – Valley sides? Cliff lines? Rolling hills? Having decided on the ‘framing’ I then focus on what is the potential horizon line like; what details are there in the mid and immediate foreground? At this point, I am moving around a little seeing what features I can use and align.

·        What does night AR show me in PhotoPills at possible milky way shoot locations? (see my previous post on planning)

·        Is the scene truly dark? Will it require any light painting? (topic for a later post when I have tried some this season) How much light pollution is there and how will that affect any shots?

·        Will I go for a single exposure shot; separate sky and foreground shots; stacked shots of sky and foreground; use a tracker?

·        Is depth-of-field important– if so, will I need to do focus stacking? (see previous blog post)

·         Will there be any movement in the composition e.g tides, tall grasses, tree branch movement in wind etc?

·        Do I want to do a milky way selfie shot? (me in the landscape looking at the Milky Way)

Here then, are my foreground composition tips:  You are NOT trying to get all of these tips in one photograph! As a beginner, I found just trying to get one or two things right in a photo is a good start – baby steps and little experiences – and build on those. There again, I am coming from a low base – I am, bluntly, ‘a spray and pray’ photographer – take loads and hope one comes out OK! Appalling confession! Sorry!

 

·        Have a focal point for your photographs – the milky way and then a particular foreground/landscape element which will draw a viewer into your photograph. Someone told me to imagine I was standing in front of a stage on which a story was going to unfold about the landscape in front of me – what elements in the landscape would I need to include in order for the ‘landscape story’ to be understood visually?

·        use leading lines in the foreground to create a flow in the picture - back to the milky way in the sky e.g. road/path/track, wall/fence/hedgerow, river/stream etc. Leading lines create a sense of depth in the image. They catch your eye and lead you to something in the image – the Milky Way in our case. They might pass an interesting object on the way!  Combine them with a vanishing point, where such features disappear into the background. Don’t let the leading line/edges lead the eye out of the frame!

·        Have your rule-of-thirds grid switched on in your LCD rear screen and use it to place foreground objects/focal points/leading lines – the horizon on one of the horizontals; foreground objects on the vertical lines at intersection points with horizontal lines. Leading lines within the thirds etc.

·        Get some of your foreground interest objects to break the horizon line. (Good foreground objects to seek out include: rocky outcrops, old buildings, old machinery, fence posts etc; mid foreground objects – trees) Create a sense of space (negative space) around central foreground objects in your scene. Shoot foreground objects at an angle.

·        Have something in the landscape framing either side of your milky way element

·        Aim for some symmetry and balance vertically and/or horizontally in your image i.e. Use the grid to help you equally distribute your foreground elements so that they are pleasing to view.  Too many elements on one side may leave a viewer thinking the picture is over-weighted one side, empty on the opposite side etc.

·        Ensure that as much of your landscape is in focus as possible – see previous blog post about planning – focus stacking and hyperfocal distance  

·        Keep tripod lowish to ground and level – use camera ‘spirit level’ tool to get horizontal horizon line – good for getting reflection of stars in calm pools and lakes.

·        Keep all of your landscape elements within the frame – don’t let them get cut off at the edges – this is back to the earlier point about creating space around foreground elements – breathing room. So don’t cut off mountain ranges in the distant horizon; or a good rocky outcrop in the very near foreground of a beach scene; or the wild flowers on a cliff top shot along a cliff line back to the arcing milky way.

·        If there is moon light present – if moon is partial and low in the sky – keep it to side or behind you when shooting and use higher F-stop for greater depth or field or reduce shutter speed

I hope that these tips will give you something to aim for when taking your first milky way shot.  If you have any further tips then drop them in a comment box below so we can learn some more.  In the meantime, have fun, stay safe, clear skies and good luck. 

Steve 

Some homework

Analyse the photographs above, some of my first efforts, and from just a compositional viewpoint, analyse what I could have done to improve the compositional framing

Milky Way over Mesa Verde Lodge in USA

Beginners guide to taking your first milky way photograph - 3 settings

 Beginners guide to taking your first milky way photograph – 3

This is the third blog in a series of posts in which I share what I am learning on my ‘learning journey’ towards obtaining a good milky way night time image. In my second year chasing down this aspiration, last year was dabbling and learning lots. This year, I want to ‘nail’ one or two good milky way landscape images. It’s a mission!

If you have just arrived at this page, perhaps go read the first two posts in this series before this one? They sort of follow a logical order.

One of my very first efforts at trying to capture the milky way one night 😕

This blog post series aims to share what I have learned and achieved thus far to help encourage those of you seeking your first milky way image.

Please remember I am still at the very beginning of my learning journey. I am no expert. I claim no expertise, so, as always, a caveat follows.

I am a complete beginner to astronomy and astrophotography; this entire blog is written from that perspective – a chronicle of my learning journey written by a beginner for other beginners. I know very little about anything frankly but therein lies the attraction. If I can do it with my very limited knowledge – then so can you; and probably better, as I am a rather slow learner at the best of times. If I have made any mistakes in my posts, I apologise. Please drop me a comment highlighting the issue and I will correct it immediately.

I will not be going into huge depth about how things work and why we do things the way we do. I’m not dismissing the importance of having a theoretical understanding – its critical – I’m just saying it’s not the focus of these blog posts. My aim, is to just get you out there, obtaining a first milky way image.

 

To help you achieve this, I will outline some simple answers to these questions:

1.            What equipment do we need?

2.            What advanced planning is needed to ensure success on the night?

3.            What base settings can we use to help us get success?

4.            What foreground composition considerations do we need to make?

5.            What are the different techniques for getting a milky way photograph?

6.            What do we need to consider if we want to do a milky way selfie shot?

7.            How can we improve our milky way photography skills?

8.            What is a ‘beginner’ workflow for post editing our milky way photographs? 

 

A later effort of just the Milky Way in the sky

Post editing is one of my areas for further development this year - I am capturing data but not making a good job of post editing it 

1.       What base settings can we use to help us get success?

In this post I am talking about two different sets of settings – those you need to set within your camera menu; and those base astro exposure settings which will get you a single milky way image on the night, all being well. Remember, I am not getting into the ‘why?’ – just the what! My camera is a Canon, so much of this below applies to this brand but other camera brands will have similar settings in their menus.

Before we jump into it all, I am assuming you have a little understanding about

·        ‘shooting in manual mode’ and also

·        the ‘Exposure triangle – shutter speed, aperture and ISO interactions’.

·        how ‘aperture affects depth of field’ and

·        reading a histogram and understanding what it tells you at a basic level

You can find out more about these things here:

Exposure triangle - https://photographylife.com/what-is-exposure-triangle  and https://capturetheatlas.com/exposure-triangle-explained-photography/

Depth of field - https://photographylife.com/what-is-depth-of-field and https://www.photopills.com/articles/depth-of-field-guide

Reading a histogram - https://capturetheatlas.com/how-to-read-a-histogram-in-photography/  and https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/tutorials/cheat-sheet-how-to-read-a-histogram

 

So, let us now jump into camera menu settings.

 

Firstly, shoot in RAW – it gets the highest quality image and enables most flexible post shot editing. Set your bit-rate to its highest setting if your camera allows that. RAW allows you to bring out detail from the shadows; remove noise in an image; change the WB in editing software. Don’t shoot in JPEG’s!

Secondly – always shoot in Manual mode.

White balance can affect your camera’s histogram, so it is important to set it correctly. I leave mine on daylight (5500 – 6500K). Some friends of mine use 4000 – 5000K. Others just leave theirs on auto. Don’t worry too much about WB settings as you can change it in most editing software later.

Picture control or Creative style – set to neutral.

Long exposure noise reduction – to stop your camera taking an image and then immediately after a second dark frame image – switch off LENR in your camera settings. You can remove any ‘hot pixels’ (a pixel within one of the colour ranges is at its maximum value and so it shows up as a very colourful bright spot in your image).

High ISO Noise Reduction – turn it off to get a better representation of images taken on your rear screen.

Virtual horizon – I use this in my live view screen to ensure I have a level horizon

Turn off auto focus – I focus all my lenses in manual focus mode. In that way when I touch live view rear LCD screen I don’t suddenly alter the focus in my shots. I’ll cover focusing in the dark later in this post.

Turn down LCD screen brightness – you took care to get your eyes dark adapted – be a pity to constantly lose it every time you look at your LCD screen! Turn it up to preview an image, (although it won’t give a realistic representation of your camera exposure setting in the image) or to focus on the stars at infinity when you first start your session. 

Lens stabilisation (lens image stabilisation) – I switch mine off.

Stop light leakage – did you ever find a funny little oblong rubber thing attached to your camera strap when you first got your camera new? Its to slip over your viewfinder to block any light from leaking into the system other than through the lens. I use one, it was a tip someone gave me. Failing that, use some dark duct or masking tape to block off the viewfinder.

 

Wembury Beach looking across to The Great Mewstone Island

Another 'early on' milky way image

Having looked at what camera settings you need to work with, let us now dive into the base astro exposure settings for getting your first milky way image.

Base astro exposure settings

When I watched videos, did some on-line courses, and read various books – I quickly arrived at one conclusion – nobody has a definitive answer to the best starting settings to use. There is some commonality in discussing ‘ranges’ of settings however.

Now, I also need to introduce another concept or two at this point.

Where Milky Way images are concerned – you can do ‘single’ sky/landscape image exposures.  A one off image.  Then there are multi-exposure techniques – so stacking, tracking, focus stacking and more. These multiple exposure techniques I will deal with in a later post in the series. For now, lets just focus on getting a single exposure image – nothing complicated.

(However, at this juncture, I should point out that single image exposures, are in my limited experience view, best for silhouette compositions – e.g. dark rocky outcrop on horizon against backdrop of bright milky way sky; or something similar. If you want to print off at small print size or present in social media, then fine. If you are looking to do high quality large printing, less so!

I have become an advocate of ‘take two images’ milky way photography' – you do one image exposed for the sky and the milky way; another for the foreground. You then blend both images in a photo editing programme after doing basic adjustments to each image.

Why? Because when you look at any of my single exposure images, the foreground always looks really dark and lacking in detail; very noisy and generally out of focus as well)

For now, let’s not get too caught up in the ‘one or two image blend’ debate, only because I am still struggling to internalise what I am learning, if I am frankly honest!

Below are the ‘starting’ settings I have been using over the last year or so to get a single exposure image of a milky way landscape. These settings are mainly about getting the sky right.

·        Format – RAW and camera in manual mode setting

·        Shutter speed – 12 to 30”

·        Aperture – F/1.4 to F/3.5 (On my lenses I favour F/2.8) and focal length 14 - 35mm (I prefer 14mm and 22mm)

·        ISO – 800 – 6400 (Again, on my camera, 800/1600 seems to be the sweet spot for me) 

·        WB – daylight

·        Manual Focus with Lens image stabilisation – off. Focused to infinity 

Some of these setting choices do need a little further qualification however! What if your image in ‘review’ appears too bright, too noisy, under exposed, washed out, trailing stars or ‘pixel cropping’ in the histogram shadows? How do you make corrections to gain improvements on the next image?

Shutter speed – 30” maximum to avoid star trailing! We are aiming for milky way detail and pinpoint sharp stars in the sky. By getting the maximum amount of light we can - the brighter the image will be, the more detail there will be in the shadow areas and less visible noise will be apparent in the image.

So, how can we work out an appropriate shutter speed for our image?  There is the 500 rule for full frame cameras; the 300 rule for crop sensor cameras like mine; and even a NPF rule. I will focus on the 300 rule only because I use it with my crop sensor DSLR. I found the NPF rule gave me very under exposed images.

Essentially these rules work out your maximum shutter speed you can use before experiencing star trailing. I won’t get into the ‘how and why’ they work as such but here is the table I use as quick reference to decide what shutter speed to use when setting up a shot:

 

Focal length of my lenses in mm	Crop sensor 300 rule
10mm	30”
14mm	21”
22mm	14”
35mm	9”
50mm	6”
55mm	5”
135mm	2”

 

You can find a ‘Spot Stars’ setting in the PhotoPills app which will allow you to enter your camera and lens combo along with aperture details etc. It will then do the calculations for you for the 500 and NPF rule.

Aperture F- stop – to gather as much light as we can in our night image – shoot at a maximum aperture and the lowest F-stop. It depends on your lens quality though. I have lenses that I can shoot at F/1.4 or F/2.8 as the widest aperture/lowest F-stop. Basically, the lower the F stop, the wider the lens aperture opening and the more light hitting the sensor. Do some test shots with your lenses and then zoom into the stars on your LCD screen review image. I find at F/1.4, in the corners of the image, my stars are elongated, trailing, bloated. Aberrations!  If I shoot on all my lenses at F/2.8, I find these become minimal and acceptable. Things to remember though regarding aperture – a low F-stop brings a brighter exposure and less visible noise; but a shallow depth of field and increased risk of aberrations. Do some test shots to find what the best aperture is for your lens – how do sharpness and aberrations change across the resulting image? What can you personally accept in an image?

ISO – It took me ages to grasp this but there is an order of adjustments to get a good image. You set aperture first, followed by shutter speed. Last of all you set ISO! Aperture and shutter speed control how much light comes to the sensor, the latter limited by the star trailing limit; ISO determines how much to amplify that light signal and this is the last thing you adjust to affect image brightness.  In a dark sky site on a moonless night, I use 1600 – 6400; normally using 1600/3200 most nights.  Anything higher and I start to introduce lots of ‘noise’ into the image. If you are in a light polluted area or it’s a bright moon, lower the ISO to stop any highlights in the sky or foreground from blowing out.

 

A failed attempt at focus stacking 

OK. The above should help you obtain a single milky way landscape image – camera settings and base astro exposure settings. But, lets cover a couple of other issues that might crop up.

 

Firstly – taking separate sky and foreground shots. What would the base astro exposure settings be for each of these?

I have been experimenting all last year with this. I first cottoned on to shooting two separate images during an excellent free on-line Milky Way course by Kristina Rose. She does them on Facebook and they are brilliant. So many people have been able to go out and shoot their first image because of her advice. Dan Zafra is another whose free courses helped me engage with milky way landscape shooting. Finally, the YouTube channel Nightscapes and some of Peter Zelinka’s videos – both gold mines of information for beginners like you and me. 

So, what do I understand about this approach?

Simply put, you shoot two different shots from precisely the same location but at different times so that they require different exposure settings. You then process the shots individually and finally blend them together.  So, I might shoot my foreground interest element at blue hour and then much later when it’s very dark, my milky way sky shot. I might move up to 10m or so away from my blue hour shooting position so I can get the best view of the sky. I’d perhaps incorporate just a little bit of the landscape horizon in the bottom of the sky image but 90% of it would be sky.

Settings for a foreground shot – I shoot a much longer exposure shutter speed than I can for the sky; I’m not limited by the star trailing issue! My sky part of the image will be overexposed and full of star trails but that doesn’t matter. I will be replacing the sky with another image later in post processing.

What exposure I start with depends on what aperture I am using, how much depth of field I want in the image and how much light is already lighting the foreground area. It’s a trial and error jobbie frankly, trying to decide what shutter speed to use. I want to keep ‘noise’ to the minimum but I want detail to show in the shadowy areas. So, I tend to go for somewhere between 1 – 4 minutes exposures. ISO – if it is very dark – I use 400/1600 and then check the histogram. I don’t want the histogram bunched down the left hand side, clipping to black. It depends whether I am shooting at blue hour, twilight or actually in the dark.

 

Secondly, there is the issue of focusing at night. How do we focus in the dark?

Last year this single issue drove me nuts! So many images not properly focused – especially in the foreground elements. I had to do lots of research and practising to start progressing the quality of my images. I cannot begin to estimate how much time in a session was wasted with me trying to get pin point stars! Just don’t go there!

It is pitch black dark. Your camera lens is in manual focus mode.  You can’t see the foreground properly. Auto-focus is not an option! And there is the hidden elephant in the landscape, so to speak – if you are shooting at wide apertures and focusing at infinity to get the stars – how do you get any depth of field in your foreground landscape elements?

How do I ensure that the sky is in focus and stars are sharp?

1.       Camera and lenses are switched to manual focus mode

2.       I generally try to find my lens infinity focus point during the day – I find a distant horizon, focus on it using auto focus – so that everything on the horizon line is in sharp focus. Take test shots, review and zoom in on review image to check distant objects are in focus. When I get it right, I mark the focus ring on the lens with a wax pencil or tape it with duct tape securely so it won’t move. Later that night, my stars should be in focus! I take test shots and check on zoom in that they are.

3.       However, now I have grown more confident, I tend to do my focusing at night using LIVE-VIEW focusing on the stars themselves. All my lenses are prime lenses, not zooms!

a.        I turn the focus ring to infinity and then set a high ISO – 6400. Aperture is at F/2.8. Shutter speed at 20” as I am normally using my 14mm Samyang lens.

b.       Live-view is switched on. 

c.       Pointing the camera towards a bright star, I use my laser pen resting on my camera to position the camera so that the star will appear in the centre of the grid of thirds on the LCD rear viewer. I turn the focus ring until the star appears sharp and small on the rear screen and make final small adjustments of the camera to get the star into the centre of the LCD rear panel.

d.       My Canon has a digital zoom button which brings up a white rectangle on the screen. I move this into position over the star so that it sits centrally within it. Pressing the zoom button once more brings me to x10 magnification and then I can make minute adjustments in focus until the star is tiny and pinpoint sharp. I then tape my focus ring in that position so it won’t be accidently moved.

e.       I now position my camera for the composition I want to take.

f.        Time for some test shots – is my composition right? Are the stars in focus? Is the foreground main elements in focus? I tend to do settings like 20” at F/2.8 and ISO 6400+. I just want to see that the composition is as I want it. It will be overexposed but I am throwing these test shots away, so no worries.

That is how I take care of the sky element. But!!!

How can we ensure that our landscape foreground details are sharp in an image? 

The above methodology gives you sharp stars and this would be the method for a separate sky image.

An alternative method for a single image exposure is Hyperfocal distance focusing. So far, most of my single exposure milky way images have been based on Live-view methodologies - focused to infinity to get sharper stars and any foreground in focus has been a bonus based on pot-luck!   

Hyperfocal distance methodology gains a maximum depth of field and sharpness throughout the image from back to front.  It is based on a hyperfocal distance point in the landscape – focus on that and everything in the image from infinity to half the hyperfocal distance will be in focus and reasonably sharp. Now here is an important point – if you don’t get the hyperfocal point correctly identified in your landscape and you fall short of it, any stars in the background will lose their sharpness – which seems to defeat the purpose of a good milky way sky image! Focus at the correct point and most of the landscape remains sharp along with the stars in the sky.

PhotoPills is your friend! It has hyperfocal distance tables – it does the hard work calculations for you. I enter my camera and then look up the focal length of my lens and the aperture I am shooting at. So, at 14mm and an aperture of F/2.8 for my Canon 800 D – the hyperfocal distance would be 3.73m. All I have to do is estimate where 4m is is in front of my tripod. If I focus on that point – everything from there to infinity should be sharp. Anything in the foreground within 4m wont be!

I hope I have explained this correctly. I’ve yet to try this hyperfocal distance method at night – I’ll let you know how I get on! Meanwhile, if I haven’t made it clear – here are some tutorials: https://photographylife.com/hyperfocal-distance-explained and https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/tips-and-solutions/calculating-hyperfocal-distance-in-photography  and https://www.photopills.com/calculators/hyperfocal-table

On a night when I managed to get meteors, part of the milky way and part of an aurora all in one shot

Sadly, it was out of focus practically from front to infinity.

It is a tough learning curve is this Milky Way imaging malarkey! 

Focus Stacking is another possible method for getting all your landscape elements focused. especially if you are trying to fit in flowers at the very edge of your foreground front! (Although, I found that the wind kept blowing them and so they kept appearing fuzzy!) 

We use wide angle lenses with wide apertures for night time photography and given we are focusing on the stars and milky way, then much of our foreground will be out of focus. Focus stacking involves taking a number of exposures of the scene but you change the focus point within the foreground between each shot. (With little experience to date - I found focus stacking difficult to do in the dark - I needed to use my head torch to try and find the 'blur' point (see below) and wasn't very successful in doing so. I found focus stacking at blue hour was easier - but that is just me. I have yet to master this technique but I have tried it a couple of times last year. It sounded simple, yet in my reality......well never mind. I have this unique ability to overcomplicate the simple! )

Later in post editing, we then blend all the shots into one final image exposure which should be pretty sharp from back to front.  

Having decided on your exposure settings - aperture, shutter speed and ISO (our base astro settings) -you focus at infinity - i.e. the milky way sky and take your first shot.  I then review the image on my LCD screen and I zoom right in. I am looking for the point in the foreground where the focus is starting to become blurry. At that point - I try to find an object I can focus on and I now change my focus to settle on that object at that point of blurriness - Live-view and my digital zoom button help. When focused on that point I take another shot. I repeat these steps until I have focused on the closest part of the foreground to me. That is my last re-focusing point. I should now have enough shots of the foreground from back to front where all parts of the landscape are in focus; as well as the night sky at infinity. 

Now to be fair, I have a friend who does it in reverse - starts at the foreground and works to the back and infinity point. No idea which is the better method - up to individual choice I guess. 

I found this blog post simple to understand and quite informative on focus stacking: 

https://intothenightphoto.blogspot.com/2023/06/focus-stacking-nightscapes-with.html

Just in case you think I am making no progress at all - here are two images from towards the end of last year which show, albeit slowly, I am making some progress! 

I found these videos helpful when trying to get my head around focus stacking: 

At the end of this lengthy post, I hope I have helped you get a good idea about the following:

1.       The camera settings you need to set in your camera menus

2.       The basic astro exposure settings for getting sharp stars and focused milky way in the sky

3.       Getting the sky in focus

4.       Getting any landscape foreground elements in focus

 

In my next post in the series, I will consider issues to do with composition - What foreground composition considerations do we need to make?

As always, if I have anything above wrong, drop me a comment and I will correct it immediately.

In the meantime, clear skies, stay safe, good astro image hunting.

Steve

It seemed like a good foreground subject at the time

However, a combination of random SUV headlights, scattered cloud, random lodge room lights and intense cold.......all excuses .......but I bundled it! Ho Hum! 

This was bad editing of two shots - the sky and a separate foreground. Both poorly exposed and then horrendous post editing blending! 

Don't be put off by my poor images - getting a good milky way image is far simpler than my exemplars would suggest. Remember, I am starting form a low base level. Having never used a DSLR before - I decided to go from auto to manual; and then take on deep space astrophotography and landscape night astrophotography all at the same time as I tried to start using a photo editing program like Affinity Photo for the first time. Throw in trying to understand deepskystacker, SIRIL, GraXpert and Sequator.....no wonder I get so confused! 

Clear skies, stay safe, have fun out there and as always drop me a comment - show us your first milky way images; correct anything I have wrong above

Take care now 

Steve