May 2, 2018
It’s Milky Way Season Again!
Yes, the Milky Way has a season, it’s roughly April through October here in the northern hemisphere that you can see the galactic center of the Milky Way. I’ve fired up the Prius and headed to some familiar places(Lockwood Valley in the mountains) and some new places(on the coast). I attempted to shoot at the coast a few years ago when I had no clue what I was doing and actually managed to get a shot of the galactic center, but also the moon next to the galactic center. This time I avoided the moon by shooting after it had set and since the Milky Way doesn’t really rise until about 1:30-2:00am, this wasn’t overly difficult. One thing I acquired in the off-season(a Christmas present) was a sky tracker that moves the camera to track the stars as the earth moves. This allows for a cleaner picture since I can shoot a really long exposure at a low ISO setting.
Read MoreYes, the Milky Way has a season, it’s roughly April through October here in the northern hemisphere that you can see the galactic center of the Milky Way. I’ve fired up the Prius and headed to some familiar places(Lockwood Valley in the mountains) and some new places(on the coast). I attempted to shoot at the coast a few years ago when I had no clue what I was doing and actually managed to get a shot of the galactic center, but also the moon next to the galactic center. This time I avoided the moon by shooting after it had set and since the Milky Way doesn’t really rise until about 1:30-2:00am, this wasn’t overly difficult. One thing I acquired in the off-season(a Christmas present) was a sky tracker that moves the camera to track the stars as the earth moves. This allows for a cleaner picture since I can shoot a really long exposure at a low ISO setting.
Milky Way @ Twin Bush with the sky tracker.
A few days after my first trip to the coast, the conditions looked right(no fog), so I headed back to Twin Bush and took the sky tracker with me. One of the things the sky tracker requires is a clear view of the Polaris so that you can calibrate it. The sky tracker takes sharp pictures of the stars, but the ground turns out blurry(the camera is moving relative to the gound), so you have to take a separate shot of the ground a put them together in Photoshop in post. This is a 4 minute exposure at f/3.5 and ISO 100 taken with the 10mm fisheye.
