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Archive 2018 · First stab at the Milky Way

adittam
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · First stab at the Milky Way

I've been dying to try some astro landscapes, and finally had the opportunity to give it a shot last night. As you can see, the light pollution here is borderline, but I grew up near Devil's Lake and still only live about an hour away, so I wanted to see if I could make it work. This is a 10-shot stitched panorama taken at 10:40 PM last night (I wanted to wait until a little later, but was at risk of getting a parking ticket if I stayed in the state park past 11, and I still had to hike quickly back down the bluff to get to my car).

My post-processing skills of astro shots are still very much a work in progress (as is my astro shooting technique, for that matter), so I'd love any C&C/advice others would care to give. All post work done in Lightroom.

Edit: Image updated with distracting bright foreground elements' (building lights on the left and rock on the right) local exposure decreased.

5D Mark IV, 35mm f/1.4L II, ISO 3200 35mm f/1.4 8 sec

Edited on Jul 12, 2018 at 05:24 PM · View previous versions

Jul 11, 2018 at 05:19 AM

junglialoh
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · First stab at the Milky Way

Good start!

Jul 11, 2018 at 05:23 AM

lighthound
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · First stab at the Milky Way

Extremely nice job on your first attempt!
The LP is definitely not your friend here but I think you did a nice job considering what you had to work with here. I think you can pull more goodness out with further post work but I wouldn't go crazy with it.

Love the long stretch pano but I think I might crop the right side a little to lose that distracting bright rock. Maybe try to burn those lights along the bottom left?

Just some food for thought. And again, nice job on your first attempt!

Dave

Jul 11, 2018 at 08:27 AM

adittam
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · First stab at the Milky Way

junglialoh wrote:
Good start!

Thank you for the kind words, and for taking the time to comment!

Jul 11, 2018 at 11:10 AM

adittam
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · First stab at the Milky Way

lighthound wrote:
Extremely nice job on your first attempt!
The LP is definitely not your friend here but I think you did a nice job considering what you had to work with here. I think you can pull more goodness out with further post work but I wouldn't go crazy with it.

Love the long stretch pano but I think I might crop the right side a little to lose that distracting bright rock. Maybe try to burn those lights along the bottom left?

Just some food for thought. And again, nice job on your first attempt!

Dave

Thank you so much for the comment, and the advice, Dave!

I thought about losing the bright rock on the bottom right also, but really liked the way the pine tree at the top right framed the sky. Maybe I'll just use a radial filter to take down the highlights on that rock a bit...

I completely agree about the lights on the bottom left. What you see here is already burned down!

. I'll see if I can take them down some more

Thanks again!

Jul 11, 2018 at 11:13 AM

RoamingScott
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · First stab at the Milky Way

Much better than my first attempt!

Jul 11, 2018 at 11:13 AM

rmt3rd
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · First stab at the Milky Way

I think it's a great attempt, especially fighting that light pollution. My only suggestion for next time with a pano like this is to get another set of panos one level higher, so you get more sky. If you look at the right side of the image, you capture the core of the MW, the middle of the image you lose it, then on the left you are picking it back up. Having another stack of sky images, you can probably get that whole trail and fill the gap.

Jul 11, 2018 at 12:34 PM

adittam
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · First stab at the Milky Way

johnnynapalm wrote:
Much better than my first attempt!

Ha! Thank you for taking the time to comment!!

Jul 11, 2018 at 12:52 PM

adittam
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · First stab at the Milky Way

rmt3rd wrote:
I think it's a great attempt, especially fighting that light pollution. My only suggestion for next time with a pano like this is to get another set of panos one level higher, so you get more sky. If you look at the right side of the image, you capture the core of the MW, the middle of the image you lose it, then on the left you are picking it back up. Having another stack of sky images, you can probably get that whole trail and fill the gap.

I totally agree, but I only had the pan function on my tripod ball head, no pano rig.

Thank you!!

Jul 11, 2018 at 12:53 PM

adittam
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · First stab at the Milky Way

Updated image with local exposure adjustments to decrease the brightness of distracting foreground elements (building lights on the left and rock on the right). I also decreased the global WB temp just a hair toward blue to try to minimize the yellow glow on the horizon a bit without making the rest of the sky too blue.

Jul 12, 2018 at 05:25 PM


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