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Taken in Mont Vernon, NH with a Nikon D3300 mounted on a Vixen Polarie Star Tracker. This photo is 3 300sec exposures stacked and processed in Pixinsight
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Taken in Mont Vernon, NH with a Nikon D3300 mounted on a Vixen Polarie Star Tracker. This photo is 3 300sec exposures stacked and processed in Pixinsight
https:--www.etsy.com-listing-261105377-the-galactic-core
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upload_dateApr, 2016

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#long exposure #milky way #nh #nikon #space #stars
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Behind The Lens

Location

I took this photo off of the Francetown Turnpike in Mont Vernon, NH. I live further south in New Hampshire, and the light pollution from the city of Nashua, NH wash out the fainter details of the Milky Way. I had just purchased my first DSLR along with a star tracker a month earlier, and I felt that my photos were suffering from the light pollution. The night when I shot this photo, I decided to hop in my car and drive further north into the more rural areas of New Hampshire. I spotted a field off of the isolated road and decided to pull over and check it out. I was astounded by the number of stars visible, and I could easily discern the dust lanes spread throughout the Milky Way's core!

Time

I took this photo on August 4th, 2015 and began setting up my equipment around 11:00pm. Setting up my equipment took about 30 minutes, and my first exposure was shot at 11:34pm. I had to make sure that I finished photographing before the moon rose at 12:34am. While important to life as we know it, the Moon's remains one of my biggest enemies when it comes to astrophotography, as its light will wash out the feint details of the night sky that I try to capture.

Lighting

The orange glow along the horizon of the photo is from a small town about 8 miles away from where I was shooting. This acts as a good example of how light pollution affects an astro-image.

Equipment

My imaging setup for this photo was a Nikon D3300 with the stock Nikon AF?S DX Zoom?Nikkor 18?55mm F/3.5?5.6G VR II lens. I also used a Vixen Polarie star tracker mounted on a Manfrotto BEFREE tripod. While too slow to visually observe, the rotation of the earth will cause the stars to "trail" in a long exposure, as the light emitted from the stars will move across the camera sensor. The maximum exposure length of an untracked image is limited by the "rule of 400" ("rule of 600" for a full frame camera). The time would be calculated by dividing 400 by the focal length of the lens. So with my particular setup, I would be limited to an exposure time of about 22 seconds. However, the Vixen Polarie compensates for the rotation of the earth by rotating the camera at the exact same rate as the stars move across the sky. In order for correct tracking, however, one must align the axis of the tracker with the north or south celestial pole. Luckily, Polaris (The "North Star") lies almost exactly on the celestial pole in the Northern Hemisphere and shines at a relatively bright magnitude of 1.98. One that resides in the Southern Hemisphere must align the axis with Sigma Octantis - a dim magnitude 5.5 star. This can make polar alignment much more tricky! The camera was mounted to the star tracker with a ball head. The ball head allowed me to adjust the frame of the image while keeping the tracker aligned properly. Using a sturdy tripod is a very important part of astrophotography, as even the slightest breeze or vibration will cause a cheap tripod to move just enough to create blurred stars that will render an image useless! The last piece of equipment I used was a generic IR wireless shutter release. This allowed me to both use the bulb setting on my camera as well as releasing the shutter without touching the camera (removing any physical interaction between me and the camera before the exposure is started).

Inspiration

I have always been amazed by the night sky. The fact that the glowing clouds that make up the Milky Way consist glow from tens of billions of stars that we cannot discern by our naked eye is mind boggling! When you throw in the rich assortment of colorful nebula that reside throughout our galaxy, how could I not be inspired?! With civilization advancing at its current rate, I am unsure of how much longer photos such as this will be possible to take. I predict that in the not too distant future, only a few of the brightest stars will shine through the ever increasing light pollution we produce. I think that by photographing and sharing images such as this, I can bring a greater appreciation of what passes over our heads every night. Just recently, I remember reading an article stating that around 80% of Americans cannot observe the Milky Way from their own backyards due to light pollution. I am dispirited by this news, as I feel that looking up and seeing just how big the universe (and just how small we are in comparison) can be quite humbling.

Editing

I post processed this image in Pixinsight (a post processing software dedicated to astrophotography) and Photoshop CC. I feel that there is a bit of misconception over what post processing entails for an image, especially outside of the photography community. I believe that many feel a "photoshopped" image is synonymous with the photo being fake. While this statement may be true in some cases, it does not apply in this way for astrophotography. For example, in this image, I integrated three 300-second exposures into one final image. Pixinsight will map the stars in these separate exposures and align them into a "stacked" image. By moving the camera slightly between each frame, Pixinsight will then determine which pixels should be rejected based on your parameters. The process results in greatly reducing the amount of noise in the image by rejecting thermal noise, hot pixels, cold pixels, random cosmic rays, etc. I then did a dynamic background extraction in order to reduce the effects of vignetting in the image. I then stretched the histogram in order to make the details of the image visible, and went on into Photoshop. After I was done shooting, I took one exposure of equal length with the star tracker off. This gave me a photo with a crisp background, but lots of star trails. I used the background of this image and overlaid it onto the tracked images in order to keep the trees from appearing as black smears along the bottom of the image. So really, the goal of post processing in astrophotography is to eliminate the noise and visual artifacts created by the equipment used, thus revealing the true content in the photo.

In my camera bag

My grab and go setup for astrophotography is my very portable Vixen Polarie, along with my Nikon D3300 and it's 18-55mm stock lens. I also keep a wireless shutter release controller, a wired intervalometer, a ball head, and hand warmers! I will often wrap a single hand warmer around the barrel of the lens with a rubber band in order to prevent dew from condensing on the lens. I usually do this before setting up the tripod if I know the temperature is forecasted to drop below the dew point that night. I also keep a roll of scotch tape in order to tape down the focus ring once I find the perfect focus.

Feedback

First of all, I would say to keep at it, as there is quite a big learning curve for astrophotography. It can be very very very frustrating at points. On a regular basis, I will make the 45 minute drive north to my dark site only to find a fluffy layer of clouds rolling across the sky for my arrival (despite the weather forecast's promises of "clear skies" up until the last minute). Also, I would suggest investing in a sturdy tripod and a decent sky tracker. These pieces of equipment are honestly more important than the camera itself. A very nice camera won't make the star trails go away! I can say with experience that the Vixen Polarie can produce excellent results when properly aligned on a sturdy tripod, but will set you back about $350.00. I have also heard positive reviews of iOptron's "SkyTracker" (ringing in cheaper at $300.00). If you are not ready to make this investment, however, I would say find out your maximum exposure time based on the "Rule of 400", and then begin taking as many exposures as you can. Afterwards, you can use the freeware "DeepSkyStacker" in order to align and stack the images. This will yield far better results than a single exposure due to the noise reduction process. Also, ALWAYS shoot RAW! A RAW image file will allow far more flexibility in post processing! This is vital for correcting the white balance in post-processing, as well as reducing the amount of permanent adjustments the camera makes to the image. You can try to use the camera's auto focus if the Moon is up, or if there is a distant light visible from your location, but be sure to set your focus to manual afterwards! If only the stars are visible, then use your camera's live view function (if availible) and point it at the brightest star possible. Use the digital zoom function to magnify the star as large as possible, and then manually adjust the focus ring until you find the sharpest focus (the star will have the smallest radius at this point). Then, either tape down the focus ring or set the lens back to auto-focus and set the in camera focus mode to manual. You also will want to reduce as much light around the camera as possible, as these artificial light sources can create some strange light distortions to the image. Bring a blanket in the winter or bug spray in the summer, and enjoy the night skies!

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