First serious attempt at Astro

[Joeyjoe]

This is my first serious attempt at a Milky Way stack.
I set up the 5D on the tripod and set the camera for astro exposures. I ended up taking about 10 shots and stacked them in Sequator.
This is the result.
My critique is that I took the photos just after dusk, so the sky still wasn't black enough, and I would have wanted to stay longer in the remote area I was in, but the missus was nagging me to head home as I had been out all day hiking and mountain climbing (see these photos in my post in the Landscape forum)

[Ozzie_Traveller]

G'day Joey

A fellow-Astro lover -- great!
I do not know of the software ... can you tell us more about it please

My astro stuff is star trails (using software from www.startrails.de) and I usually start 1/2-hr after sunset and go for 2 to 3 hours of 1/2-minute exposures
Then I examine the results and select my starting image depending upon the sky conditions, continuing into all following exposures are included

Phil

[Joeyjoe]

Sequator is a free astro stacking program that comes recommended from a few of the popular pro photographers who do it full time. This was my first time using it, and it was really easy to set up and load the photos. I've tried using Affinity before using its "create astrophotography" stacking option, but compared to this Sequator, it's a lot of stuffing around.
Next time I'm allowed out of the house at night time that I can drive the half house out of town where its away from the light pollution, I'll make sure I go when its later in the night and take a lot more photos to have a really heavy stack to get as much data as I can.

[wigz]

I've done a couple of astro shots but nothing I would call serious - just a single exposure - that gave me acceptable results but lots of noise.

I was going to try some when I was out west recently but by the time the moon set I was warm in bed and it was cold outside so I postponed it and missed the opportunity.

What were your exposure settings on these?

[Joeyjoe]

Here is the EXIF data from one of the shots..

[wigz]

Thanks, the image looks darker than I expected, but I'm a beginner in astro. Perhaps you have darkened the too-bright sky.

If you use a wider lens you should be able to use a longer shutter speed without turning the stars into streaks. It depends what you are trying to include or exclude from the image.

I've used a 25mm focal length at 30s f/2.8 ISO 1600 (that camera got very noisy over 1600), and while the stars were slightly elongated this isn't noticeable in the image at normal viewing size. The quality isn't much as these were a single exposures.

I'm hoping to try some stacked images in the future so please post your results and settings.

I also like to go on my own, where possible, for some serious photography to avoid conflicting objectives.

[SharonH]

Very nice :-)