Tag Archives: milky way

We Are Always Tweaking

Original Publish Date: 12-November-2015
Last Revision: 12-November-2015

When we get questions on our older columns, we often answer them directly and update the articles to reflect new information. For example, when we originally published our three part series on Finding and Photographing the Milky Way we had no clue they would be our most read articles. Over time we added more charts, and tables, including a table listing when the best time is to spot the Milky Way – alas, not October through February.

The Milky Way Series

Pointy Land
The articles in the Milky Way series are:


Meteors and Meteor Showers

Celestial Slasher [C_224-9234]

We have also made periodic updates to our articles on photographing meteors and meteor showers.  We point this out because the best shower of the year is the Geminids and that shower occurs December 12-14.  Start planning right now!

To help you out, we have begun adding “Original Publish Dates” and “Last Revised” dates to our articles.  Of course most of the principles we have written about are timeless.

Road Trip: Eastern Sierra, California

Do you know how to get permission” … is how it began.  And this question set in motion a two-and-a-half day trek with 16 hours (800 miles) of driving plus the usual sleepless nights.  The first night found us shivering at Mono Lake.  I knew it would be cold, but it was colder than I anticipated and my 7 layers of clothes were just barely keeping the frigidity at bay.  Unfortunately due to a low fog that crept in and the aforementioned bracing cold, we were unable to hang out until moonrise which that night was to be at 12:20 am.

Takeaway: Always be prepared for 20 degrees lower temperature than the forecast!

After sleeping in, and grabbing breakfast we took a long drive to Bishop by going through Benton and stopping at several Petroglyph sites.  There were some remarkable locations I’d never seen before along the route, including a place that looks strongly like the formations at Alabama Hills.  Unfortunately the photos I took with my Spyglass application were never saved… we’ll be talking about Spyglass in the future, so stay tuned.

Andy stares down #13

Andy stares down #13 as the sun sets.

The second evening we found ourselves at 7,200 feet elevation where clear skies turn a noticeable purple after sunset. But I talked Mr. Mean 🙂 into remaining until at least moonrise which on that night followed the rise of Sagittarius.

The Milky Way rises over the 10.4 meter radio telescopes at Cedar Flat, California.

The Milky Way rises over the 10.4 meter radio telescopes at Cedar Flat, California.

Here is a short timelapse from which the above is taken:

Awake All Night (PS CS6 version) from Steven Christenson

For a slightly different take including an additional sequence, see here.

The Route

8JlVuXD[1]

WIth Tioga pass closed, we traveled through Sonora Pass on the way out and by accident through Carson Pass on the way back.  There was precious little snow anywhere except in Carson Pass.  The area around Caples Lake was particularly nice.

Caples Lake, Ebbetts Pass, California. This is a little bay in the lake the lakes is MUCH larger.

Caples Lake, Ebbetts Pass, California. This is a little bay in the lake. Caples Lakes is MUCH larger.

The shoreline of Mono Lake with a large Tufa formation and stars of the North Western skies.

The shoreline of Mono Lake with a large Tufa formation and stars of the north western skies.

By the way, I’ve referred to Andy as Mr. Mean only because he was insistent that I not pay for the gasoline for this long trip.  I don’t think he really has a mean bone in his body. Meanwhile, you might want to check out his antics on his blog: PhotoshopScaresMe.com

Where to Go for Dark Skies?

No matter where you live on earth you have a chance to witness the incredible experience of watching bits of space debris streak through our atmosphere and create cosmic fireworks. In an older column I described How to Photograph Meteors – it is a daunting and luck laden process. Here I want to give some useful hints about WHERE to go to get the best view. These same hints may also help you find a location to view the Milky Way.

What I am not planning to tell you is where *I* would go because many of you are reading from all over the world and it would be little help to you for me to mention Yosemite, or Windy Hill Open Space Preserve.  Instead, what I want to do is to give you the insight to figure out where the best place is for YOU.  Here are the parameters to weigh:

  1. Goals
  2. Weather
  3. Accessibility
  4. Distance
  5. Darkness

Goals

It might seem strange, but I pick different locations depending on what it is I want. If I just want to watch meteors then I will pick a place that may compromise the other factors.  Assuming my goal is to photograph meteors, I have a second important decision: Do I want meteors, or do I want meteors in the context of a landscape?  For me the answer is almost always in the context of a landscape for the reasons I illuminated in this article.  In my opinion a shot of a meteor might be interesting, but a shot of a meteor over a lovely mountain, lake or landmark is WAY more interesting. For example compare the two photos below. The first shot is an Iridium flare (not a meteor, though it looks like one). The second is definitely a meteor. Which one is the most interesting? Yeah, the second one!

Meteor or Iridium Flare? [5_028205-dk] Star Man and Perseus [C_059960-1]

The next part of the goal is to figure out WHICH direction the landmark needs to be.  For example the Geminid Meteor shower is one of the few showers where the “radiant point” is visible all night long. But that also means that it may be best to shoot East after sunset, or West before sunrise and around midnight you’ll want to point south when the constellation will be high in the sky.  Of course meteors appear anywhere in the sky, but I like to keep a part of the radiant in my shots.

Once I’ve figured out which direction I’d like to face, only then can I start including and excluding locations. Of course an ideal place would allow me to face ANY direction, but the truth is not many ideal places are left in the world.

Weather

Now that I know which direction I’d like to face, I have to decide how much I am worried about bad weather.  Out here on the US West Coast a drive of 4 hours will get me to a mountain – the Sierras, 5 to 7 hours can take me to a desert area where it will generally be clear – but often windy, and a shorter drive will get me to a coastal area that may be fog plagued in some seasons.  In short, I would like to be as certain as I can about the weather conditions and thus will always have a plan B.  I have previously discussed the tools I use to track and plan for the weather.

Accessibility

While I would love to pass the time at a High Sierra location watching a meteor shower (awesome!), it might be really impractical or impossible for me to get there with my equipment in the dead of winter – even if the weather itself is not the problem. Road closures, park closures, etc. may interfere.  If I want to take friends or clients I need to restrict the amount of schlepping and walking required.  Some areas, like state, county and local parks which might be ideal are usually CLOSED, locked and gated at night.  National Parks and BLM designated land are generally open at night so rank high on my favorite places list.

Not only should my desired location be easy to get to by car but I would prefer a short walk to a safe location, and preferably in an area that has little or no car travel at night to ruin my night vision or my night shots.  Sometimes little intangibles like the direction and slope of any nearby roads makes a big difference. If a location is the top of the hill but a road points directly at it means I probably want to be on the other side of that hill to prevent the intrusion of headlights.  The arch shot above is an example of that hazard – a bend in the road causes cars to sweep their headlights across the landscape at that location.

It’s also unwise to attempt to use private land without permission. Being an unwelcome guest could result in embarrassment, hassle or hazard!

Distance

I have already touched upon this, but by distance I really mean time, effort and cost to reach the location. Since meteor showers occur annually, I am less inclined to make a huge effort if the circumstances do not look like they will be ideal.  On the other hand, I had no problem driving 1,000 miles roundtrip to put myself in the path of the Transit of Venus – an event that will not happen again in my lifetime (or yours).

Darkness

The one commodity that we are perhaps in the least supply of is darkness. So many cities, so much light pollution. But I do not need TOTAL darkness. If I have decided the best view is to the south, I just need to make sure no major cities lie south of my location. If my intended view is east, then I want mountains or distance to insulate me from the glow of light pollution to my east.  Unfortunately darkness is also a function of weather.  Humidity, clouds, water vapor and air particulates can turn a generally dark location into an awful mess through the effect of human-made light sources. A place that is clear and dark during most of the winter might be horrible in the balmy summer.

Prior experience is often the best indicator of where deepest darkness is found. Sometimes the easiest way to find a dark place is to simply look at a map – making note of the terrain and where the cities are in relation to your desired direction of view.  There is a dark sky locator that may help as well.  And you can do your part by joining the International Dark Sky Association and being an advocate for responsible lighting ordinances. I am a member.

Putting it All Together

You’ve probably already figured out that finding a combination of an interesting foreground that is easily accessible but a not too distant place with reliable weather is no small feat.  Some people think that if you go where astronomers like to go you’ll get all the right stuff. But that’s not true. Astronomers do care about almost all of these things, but the one thing that matters little to an astronomer is the landscape.  Astronomers are looking at the sky so a featureless high plateau is just fine. Oh, and if you want to light paint your foreground, you will really tick off astronomers!

So now you may have also surmised why I do not freely share my hard found locations. BUT if you join me on a workshop or webinar you will find out!

 

Milky Way Post Processing: Color Correction

I’m sure you did not skip the first two parts of this series, right? Did you? If so, please see Finding the Milky Way and Capturing the Milky Way. I’ll wait until you get back.

Back so soon? Hope you had fun reading about the Milky Way and how to photograph it. Here is a confession: You really do not need to jack your ISO up as far as I stated in Capturing the Milky Way. What happens when you set the ISO high is that you lose some dynamic range, and you will get some clipping (loss of highlights), and of course you increase the noise – BUT your processing will be a little easier because you won’t have to push any settings more than just a smidgen.

Hear are the general steps I take to attack my Milky Way images.

  • Noise Reduce
  • Color Correct
  • Contrast and local enhancements
  • Foreground/background blending

There are dozens of ways to do each of these tasks.  If you love Lightroom (I don’t particularly like it because it is SO slow to load and doesn’t allow me to blend multiple images) you will find some great resources by Ben Canales. For a $20 donation he’ll walk you step by step through his processing regimen.  The only downside to his tutorial is you must have web-access to view it – you can’t save a copy.

Even though I would normally noise reduce first, I am deferring the explanation for now and attacking the color balance problem. Sometimes all you need to properly color correct is to open your image in Adobe Camera Raw and use the White Balance Tool.

Much of the area near the Milky Way is “white” so clicking that diffuse glowing part with the white balance tool will properly balance your sky… or not depending on how bad the light pollution is.  Where exactly should you click? Not on individual stars (though that may work too if you pick the right colored star and you do not have clipping).  Just about anywhere except the brightest areas of the Milky Way should work.  It will not hurt at all to “click around” a bit until you get a natural look.  Here is a Milky Way image color corrected using the ACR white balance technique:

Milky Way Rest [C_049455]

However if the light pollution is pretty bad, you don’t have a raw file or your sky is quite orange/brown, you will want to employ a more potent solution.  This solution comes from Sky at Night Magazine.  Below is a video we recorded during our Photo Manipulation 150 Webinar.  One giveaway that your sky is not naturally colored is if it is orange, brown, green or completely blue.  I am not going to tell you not to render your sky like that – after all it is your photo and your taste will dictate what you want, but if you want people who enjoy astronomy to take your photo seriously do not go too far from reality.

One of my favorite images of the Milky Way resulted from allowing the camera to select a white balance. I used a blue-white LED flashlight and that caused the night sky to go “sepia”.  I did do some local enhancements to bring out the Milky Way. How I did the enhancement will be discussed in the next installment covering “Local Enhancement”.

Famous III  [C_035478]

If, however you want to get your sky naturally colored despite the light pollution, hopefully you’ll find this video informative – there are a bunch of additional tips, too!

You may have to enter the password BrownSky to watch it.

RESOURCES:

Related Articles Include

  1. Local Enhancement (Bump up Those Stars)
  2. Image Blending (Foreground O MaticEasy HDR)

Are we getting this right? Got a question? A quibble? Please leave a comment! And if this is really resonating with you, please share.  We love it when you share.