Landscape Astrophotography

[Charles Johnson]

Adam Woodworth has presented a beautiful tutorial.  Photographs like that are my goal, though I live too near city lights; and I often encounter cloudy nights when I travel.  I agree with everything Adam said, but my experience with the Samyang 14mm f/2.8 has been very good.  My kit for landscape astrophotography consists of a Canon 6D with a Samyang 14mm lens.  In the past I used a Sigma 10mm fisheye lens and a Canon 10-22mm lens with Canon 7D or 60D cameras with some success.

[Ben Rubinstein]

Very enjoyable article!

[churly]

Thanks for the informative introduction.

[NancyP]

For the US and Canada, this is a very useful site for determining degree of light pollution and moonlight, and likely observing conditions (cloud cover, "seeing", etc) - uses Bortle scale for light pollution. Light pollution data are contributed by amateur astronomers at the various featured sites, who determine what magnitude stars are visible at the site. The likely observing conditions are predicted using weather reports.

The hardest part for landscape astrophotography is getting nice dark skies. I am doing a lot of experimental shooting at the Bortle orange-red site (Brommelsiek Park astronomy area) that is 45 minutes from where I live and that is public and safe. There is a big fat light dome, and there are a lot of aircraft from a small civilian light-aircraft airport approximately 4 miles away. Still, it is good enough for determining the characteristics of lenses, determining ISO with particular cameras, learning to use Astrotrac sidereal tracking. Light painting can be practiced anywhere except Brommelsiek Park, where it would bother the astronomers. At any rate, I have done a fair amount of practice, but haven't done the desired dark sky landscape astrophotography yet, because I need to scout for genuinely dark (Bortle blue) or dark-ish (Bortle green) sites that have good foreground photo potential and have enough of a clearing to make it worthwhile, and which allow rough camping. Weekend, clear Sat. night/ Sun. pre-dawn, no moon, minimum of 90 minute drive, most sites about 2.5 to 4 hours away.

My copy of the 14mm f/2.8 Samyang is used at f/4 full frame, because it lacks critical sharpness in the corners.

Thanks for all the tips regarding post-processing. I have not scratched the surface of post-processing landscape astrophotography. One problem is the annoying orange gradient from the light dome - I am not entirely thrilled with my simple anti gradient color correction. I have tried pushing some star field sets, and also the "control" slides (darks, biases) needed to deal with noise, through Nebulosity. There is definitely a learning curve to this.

[John Camp]

Terrific article. I'm printing it out for further study. Last spring I was far out in the wilds of New Mexico, and was overwhelmed by the Milky Way, and took some very poor photos of it because I didn't know what I was doing. And I already *have* the D800E and the 14-24...

[Paulo Bizarro]

Very good article, with lots of good information. I sometimes dabble into astrolandscapes in the southwest coast of Portugal, using my Fuji XE1 and Fujinon 14mm lens. The suggestions on post-processing and stacking for more depth of field are very good, will try then out.

[PierreVandevenne]

Wonderful images!

[MarkL]

Great article and beautiful pictures. This isn't something I have ever considered but am now inspired to try!

[lelouarn]

I enjoyed the article very much. I would like a follow-up article giving more details on the post-processing. Perhaps a hands-on type write-up using one picture as a practical example.
Having the milky-way "pop" is not as easy as it seems, it requires a fair bit of tweaking - at least on the few tries I made.

[eleanorbrown]

Fabulous article!!  I was so glad to see a tutorial on this area of image making.  I have worked with my D800e and 14-24 lens trying astrophotography last summer in Montana and Colorado.  While I was pleased with the results this tutorial gives me so many good ideas…I loved the milky way with the long exposure of the water especially!! Eleanor

[NancyP]

In my post above, I forgot to specify the light pollution / weather map site:  cleardarksky.com

[jjj]

Very good article on star photography. Shame it didn't cover how to deal with the fact that anytime anything astronomically interesting happens here in Sheffield, the clouds and rain appear.
Ironically I actually moved here to study Astronomy.

[Telecaster]

Very good article on star photography. Shame it didn't cover how to deal with the fact that anytime anything astronomically interesting happens here in Sheffield, the clouds and rain appear.
Ironically I actually moved here to study Astronomy.

I feel your pain. I've been hoping to spot comet ISON every pre-dawn this week but have been completely blanked by cloud cover. Bleepin' Michigan...the armpit of the US this year weather-wise.

-Dave-

[OldRoy]

Wonderful images.
The author states:
"Stay away from older full frame cameras."
I have a D700 and the 14-24. Apart from the limitation of a 12 Mp sensor, what's the restriction? I'm genuinely puzzled.
Roy

[HSakols]

Thanks for the excellent article.  My problem is I just can't seem to stay awake long enough, but with winter approaching I will give it another try.  Also look at night photography by Michael Frye.  http://www.michaelfrye.com/port/night/night1.html

[SunnyUK]

Excellent article with beautiful pictures. It makes me want to learn more about this style of photography and eventually try my hand at it. Thank you!

[jjj]

Excellent article with beautiful pictures. It makes me want to learn more about this style of photography and eventually try my hand at it. Thank you!

Nice to see such an optimistic user name.