Moonlit MilkyWay

[MarkChap]

Well, the moon is getting a bit bright so I tried this, not sure about teh foreground, if I make it brighter to look beter it over powers teh sky
Only end up with good frames, the bloody cloud rolled in when I turned my back

Olympus E-M1 MkIII iso 3200
M-Zuiko 7-14 f2.8 Pro @ 7mm f2.8
10 x 1 minute Lights, 10 Bias, 10 Darks
Stacked in Seqator to hold the foreground
Star Adventurer for tracking

Bortle 2, with lots of moonshine

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Nice shot Mark. Sometimes the moon can be a help or a hindrance in nightscapes. In this case it has lit the foreground up well and the blue sky makes an interesting composition with the Milky Way still showing through.
I like it.

[Sunfish (Ray)]

Looks great out there. Captured well.

[JA]

Lovely Image Mark Your Bortle 2 Rocks !!!

Best
JA

[leon]

Now that is a fantastic shot with some great foreground material, well done indeed.

Leon

[Scorpius51 (John)]

That’s a great shot!

[skysurfer]

Really nice shot !


You can even get more stars from the image by subtracting the starless sky background from the image with Photoshop.



* select the sky + stars only (i.e. without foreground) using Magic Wand and/or Quick select. Maybe you need some editing the selection to be sure only the sky is selected and no foreground.

* Copy that into a separate layer (use Edit => Past in Place instead of Paste)
* Select only the contents of that layer (Load selection)
* Blur it using Filter => Dust&Scratches until all stars, but the very brightest become invisible (usually at 30-50 pixels)
* when some fuzzy spots still appear (e.g. blurred bright stars / planets or Magellanic clouds) use the Healing Brush or Clone stamp to smooth that out
* Call this layer 'Fake flat'
* Set that layer to 'Difference' instead of 'Normal'
Then you see a very dark image.
* Select the 'Fake flat', use 'Load selection' and stretch it until the stars are nicely visible. Lots more stars will appear, but the image is very harsh (i.e. too strong contrast)
* Lower the transparency of the 'Fake flat' from the standard 100% to 90...70% which shows the original blue background again and makes it more natural and not so harsh.


Maybe you need to change the image mode to 32 bits (Image => mode) instead of 16 bits, otherwise some strange and ugly line patterns might appear.


Here two examples taken with a Canon 6D, the first one at rising waning gibbous moon and the second at about full moon well in the sky. The latter contains some aretfacts however due to clouds and horizon / sky separation.

[MarkChap]

Thanks for the replies

Skysurfer, thank you for the detailed info, I will have to try that

[xelasnave]

Great capture and I love the link to the planet.
Alex

[LostInSp_ce]

Lovely Milky Way image Mark. It almost looks like a daytime capture. The juxtaposition between the sky and foreground is clever and really draws you in.

P.S. I'm jealous of that B2 sky.