MW from Narrandera

[pvelez]

Last week I took a trip from Sydney to Balranald. En route, I stayed overnight at Narrandera.

I took my new Losmandy Star Lapse along for its serious outing. I polar aligned roughly with the help of a laser and some guesswork and started plugging away with the trusty Canon 40D.

Its been years since I wielded a DSLR in anger and my laptop battery usually gives me about 45 minutes before it packs it in. That said, I'm quite happy with this shot of the Milky Way around Sagittarius. Details are as follows:

Canon 40D with nifty 50mm lens set to f2.8 (from memory)
5 minute image. No dark subtraction or in camera noise reduction (will do that next time)
Some noise reduction and histogram and saturation adjustments in PI.

Next time I'll take a back up battery and use In Camera Noise Reduction.

The one thing I was pleased with was the tracking. I felt that the Star Lapse could run for hours.

Comments welcome

Pete

[rustigsmed]

I like it, great shot Pete!

Rusty

[nebulosity.]

very nice image Pete :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Great Hub Pete :thumbsup:

Mike

[gregbradley]

VERY nicely done Pete.

You saved me an experiment. I was planning on using my 40D on doing a similar shot as proof you don't need the newest and latest DSLR to get an excellent Milky Way image, just long exposure.

I don't think long exposure noise reduction would've gained you anything.
40D has no amp glow and the noise is pushed to the background with such a strong signal.

Greg.

[pvelez]

Thanks for the kind comments Russell, Jo, Mike and Greg.

I took your suggestions at AAIC on board Greg and kept the ISO down to 800. I guess that helped with the noise.

Pete

[ourkind]

Stunning Pete! Thanks for sharing it!!

[dutch2]

Great shot, well done.:thumbsup:

[jase]

Excellent FoV, with so much to see. I particularly enjoyed the dark nebulae. A productive overnighter Pete. Thanks for sharing. Well done.

[Ross G]

Great widefield Pete.

Nice detail and colour.

Well composed.

Ross.