Wide field Milky Way shots from the weekend

[John K]

Although it was too windy to do prime focus work, took some piggyback shots of the glorious Southern Milky Way.

Location was Terrick Terrick National Park 220kms NNW of Melbourne. A fire in the area the day before shows up as some light coloured haze on the horizon.

All shots taken with a Canon 400D, Sigma 17-70mm DCMacro lens and up to 5 minutes exposure.

The compression for Web does not do the images real justice, really happy with the lens especially when steped up to a high f ratio.

John.

[FOOTPRINT]

Hi JohnK,
Fantastic shots, great colour and detail, I gather the 400D is unmodded ?.

cheers......Jim

[iceman]

Lovely shots John, I took some similar ones with my 350D + 17-70 at SPSP, but the transparency was ordinary. They're still on the camera but i'll get to them this week I hope.

What f/stop did you use?

[John K]

Thanks guys.

Jim - yes, the camera is unmodded

Mike - stopped up to f3.5 & f4 at ISO800

[Mr. Subatomic]

Beautiful.

[Ric]

Fantastic images John, I just love those type of widefields.

Cheers

[Ingo]

Stunning images!

Do you think you could put them on imageshack for us all to see in high quality?

[John K]

Thanks again.

Try this one from my Flick page:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/225/462572664_95637e3b84_b.jpg

6 mins at ISO800 at f/3.5.

One of my favourite shots of the night showing some nice star colours and the Emu very nicely.

[Ingo]

Beautiful shot! Thanks for uploading the high res version. Really says more than the web optimized one for this sites upload.

[Tamtarn]

Great shots John, that Sigma 17-70mm lens sure works well.

[Dr Nick]

Very nice. Would it be possible to make a mosaic out of them???
;)

[danielsun]

Wow John they are fantastic!!! :thumbsup:

[Ingo]

Sometimes I think sigma makes much better optics than the Nikon Or Canon main brands, but doesn't include the "features" or waterproofing as the Canon "L" series lenses.

I love my Sigma 24-70 F2.8 and I would never spend $1400 for the Nikon version. I paid I think $350 for the Sigma.

[John K]

And some more high res:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/196/465080614_f2bf78a45c_b.jpg (http://farm1.static.flickr.com/196/465080614_f2bf78a45c_b.jpg)

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/185/465080568_86a2ecd9da_b.jpg (http://farm1.static.flickr.com/185/465080568_86a2ecd9da_b.jpg)

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/217/465080610_83eb961758_b.jpg (http://farm1.static.flickr.com/217/465080610_83eb961758_b.jpg)


Thanks for looking and enjoy!

John.

[cpc6128]

Hi John,

Very nice shots!!! :)

Im also trying to get some nice shots of the milky way using my 400d camera - this is my first time in astrophotography.

Was wondering did you mount this camera on some tracking machine? I mount mine a tripod and getting some star trails at 6 minutes at iso800...

all the best.

[richardo]

Hi John, lovely set of images.....:thumbsup:
Really like the non CA on the stars, shows this is a very capable lens for wide field astro shots.

Thanks for sharing
Cheers
Rich

[John K]

Thanks again for the comments guys.




Yep, for these shots the 400D rode on top of my 12.5" reflector, so you will need a tracking platform, however I have been suprised by the amount of stars that can be captured at ISO1600 in just 45 seconds. Perhaps you can try 5 to 10 stacks of 45 second shots and stack these in Registax or deep sky stacker?

[davidpretorius]

beautiful John..............ahhh one day I will play with this side of astronomy

[Diamond Rose]

Nice... very nice.

~ Bruce

[danielsun]

Excellent shots there John!!!:thumbsup:

[Dennis]

Excellent photo’s John. Really beautiful and inspiring to look at as it drizzles outside our study window.

Cheers

Dennis

[dugnsuz]

Absolutely beautiful shots,
Loved them
Cheers
Doug

[mickoking]

Wonderful shots John :thumbsup: