Milky Way wide fields/star trails from Lake Moogerah and the Scenic Rim

[naskies]

Hello again everyone!

I've had an exceptionally busy few months with uni (barely touched the camera/scope at all), but we had mid semester exams last weekend so I had a good reason to celebrate with a bit of photography a short drive west of Brisbane:

Lake Moogerah (click on the links for larger/higher quality versions):

1. Star trails over Lake Moogerah (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13644418/iis/LakeMoogerahSpicersGap/LakeMoogerahStarTrails-Large.jpg).

Details: ~ 360x 30 sec frames (3 hrs total) taken with a stock Canon 5DmkII and 14 mm f/2.8L II at 30 sec, f/4, ISO 3200 on a tripod. Stacked with StarStaX and finished with Photoshop.

2. Milky Way, SMC, and LMC above Lake Moogerah (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13644418/iis/LakeMoogerahSpicersGap/LakeMoogerah2-Large.jpg). I've never seen airglow so thick/bad before!

Details: 1x 14 mm, 30 sec, f/2.8, ISO 3200 on fixed tripod.

3. Milky Way through the canopy (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13644418/iis/LakeMoogerahSpicersGap/LakeMoogerah4-Large.jpg).

Details: 1x 14 mm, 30 sec, f/2.8, ISO 3200 on fixed tripod.

Spicers Gap State Forest (along the Scenic Rim):

4. Star trails (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13644418/iis/LakeMoogerahSpicersGap/SpicersGapStarTrails-Large.jpg).

Details: ~ 240x frames taken with a stock Canon 20D, 14 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec, ISO 1600.

5. Milky Way arching over the horizon (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13644418/iis/LakeMoogerahSpicersGap/SpicersGapStraightHorizonPanorama-Large.jpg). The glow on the left (east) is light pollution from Brisbane. The LMC can be seen just behind the lone eucalyptus tree on the right.

Details: 5x 30 sec frames, 14 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec, ISO 3200 on a fixed tripod. Stitched in Photoshop.

6. Scorpius and Sagittarius regions of the Milky Way (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13644418/iis/LakeMoogerahSpicersGap/ScorpiusAndCentreOfTheMilkyWay-Large.jpg). The nebulosity in the usual suspects (Eagle, Omega, Trifid, Lagoon, etc) can be seen in the larger version, along with the Rho Ophiuchi region's colours. Unfortunately, I ran out of time to expose any deeper.

Details: Panorama of 6x 180 sec frames, Canon 24 mm f/1.4L II @ f/2.8, ISO 400 mounted on an Astrotrac. Stitching (no stacking) and finishing in Photoshop.

7. Milky Way rising above a lone eucalyptus tree (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13644418/iis/LakeMoogerahSpicersGap/SpicersGapMilkyWay-Large.jpg).

Details: 1x 60 sec frame, Canon 17-40 mm f/4L @ 17 mm, f/4, ISO 6400 on a fixed tripod.

8. Omega, Trifid, and Lagoon Nebulae (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13644418/iis/LakeMoogerahSpicersGap/OmegaTriffidLagoonNebulae-Large.jpg).

Details: Crop from 1x 30 sec, Canon 135 mm f/2L @ f/2.8, ISO 1600 on an Astrotrac.

Thanks for looking!


Cheers,

Dave

[CapturingTheNight]

These are great Dave :thumbsup: I love them all. Congratulations on the captures. To bad you couldn't get a bit more sky above the Milky Way in that panorama one.
Cheers
Greg

[Greg Bock]

Wow Dave, Lake Moogerah is one of my favourite spots..if I had the money, i'd buy one of the permanent caravan sites and go there every weekend. (other than the Leyburn weekends of course)

It's even better now that I've seen these wonderful shots from there..so peaceful....thanks

[Deeno]

Beautiful collection of images!

Number 4 star trails is spectacular

[Liz]

Wow!! Stunning images Dave. :thumbsup:

[multiweb]

+1 Terrific series. Loved them all. Beautiful colours and thanks for posting all the capture details. Very instructive. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[iceman]

They're fantastic! Excellent results Dave, been wondering where you've been.

I love #1 particularly. I bet you wish the powerlines weren't there for 2 and 3. Would've made the shots even better.

Well done!

[avandonk]

Really good images Dave. The problem with wide fields is always gradients.

I took the liberty of running GradientXterminator over one of your images.

Large version here 1.4MB

http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.com.au/2011_12/DavesSco.jpg


Hope you do not mind. I am willing to give a full res version the same treatment.

Bert

[Greg Bock]

i agree Mike, no 1 is my new desktop, hope you don't mind Dave

[iceman]

What settings do you use for GradientXterminator, Bert?

It seems to work ok on the defaults but I've never really tried the others :)

[avandonk]

There is no correct way that covers all images Mike. I usually start with coarse and medium for step one. The really tricky bit is what part you are isolating for the second step and the settings.

Basically trial and error and you end up with a gut feeling for what may work.

I did forget to say if you have trees on any other non astro objects in the image the algorithm in GradientXterminator treats them as an anomalous 'gradient'. These should be eliminated with the selection tool.

Bert

[luigi]

Beautiful set of images, I really like the green airglow you captured. The pano is sensational.
Great!

[avandonk]

Here is an animated gif that shows the dramatic improvement.

http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.com.au/2011_12/davesco.gif



Bert

[jjjnettie]

What a gorgeous set of images!
I was going to suggest you download HLV to deal with the green cast you're getting.
But gradient exterminator had done the job nicely too. :)

[DavidTrap]

Very nice shots Dave. Hope the examiners are kind to you!

Would love to catch up with you and learn some of your techniques for wide field - need to get some results with my new camera!!!!!!

Hope you get a chance to come out to Leyburn sometime soon.

DT

[strongmanmike]

Wow Dave, hard to pick a favourite out of that buch, they are all great.

Might be worth some more playing with gradient removal as per Bert, this would really make them shine!

It always amazes me looking at whole sky panoramas in this digital age and how releatively easy they are to do now. Back in my early astrophotography days the only way to appreciate such expanses of sky required multiple frames throughout a night then film developing and finally mozaicing prints together :rolleyes:...that was the only way really, unless you had a multi $1000 fisheye lens and these distorted the scene too much and couldn't be distorted back again in software :)

Nice work

Mike

[Ross G]

Great photos Dave.

Number 5 is my favourite.

Ross.

[naskies]

Wow, thanks for all the nice comments everyone - it's much appreciated :D I'm really liking wide fields for the small commitment + instant gratification factor... plus it's a nice way to relax after a busy month.



I did actually record enough data above the Milky Way - but I can't for the life of me figure out how to make Photoshop do a rectilinear instead of fisheye projection.

If I add the extra frames in (about 50-60% of the full night sky), then it automatically becomes a fisheye projection - like Stellarium when completely zoomed out (see attached pic - or larger version here (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13644418/iis/LakeMoogerahSpicersGap/SouthernSkyPanoramaFisheye-Large.jpg)).

I'd be very interested in any suggestions?!



Thanks Mike! #1 was the only photo that I'd specifically planned to take - cross referencing Stellarium, Google Maps, BOM forecasts, Skippy Sky and my uni timetable.

Yep, the power lines were unfortunate... the water level was MUCH higher than what the Google Maps overhead photos indicated thanks to all the rain in SE QLD. I thought that I could set up a bit further south for some shots, but photo #1 already had the tripod legs at the water's edge.

By the way, I see that you now own a 5DmkII and are producing some fantastic results - good stuff!



Bert, thank you - that's a spectacular effort! I've just downloaded and tried a trial copy of GradientXTerminator - it does a great job of removing it. It does seem to also remove some areas of faint nebulosity though... I'll try running it on the individual panels first before merging the panorama to see if it helps.

If you did want to have a play around with the full res version, you're very welcome to download it here (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13644418/iis/LakeMoogerahSpicersGap/2012-04-02-ScorpiusAndCentreOfTheMilkyWay.jpg) .



Not at all, Greg! In fact, I'm quite flattered. If you'd like a larger version, feel free to PM me.



David, yes it'd be great to be able to get out to Leyburn (finally). Hopefully I'll have some time this coming new moon if I can catch up on my readings and study. I'm very keen to see what you and the D800 can achieve!



Thanks Mike! Yes, it's quite amazing that we can now stick a modern SLR + wide angle prime on a tripod, point it up at the sky, and instantly get a very usable image... no fuss required. I'd love to see what the new Canon 1D-X + 24 mm f/1.4L II combination is capable of just on a tripod.

[Forgey]

Beautiful images Dave!

[avandonk]

Here you go Dave.

large image just adjusted with GradientXterminator 17MB


http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.com.au/2012_04/dave_L01.jpg


large image also enhanced with EasyHDR 24MB

http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.com.au/2012_04/dave_L01_EasyHDR.jpg

EasyHDR can bring out the dust better without saturating the brighter parts of the image.

There seems to be more blue around Crux due to less extinction by the atmosphere as it was most probably far higher.

Bert

[marc4darkskies]

Nice images Dave! That first star trail is an absolute ripper though! :thumbsup:

Cheers, Marcus

[Starcrazzy]

Fantastic. !!!! Love the first one especially.

cheers

[CapturingTheNight]

Hi Dave,
I used Photoshop to process my Milky Way Panorama http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=87303 as well and it was a real pain. I (after much experimentation) found that the "Reposition Only" option produced the best result for the horizon. It kept it nice and flat. I then had to play around with the individual layer masks it created on each frame to fix the misaligned Milky Way. Be warned- it took me only 10-15 minutes to shoot the shots, and it took me about 5 hours to get it the way I wanted.
Good Luck. Hope this helps.
Cheers
Greg

[TheDecepticon]

Wow, they are all very cool images! :eyepop: I keep trying this stuff but never get good at it. Well done!

[naskies]

Thanks Bert - that's a superb improvement! I think I might print out the EasyHDR version to hang up on the wall. I'll definitely have to give your processing tricks a go with a new set of stacked subs and accurate polar alignment.



Thanks Marcus!



Cheers!



That's a fantastic panorama! Yep, I know what you mean about the Photoshop Photomerge feature being fiddly. Given how I shot it, it doesn't look like the reposition mode works very well on my frames, unfortunately.

I did some searching of the IIS forums, and saw that AutoPano Giga was very highly rated. I've just downloaded and tested the trial version on my panorama here. The default settings weren't as good as Photoshop's defaults, but I was able to tweak the projection and control point selection very effectively.

Here's an example of a straight-horizon Mercator projection where I managed to fit in all of Scorpius. I'm very impressed with the software - it's all point-and-click and GPU accelerated for instant/real-time feedback.

I may have to give it a go on some of my other panorama efforts that I couldn't previously stitch the way I wanted it (e.g. this one of the Summer Milky Way) (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=85318).

The only downside that I've seen to AutoPano Giga is the price: 199 Euro! :eyepop:

[naskies]

Getting a little carried away with AutoPano Giga... it's a beautiful piece of software. All of the frustrations that I've previously had with stitching panoramas (getting the right projection, angle of view, control points, etc) don't appear to be an issue here.

As a stress test, I attempted to stitch all the frames I had of both the Scorpius and Orion halves of the Milky Way. The end result is HERE (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13644418/iis/2012-04-11-MilkyWay-AutoPanoGiga-Test-WebSized.jpg).

My favourite feature: it's trivially easy to switch between straight-horizon and straight-Milky Way projections.

[Ric]

Wonderful images Dave.

It's truly amazing what can be captured with a camera and tripod these days.

[CapturingTheNight]

Sweet! Methinks I will just have to bite the bullet and pay that $199 Euro price tag. I'm going to be doing a lot more of these panorama type shots in the future and I will need something that does not cause me to tear my hair out each time. Thank for the product testing Dave. I'm going to download the trial version soon and have a play.

[iceman]

Every time I came back to this thread to view new replies, I kept looking at that first star trails image.

I love it!

It's now IOTW (http://www.iceinspace.com.au).

[naskies]

Wow, what a great honour! Many thanks! :D :D :D

[multiweb]

Congrats on IOTW. Your colors are superb. I have to try harder on my processing.

[Greg Bock]

Well earned Dave, and good choice Mike. As soon as I laid eyes on number 1 at Moogerah Dam last week, i thought.."Now that deserves an IOTW"!!

[Lester]

Outstanding images Dave, many to aspire to. All the best.

[naskies]

Cheers! I personally subscribe to the infinite monkey theorem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem) as it applies to photography... eventually one of them will work!



Thanks Ric! I particularly enjoy the digital stacking approach to star trails - far less risky. There was a car that drove past half way through the shoot, which completely wrecked the foreground of the 30 sec frame in question. Luckily these were only 30 sec frames! :)



Thanks Marc! The colours were all recorded "in camera" - very little processing except for stacking, vibrance/saturation, and curves.

Here are a few frames (unedited - exported straight from Lightroom) taken about 20 mins apart.



Thanks Greg! Here is the full resolution version (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13644418/iis/2012-04-02-LakeMoogerahStarTrails.jpg) in case you or anyone else is interested (for non-commercial purposes).



Cheers Lester!

[RickS]

I don't know how I missed these images until now. Great stuff, Dave! Looks like you used your time off very productively.

[gregbradley]

Fabulous images Dave.

You're trademark water mirror images had me scouting around for a suitable site near my dark site recently. I found a few places that may work.

Greg.

[andrew]

Fantastic images Dave, really top stuff!

[jwoody]

What great images, congratulations.
You must be well chuffed with those
:2thumbs:

Very inspiring.

[LucasB]

That is a beautiful set of images! Congrats on IOTW!:thumbsup::thumbsup:
Lucas

[StephenM]

An excellent set Dave, and that star trails image is definately worthy of IOTW. Well Done!

Cheers,
Stephen

[june]

what an awesome sight

[naskies]

Thanks Rick, Greg, Andrew, Jeremy, Lucas, Stephen, and June! :)

I'm keen to shoot some star trails with reflections in the water (like what some of the southern Aussies have posted here in the past), but finding the right spot is proving elusive. The hunt continues!