Milky Way 24 image 871 megapixel 360 degree mosaic [Archive]

gregbradley

17-09-2012, 02:51 PM

This is taking it to the max! It was another stunning night. The Milky Way is somewhat 3D at my dark site. A truly spectacular view.

360 degree view of the Milky Way with some Zodiacal light as well plus the Magellanic Clouds.

This took a bit of work to line everything up.

30 seconds each image ISO6400 Nikon D800E, Nikon 14-24m at 14mm F2.8

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/146073997/large regular

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/146073997/original large

Greg.

multiweb

17-09-2012, 02:58 PM

Wow! That's truly awesome. Love it! :thumbsup: What are the cities left and right. You're looking West right?

pluto

17-09-2012, 03:46 PM

Really nice!

gregbradley

17-09-2012, 05:08 PM

Yes west. to the left (south) that would be Canberra and to the right that is Orange.

Thanks. I enjoyed taking it.

Greg.

Octane

17-09-2012, 07:41 PM

I like how the zodiacal light reaches for Rho Ophiuchus. It's like an umbilical back to earth. :)

H

h0ughy

17-09-2012, 08:06 PM

great work there - you seem to be getting quite good at these now

gregbradley

17-09-2012, 08:35 PM

Yes. That zodiacal light doesn't seem to be there every night. I was lucky.

Cheers Dave. Practice makes perfect. These new cameras are quite complex and it takes a while to get to find out the best way to use them.

Greg.

StephenM

17-09-2012, 09:01 PM

Great result Greg! Nice work.

Cheers,
Stephen

gregbradley

17-09-2012, 09:35 PM

Thanks Stephen!

Greg.

lacad01

17-09-2012, 10:06 PM

What a stunning view, nice one :thumbsup:

DavidTrap

17-09-2012, 10:10 PM

Great result Greg.

The sky certainly looks "blacker" than I would have expected for 6400ISO. How much have you clipped that end of the histogram?

DT

RobF

17-09-2012, 10:22 PM

Love it! What a view :) :thumbsup:

mbaddah

17-09-2012, 10:35 PM

Greg that is incredible! Well done mate.

Paul Haese

17-09-2012, 10:36 PM

Very nice work Greg. I think this data opens the potential for an innovation award. I reckon looking at all the opens available to stitch the data together might just produce an unexpected result. I like this image and in particular I really like the intergration of the zodical light into the center of the image.

pixelsaurus

18-09-2012, 12:08 AM

Great image.

iceman

18-09-2012, 04:49 AM

Nice work Greg, some great stuff there.

I'm not sure I like the 360 format though - the Milky Way seems too squished like an upside down U rather than a long curve like we normally see it in panoramas.
Obviously normal panoramas aren't 360degrees!

The content is great but I'm just not sure this format grabs me like some of your shorter panos.

gregbradley

18-09-2012, 07:43 AM

Thanks very much!

Thanks David. No clipping, I moved the left side of the levels slider a bit. Not that much. In fact the images have had surprisingly little processing.

Thanks Rob.

Thanks.

The Milky Way is quite a sight in the Aussie winter and I have wanted to capture it for some time.

There are a quite a few projections so it could be presented in different ways. I'll check them out more. Most simply distort the hell out of it though.

Thanks for that.

Fair enough. There's for sure going to some distortions when a 360 degree full sky view is laid out flat like that. I liked this version compared to others I made that kept the best proportions as I personally like to keep some reasonable aspect ratio as too narrow and wide is a format I don't like too much. But yes its a compromise and I hear what you are saying. That's why I like to take lots of photos as one will stand out more than the others.

Greg.

jjjnettie

18-09-2012, 07:14 PM

Beautiful work. I can appreciate the work that you've put into it. Well done.

colinmlegg

18-09-2012, 07:38 PM

Greg, can you try a fisheye projection of this? I'd be interested in how well the software warps and stitches given the time between first and last image. Nice work mate.

multiweb

18-09-2012, 07:45 PM

Actually you could map that on an hemisphere and export to QT for a virtual tour.

gregbradley

18-09-2012, 08:18 PM

Thanks very much JJJ. I've been really into DSLR imaging lately. A revival!

I'll check PT Gui Pro. Not sure if it has a fisheye projection. It has spherical though.

I was thinking of doing something like that at some point.

Greg.

gregbradley

18-09-2012, 08:53 PM

I did a version. Its kind of interesting:

http://upload.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/146126359/large regular

http://upload.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/146126359/original Large

Greg

colinmlegg

18-09-2012, 08:54 PM

Spherical is good. You should get something like the first image in this set - http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=92853 (also processed with PT Gui)

gregbradley

18-09-2012, 09:43 PM

Thanks for the tip:

http://upload.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/146126560/large regular

http://upload.pbase.com/image/146126560 large

I quite like the effect.

Greg.

colinmlegg

18-09-2012, 10:23 PM

Nicely done! If you're still out there and weather permitting, try another one tomorrow night before the moon sets.

gregbradley

18-09-2012, 11:07 PM

Thanks Colin.

If its clear I'll give it a go.

I just ordered a Samyang 24mm F1.4 lens for this type of imaging as well. Mainly for time lapses but also for this sort of widefield work. It gets very good reviews.

Hopefully chromatic aberrations will be ok wide open. Reviews indicate it has low CA.

I'll post some images using it shortly after it arrives.

Greg.

ourkind

19-09-2012, 01:14 AM

Oh dear this is going to sound tacky but what the heck...

TOUCHDOWN!!!!

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thum bsup:

I can't wait to see more!

iceman

19-09-2012, 05:24 AM

Well done Greg, lots of different ways to present the data!

gregbradley

19-09-2012, 05:54 AM

Cheers Carlos.

Thanks Mike. Yes there are quite a few projection methods and no doubt other software with special effects as well.

Greg.

SkyViking

19-09-2012, 06:08 AM

A fabulous view of our Milky Way, I really like it. Good work with the different projections too, there are so many options to try.

gregbradley

19-09-2012, 06:12 AM

Thanks Rolf. I'll have to check out other ways to present it as well.

Greg.

multiweb

19-09-2012, 07:21 AM

That last projection is very cool. Nicely done. :thumbsup:

strongmanmike

19-09-2012, 09:26 AM

Some fantastic results there Greg, the first version, even with the slightly compressed look, is very spectacular, the colours look perfect to me too and I like the black skyline.

Great work

Mike

gregbradley

19-09-2012, 11:28 AM

Thanks Mike.

Greg.

dannat

19-09-2012, 01:02 PM

Pardon my ignorance but is the panoramic shot over a time period or all at once :shrug:

gregbradley

19-09-2012, 01:37 PM

The whole sequence probably took 15 minutes or less in one go.

Greg.

dannat

19-09-2012, 01:51 PM

Thanks greg

Ross G

19-09-2012, 06:20 PM

Hi Greg,

What an amzing photo.

Clever and original.

Your initial photo is my favourite. The colours are great and the composition draws you in.

You're producing some great images with your D800E.

Thanks.

Ross.

space oddity

19-09-2012, 09:40 PM

Nice piccy.
I reckon you may need to invest in a 10.5mm f/2.8 Nikon lens and /or a 4.5mm f/2.8 Sigma circular fisheye. These are two of my favorite lenses, great for full milky way shots.If you are near the city or eastern suburbs, you could borrow these lenses from me for a weekend.Generally, fixed focal length lenses are better due to less internal reflections and light falloff. Alas, Photokina has not unveiled any breakthrough technologies in photography.
Once curved sensors start being mass produced, it is time to chuck out all the old glass as fast lenses will be the norm, since a curved sensor means no more optical correction for flat field and spherical aberrations will be minimized.We should find the best performance to be at widest aperture. Look forward to f/0.95 lenses that do not cost a fortune or weigh a ton. I reckon that eventually such whole sky shots could be hand held or tripod jobs with cameras that use sensor shift for stabilization eg Pentax K-5.
If you can wait a few years, this sort of photo will be a mere snapshot instead of an impressive stitching job:).

dvj

20-09-2012, 03:40 AM

Greg, this is simply stunning. How did you manage the seamless integration of all those frames?

dvj

20-09-2012, 03:43 AM

Another Q. Lens data states 14mm to 24mm Nikon f/2.8, but image data shows 9.8mm. :shrug:

gregbradley

20-09-2012, 10:53 AM

Thanks Ross. I am loving this camera, its gotten me enthusiastic about DSLR imaging again.

Thanks for that. Will those lenses work on a full frame camera? I may take you up on your offer. Cheers.

Curved sensors sounds like an interesting future development. I hope it comes through.

A nice compliment coming from an expert imager like you. Lots of overlap and PT Gui Pro plus lots of manually inserting stitching points helped.

I don't know why its mis labelled that. Interesting. It was definitely 14-24mm Nikon ED F2.8g zoomed out to 14mm. I know because the earlier versions I thought I was shooting at 14mm but I had it accidentally set from an imaging session a few weeks before at 21mm. So I reset it after the first night (I focus it using a magnified live view at high ISO and lock it in place with some duct tape).

Greg.

space oddity

21-09-2012, 06:33 PM

The 10.5mm and 4.5mm are DX format lenses.For the time being, I am sticking to DX format, as FX lenses are rather large. You could use on full frame, but you will not have full coverage of all of the pixels of your sensor. Nikon apparently have a patent on curved ccds, but these things often take a while to hit the market. Apparently, a fluid lens near the ccd can be used to get 3x zooming with the benefit of curved sensors.

gregbradley

21-09-2012, 11:55 PM

Thanks for the info.
A Nikon curved CCD could be interesting. They seem to be going the CMOS route though.

Greg.

space oddity

22-09-2012, 06:36 PM

Not sure if it is a cmos or ccd sensor. Whichever one it is, I reckon it could cause a revolution in photography. A curved sensor that allows light rays to effectively hit perpendicular to the sensor means centre and edge performance will be the same. Curved sensor eliminates almost all spherical aberration, which means vastly fewer elements with better optical performance. Wide open will give the best performance! Mainly spherical elements will allow really fast lenses without the usual optical compromises. With decent sized production runs, the cost should be only a little higher than conventional gear.The main physical constraint will be the size of the front element.
As for astronomy, if you can forgo direct viewing and observe via a screen, sharper coloured images will be available with simpler optics and the ability to observe and capture high quality images at the same time.
Nirvana?