This is one of a series of Milky Way shots I have taken recently.
I have accumulated over 20 hours of data and still imaging using my FLI Proline camera and a Nikon 50mm F1.8G lens and about 10 hours of DSLR data.
Experimenting further with the ideal exposure length for my D800E camera I took several hours of images using 10, 15, 30 and 60 minute subexposures.
Each has its merits but 60 minutes at low ISO works best. The camera is operating pretty much at the maximum dynamic range it can. Faint details start to emerge. Dust areas become more visible. However other factors start influencing the image like cloud,treetops etc, so 1 hour may not always be the best strategy.
So over several nights at my dark site this image was the culmination of D800E plus Ha and S11 data from my Proline imaging at home. Another much longer CCD image is being processed.
I am very happy with this image and is one of my all time favourite images. The D800E worked great here. I wasn't sure about 1 hour DSLR exposures but it worked great. It was autoguided on a PMX mount at my dark site observatory under excellent seeing.
http://upload.pbase.com/gregbradley/...52300954/large regular
http://upload.pbase.com/gregbradley/...00954/original large
Now with 4 hours of infrared added:
http://upload.pbase.com/image/152348475 regular
http://upload.pbase.com/gregbradley/...48475/original large
I like the dust areas, they extend upwards and below a long way and very little around the centre. It reminds me of the Sculptor Galaxy image by R Jay Gabany that shows the dust jets that rise vertically from that galaxy.
Greg.