Spring's last night with Milkyway

More Milkyway from Mariero

Mariero April Milkyway 2

This is teh results from my second attempt at imaging April Milkyway from Mariero, it's half an hour's session from 0430-0500hrs. Images were stacked on Sequator (5-8 images) without any preprocessing at light pollution reduction at 75%. Stacked image was then postprocessed on GIMP mainly tweaking level (remapping grey and white), and tweaking curves. Final adjust on saturation for all primaty colors.

I am fairly happy with the outcome of this batch. 

Shot details: Canon 6D+EF50/1.2, 5secs, Iso 6400, f/2.8, WB Daylight, untracked.

Tracking would have undoubted allow the use of lower shutter speeds and lower iso for even greater details and more rounded stars. Let's hope there's a couple more clear sky nights in the coming days before summer is here.

Raw/Sequator/Gimp (red at the lower left corner is from the top of a radio tower).

I saw Beetlejuice, M42 Orion's Nebula, Leo's Regulus and The Sickle before meeting April's Milkway Vega, Deneb and Altair one clear night

Beetlejuice from Orion

Leo's Regulus and The Sickle

Orion's Nebula

April Milkyway in the city : Let there be LP

Single shot 45secs, Iso 1600, f/4.0 ... look at that light pollution, lots of moisture in the air too.

A 6 shot stack with pre-stack tweaks on Capture One and  minor post stack tweaks on Gimp.

Zoom in past the light pollution courtesy of Tau, Jorpeland and Hommersak just across the water.

Bluehour Sola Rendezvous

Bluehour rendezvour at Sola Beach

Further pushing the Star Adventurer

For normal Milkway shots with a wide angle lens on a tracker, it shouldn't be necessary to push the Star Adventurer beyond the 45sec or 60sec for trailless shots. I thought since I now know with accurate Polar alignment the Adventurer was able to achieve 45secs exposure without any trails, I ventured to test exposures beyond 45sec on the EF400mm. This might be useful for capturing images of Andromeda, Pleiades or Orion Nebula come next fall.

For this session I targetted Capella within the constellation Auriga. It was another clear sky night in Spring, though a tad foggy at lower elevations conditions around Auriga was clear.

122 secs, ISO 800

103 secs, ISO 1600

50secs, ISO 1600

Stack of 36 shots, each was exposed at 45secs, ISO 1600, pp in Gimp.

Stack of  5 shots, each exposed at 122secs, ISO 800, pp in Gimp.