Landscape Milkyway Equipment, Acquisition and Post processing - Forums

Topic starter

Mar 27, 2023

So I recently decided to buy a DSLR, star tracker and some lenses so I can start doing landscape Astrophotography.

I bought a Nikon D850, Ioptron Sky Guider Pro and Sigma Art prime lenses (14mm and 50mm)

As is often the case, the clouds have rolled in and I haven't yet been able to test out my new gear.

I'm a total newb to this and I'd be curious to hear tips and tricks for acquiring and processing great landscape images of the Milkyway.

I've seen a range of Milkyway shots published online and I feel that many are over processed and look like artwork while others have a more natural look to them.

Also if be interested to hear what people think are the best lenses for Milkyway photography.

this link below may be of interest to the discussion:

https://youtu.be/sRvyyZuFDHU

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Oscar

Apr 7, 2023 · Edited: Apr 7, 2023

here are my tips:

make a long exposure of the Milky Way tracked (with the landscape cut out), and a long exposure of the landscape untracked (with the Milky Way cut out) on a tripod, and later to merge the 2 images in Photoshop for a complete image. You could also stack the Milky Way, but that's your choice.
faster lenses are better but you'll probably get a cleaner image from coma if you increase the F-stop by 1 to 3 units.
stay away from the city during shooting.

This is what I would do, but I'm no professional.

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Chris Beere

Apr 7, 2023

So I recently decided to buy a DSLR, star tracker and some lenses so I can start doing landscape Astrophotography.

I bought a Nikon D850, Ioptron Sky Guider Pro and Sigma Art prime lenses (14mm and 50mm)

As is often the case, the clouds have rolled in and I haven't yet been able to test out my new gear.

I'm a total newb to this and I'd be curious to hear tips and tricks for acquiring and processing great landscape images of the Milkyway.

I've seen a range of Milkyway shots published online and I feel that many are over processed and look like artwork while others have a more natural look to them.

Also if be interested to hear what people think are the best lenses for Milkyway photography.

this link below may be of interest to the discussion:

https://youtu.be/sRvyyZuFDHU

Hardware wise you are off to a good start.

The D850 is an excellent camera for astrophotography and the IOptron is a cracking little mount.

The Arts are the best lenses for widefield astrophotography in my experience. I have used the entire range (14, 20, 24, 28, 40, 50, 85, 105, 135) and currently have 2 x 28s and a 105.

The 14 and 50 will be both need to be stopped down to f/2.8 as the sagittal astigmatism is pretty severe below that.

On the software front if you intend on shooting mosaics of any size then you will want to invest in PTGui Pro. Its without peer when it comes to stitching big panoramas.

Aesthetically its up to you. Ive rendered data sets with and without heavy saturation and egregious stretching. Ive ended up somewhere in the middle.

You will find that the heavily saturated renders (the "rainbow" galactic arches with flourescent airglow you see blasted across social media) appeal to a large demographic so people will always publish for maximum impact.

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Ed Dixon

Apr 7, 2023 · Edited: Apr 7, 2023

I too have a SGP, and it's a great little rotator mount. You can also get pretty good MW images with just a tripod.

This is one I took in the Bahamas with a D5600.

https://www.astrobin.com/i1c6uj/?nc=&nce=

The SGP gives you more choices for exposure settings. There are lots of “how to info” on doing separate sky and foreground images and then combining them in post processing.

I have two Nikons now and both 10mm and 14mm lenses I use for MW imaging.

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IrishAstro4484

Topic starter

Apr 10, 2023

Chris Beere:
So I recently decided to buy a DSLR, star tracker and some lenses so I can start doing landscape Astrophotography.

I bought a Nikon D850, Ioptron Sky Guider Pro and Sigma Art prime lenses (14mm and 50mm)

As is often the case, the clouds have rolled in and I haven't yet been able to test out my new gear.

I'm a total newb to this and I'd be curious to hear tips and tricks for acquiring and processing great landscape images of the Milkyway.

I've seen a range of Milkyway shots published online and I feel that many are over processed and look like artwork while others have a more natural look to them.

Also if be interested to hear what people think are the best lenses for Milkyway photography.

this link below may be of interest to the discussion:

https://youtu.be/sRvyyZuFDHU

Hardware wise you are off to a good start.

The D850 is an excellent camera for astrophotography and the IOptron is a cracking little mount.

The Arts are the best lenses for widefield astrophotography in my experience. I have used the entire range (14, 20, 24, 28, 40, 50, 85, 105, 135) and currently have 2 x 28s and a 105.

The 14 and 50 will be both need to be stopped down to f/2.8 as the sagittal astigmatism is pretty severe below that.

On the software front if you intend on shooting mosaics of any size then you will want to invest in PTGui Pro. Its without peer when it comes to stitching big panoramas.

Aesthetically its up to you. Ive rendered data sets with and without heavy saturation and egregious stretching. Ive ended up somewhere in the middle.

You will find that the heavily saturated renders (the "rainbow" galactic arches with flourescent airglow you see blasted across social media) appeal to a large demographic so people will always publish for maximum impact.

*** Nice one Chris! Thanks for the advice. Any thoughts on a third lense for Milkyway photography if I was to pick up a third prime lens?

And interesting thoughts in the post processing. I personally prefer to be minimalist approach in relation to post processing to preserve a more natural aesthetic. At least, that's what I've aimed for in my deep space images.

***

vikas chander

Apr 10, 2023

a 24mm f1.4 …..the sigma version has a lot of coma in
the corners though and if u can get zeiss milvus 25mm f1.4 that wud be a better choice

Chris Beere

Apr 10, 2023

Nice one Chris! Thanks for the advice. Any thoughts on a third lens for Milkyway photography if I was to pick up a third prime lens?

For 180-270 degree nightscape panoramas the Sigma Art 28mm DG HSM f/1.4 is the best lens i have used. I have 2 of them and run a dual rig.

It can legitimately be shot wide open at f/1.4 and covers 65 x 46 degrees of sky giving you a near perfect 50% overlap of 30 x 20 degrees.

Very good metrics for a 270 degree x 110 degree coverage 5 row x 9 column sky mosaic.

A shot of mine with the Sigma Art 28mm DG HSM f/1.4 : https://www.astrobin.com/78hp70/

The Sigma Art 40mm DG HSM f/1.4 is also extremely good, again can be used wide open at f/1.4 - personally i prefer the 28 so i sold my copy of the 40 and replaced it with a second 28...

A shot of mine with the Sigma Art 40mm DG HSM f/1.4 : https://www.astrobin.com/8tmv05/

For large format high resolution mosaics the Sigma Art 105mm DG HSM f/1.4 or the Sigma Art 135mm DG HSM f/1.8 are both absolutely awesome.

A shot of mine with the Sigma Art 105mm DG HSM f/1.4 : https://www.astrobin.com/5hszi9/

Most important is that you get a good copy of any lens that you buy, there is considerable variance in copies of lenses from all manufacturers, Sigma included, so it can take a few copies to get a lens that is nominally corrected across the frame. Make sure the vendor that you buy from has a no nonsense returns policy.

Helpful

John Sims

Apr 13, 2023 · Edited: Apr 13, 2023

So I recently decided to buy a DSLR, star tracker and some lenses so I can start doing landscape Astrophotography.

I bought a Nikon D850, Ioptron Sky Guider Pro and Sigma Art prime lenses (14mm and 50mm)

As is often the case, the clouds have rolled in and I haven't yet been able to test out my new gear.

I'm a total newb to this and I'd be curious to hear tips and tricks for acquiring and processing great landscape images of the Milkyway.

I've seen a range of Milkyway shots published online and I feel that many are over processed and look like artwork while others have a more natural look to them.

Also if be interested to hear what people think are the best lenses for Milkyway photography.

this link below may be of interest to the discussion:

https://youtu.be/sRvyyZuFDHU

Hi IrishAstro4484,
For the Milky Way your really may not need the Sky Guider Pro, although it will give you more options as to how you photograph. With a wide angle lens (your 14 mm), you can easily take 15 to 20 second exposures without tracking. I used a product called Starry Landscape Stacker (Mac only) which will mask the foreground, and only register the sky, so the result is a stacked image with everything in focus. They also have a product for sky only: Starry Sky Tracker for images without foreground. Using the 50mm lens would limit your exposures to 10 seconds (or so - check out the "rule of 500/600 for more info - https://astrobackyard.com/the-500-rule/), so you might want to use your Sky Guider Pro (SGP). The field of view of the 50mm will also mean that you will likely need to merge multiple photos to a panorama. Several panorama stitchers available, some are free. I think you will find the SGP of greater interest with longer lenses, where your exposure time may be limited to 1 second or less. With proper Polar Alignment I found that I could get exposures up to 2 minutes without guiding, and frankly I doubt adding guiding is worth the expense, since it only affects one axis. The Andromeda Galaxy is a great "first Deep Sky Object - DSO), but you will need to wait a while before it presents itself in the night sky.
As for software, PixInsight is the "gold standard" for Astro Photography, but for Night Photography/Milky Way really any post processing software will work fine. Lightroom, Capture One, Affinity Photo, etc....
Let the journey begin:-)

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IrishAstro4484

Topic starter

Apr 15, 2023

Chris Beere:
So I recently decided to buy a DSLR, star tracker and some lenses so I can start doing landscape Astrophotography.

I bought a Nikon D850, Ioptron Sky Guider Pro and Sigma Art prime lenses (14mm and 50mm)

As is often the case, the clouds have rolled in and I haven't yet been able to test out my new gear.

I'm a total newb to this and I'd be curious to hear tips and tricks for acquiring and processing great landscape images of the Milkyway.

I've seen a range of Milkyway shots published online and I feel that many are over processed and look like artwork while others have a more natural look to them.

Also if be interested to hear what people think are the best lenses for Milkyway photography.

this link below may be of interest to the discussion:

https://youtu.be/sRvyyZuFDHU

Hardware wise you are off to a good start.

The D850 is an excellent camera for astrophotography and the IOptron is a cracking little mount.

The Arts are the best lenses for widefield astrophotography in my experience. I have used the entire range (14, 20, 24, 28, 40, 50, 85, 105, 135) and currently have 2 x 28s and a 105.

The 14 and 50 will be both need to be stopped down to f/2.8 as the sagittal astigmatism is pretty severe below that.

On the software front if you intend on shooting mosaics of any size then you will want to invest in PTGui Pro. Its without peer when it comes to stitching big panoramas.

Aesthetically its up to you. Ive rendered data sets with and without heavy saturation and egregious stretching. Ive ended up somewhere in the middle.

You will find that the heavily saturated renders (the "rainbow" galactic arches with flourescent airglow you see blasted across social media) appeal to a large demographic so people will always publish for maximum impact.

*** Took my first images on Thursday evening and I ended up stopped down to f/3.5 to minimize distortion around the fringes.

Ill process and upload the image in the next day or so. Would be interested to hear thoughts.

The Sigma lenses cost a lot of money. Id heard of quality issue with the Samyang but not with Sigma.

***