[scotty1]

Hi everyone,

I have just started trying some Astrophotography with my K5 and Tamron 17-50 2.8.
This is my first pano milky way, it is 14 photos stitched, 20 seconds ISO 12800 f3.2 17mm.
Maybe the ISO was too high?
This was taken 2 miles from a town in the England UK


I used Rawtherepee for processing, copied and pasted the pp3 file from one photo in the pano to all the rest,
to have the settings the same . There is a sudden colour change from purple to blue in part of the
photo, is this down to high ISO?. I haven`t tried the wavelets setting, would wavelets help a smooth
transition form purple to blue?. The white balance was the same for each photo.

Attached Images

 

[photoptimist]

Nice image!

Lower ISO might help. Did you use long-exposure NR?

This example might also be an artifact of the time of evening and fairly quick changes in sky lighting and color.

[Tas]

There is a sudden colour change from purple to blue in part of the photo

High ISO could contribute to this, I tend not to shoot at that high an ISO myself however there's the issue of light pollution to consider too. Here's an example of the tonal and colour changes that allow you to better see what's happening: Heaven's Gate | Milky Way through a gated fence at Triangle-? | Flickr You will notice there's light pollution in this image too, but it's predominantly at the bottom of the frame. This image was captured by a very well practiced nightscape photographer (check out his Flickr stream) but what you're not also seeing is the post processing techniques needed to get the best out of a scene like this.

So the Milky Way does have different colour and tones in parts of it and that could be adding to what you're seeing here. Can I suggest you look at cooling the colour temperature down too? I tend to find the cooler look improves Milky Way shots if the light from other sources is too warm.

One other thing I'd recommend is trying to find where you can avoid light pollution as best you can. If you don't already use one of these tools here's two links that will help:

Map – Dark Site Finder

Light pollution map

Good luck with it mate, Milky Way photography is great fun and I hope you continue to post your work here for us to enjoy.

Tas

[scotty1]

Nice image!

Lower ISO might help. Did you use long-exposure NR?

This example might also be an artifact of the time of evening and fairly quick changes in sky lighting and color.

Hi,

Thanks for your feedback, I put my milky way post in the beginners help section, a mod must of moved it to the Photo Critique section.

I didn`t use any long exposure noise reduction.

---------- Post added 11-06-17 at 02:30 PM ----------

Hi Tas,

Thanks for those links, a couple of very small deep blue areas to my south, very detailed maps.

I don`t expect to get milky way photos like the ones in your link, too much light pollution and humidity around here.

Loading up the dark sky maps from only three years ago, shows how much dark sky is being lost in my area.

I was quite shocked how fast light pollution is taking over the map.

Also it seems that most photographers are using lightroom or photoshop for processing astro images. I only have rawtherepee.
I hope to travel to a dark sky site sometime when my health improves.

---

Last edited by scotty1; 11-06-2017 at 03:53 PM. Reason: error

[Tas]

Hi,
Thanks for your feedback, I put my milky way post in the beginners help section, a mod must of moved it to the Photo Critique section.
I didn`t use any long exposure noise reduction.
---------- Post added 11-06-17 at 02:30 PM ----------
Hi Tas,
Thanks for those links, a couple of very small deep blue areas to my south, very detailed maps.
I don`t expect to get milky way photos like the ones in your link, too much light pollution and humidity around here.
Loading up the dark sky maps from only three years ago, shows how much dark sky is being lost in my area.
I was quite shocked how fast light pollution is taking over the map.
Also it seems that most photographers are using lightroom or photoshop for processing astro images. I only have rawtherepee.
I hope to travel to a dark sky site sometime when my health improves.

G'Day mate,

You're most welcome, I'm not an expert at anything photographic but have some experience in capturing the Milky Way and have done some research to help me do so. An area of the forums you might want to join is the Astrophotography group here: Astrophotography - PentaxForums.com This is likely to provide some handy discussions and give you a good forum to ask questions in.

Meanwhile here's a couple of more handy links for info on the Milky Way: How to Find the Milky Way – Lonely Speck and http://starcircleacademy.com/2012/06/milkyway/ These should help you target a good time of year to visit one of the darker locations. It seems Scotland is the best dark sky location over your way but you can expect decent results in other areas too. I've managed to get the Milky Way in areas that appear dark yellow on the light pollution map, so don't be disheartened by the map.

I've no experience with Rawtherapee but there are other solutions not just Adobe for post processing. The main thing is to get as good an image as you can to start with. If you have that then you may not need anything more than what you have already.

Get well soon mate, hopefully you'll be good to go for March 2018.

Tas

[DeadJohn]

There is a sudden colour change from purple to blue

I don't see any objectionable transition from purple to blue. It's a matter of opinion. In Lightroom, and maybe Rawtherapee has something similar, you can adjust the saturation and shift hue for specific colors. Play around with the blue or purple channel until you find something you like. Or maybe adjust the white balance.

The horizon colors are nice. I can't tell if that's due to light pollution or twilight, but it looks good regardless. What time was it? I usually wait 2 hours after sunset for the best Milky Way. You might have lost the good backlighting on the trees if you did that, though.

20 seconds ISO 12800 f3.2 17mm

Did you shoot in DNG or JPG? That's a very high ISO, but assuming you downsample the final image most of the noise goes away. Your 20 second shutter speed is good to keep stars from moving too much at 17mm. You might be able to get away with 30 seconds, though.

My approach with the K-5 is to use DNG and go no higher than ISO 3200 for the night sky. I might take a test shot at ISO 12800 to check my composition, then go back to ISO 3200 for the actual photo. A 20 second exposure will look dark but I later boost the shadows, white point, etc. in Lightroom.

---------- Post added 11-08-17 at 12:03 PM ----------

hopefully you'll be good to go for March 2018

Is there something special happening then? I didn't see it mentioned elsewhere in the thread. Maybe you're just thinking ahead to when the brightest part of the Milky Way will come back after winter.

[Tas]

Is there something special happening then? I didn't see it mentioned elsewhere in the thread. Maybe you're just thinking ahead to when the brightest part of the Milky Way will come back after winter.

Yes mate, my 'logic' in stating March was based on waiting for the densest part of the Milky Way, particularly when needing to deal with the effects of light pollution.

I didn't know how experienced the OP was for capturing the Milky Way but as he was asking about the subject I thought I'd post a couple of links to help target where and when to capture the Milky Way in case he was new at it. If you follow the link above for 'the star circle academy' there's a table to identify the timings by month and moon state to maximise your chances of capturing the Milky Way. Here's an extract from that table.

Month Best Time (Local Time)
January IMPOSSIBLE
February Difficult. Before sunrise (late February only)
March Difficult. Before sunrise
April 4 AM to Sunrise
May 3 AM to 6 AM
June 10 PM to 2 AM
July Sunset to Midnight
August Sunset until 10 PM
September Sunset until 9 PM
October Difficult: Sunset (early October only)
November IMPOSSIBLE
December IMPOSSIBLE

As we're already into November and the OP was having to deal with a fair bit of light and was also crook from something I just went with March. Do you have some examples of capturing the Milky Way over the northern winter to show the OP? That would be cool.

Tas

[scotty1]

I don't see any objectionable transition from purple to blue. It's a matter of opinion. In Lightroom, and maybe Rawtherapee has something similar, you can adjust the saturation and shift hue for specific colors. Play around with the blue or purple channel until you find something you like. Or maybe adjust the white balance.

The horizon colors are nice. I can't tell if that's due to light pollution or twilight, but it looks good regardless. What time was it? I usually wait 2 hours after sunset for the best Milky Way. You might have lost the good backlighting on the trees if you did that, though.


Did you shoot in DNG or JPG? That's a very high ISO, but assuming you downsample the final image most of the noise goes away. Your 20 second shutter speed is good to keep stars from moving too much at 17mm. You might be able to get away with 30 seconds, though.

My approach with the K-5 is to use DNG and go no higher than ISO 3200 for the night sky. I might take a test shot at ISO 12800 to check my composition, then go back to ISO 3200 for the actual photo. A 20 second exposure will look dark but I later boost the shadows, white point, etc. in Lightroom.

---------- Post added 11-08-17 at 12:03 PM ----------



Is there something special happening then? I didn't see it mentioned elsewhere in the thread. Maybe you're just thinking ahead to when the brightest part of the Milky Way will come back after winter.

Hi, I always shoot DNG, next time i will use a lower ISO. There may be a hint of light from the sun,and some light pollution too. I had to try get the photo before clouds rolled in.Cars lights were also blowing out the trees, had to pick frames without car lights... I am trying different settings in rawtherepee, not too bad for my first go.


thanks

[dr00p]

Can't help. Not familiar with stitching myself. But just wanted to say I like your photo.

[henrikpedersen33]

Hi everyone,

I have just started trying some Astrophotography with my K5 and Tamron 17-50 2.8.
This is my first pano milky way, it is 14 photos stitched, 20 seconds ISO 12800 f3.2 17mm.
Maybe the ISO was too high?
This was taken 2 miles from a town in the England UK


I used Rawtherepee for processing, copied and pasted the pp3 file from one photo in the pano to all the rest,
to have the settings the same . There is a sudden colour change from purple to blue in part of the
photo, is this down to high ISO?. I haven`t tried the wavelets setting, would wavelets help a smooth
transition form purple to blue?. The white balance was the same for each photo.

Looks great to me ;-)

[mhrish]

I think it look cool if you had used a flashlight to paint in the trees in the foreground to balance it in with the sky.

[SKYGZR]

Try changing the ISO, exp time & shutter opening. It will take some experimenting, yet will be worth it in the long run. Best not to just settle on one setting..play around..

[dhart2]

Hi everyone,

I have just started trying some Astrophotography with my K5 and Tamron 17-50 2.8.
This is my first pano milky way, it is 14 photos stitched, 20 seconds ISO 12800 f3.2 17mm.
Maybe the ISO was too high?
This was taken 2 miles from a town in the England UK


I used Rawtherepee for processing, copied and pasted the pp3 file from one photo in the pano to all the rest,
to have the settings the same . There is a sudden colour change from purple to blue in part of the
photo, is this down to high ISO?. I haven`t tried the wavelets setting, would wavelets help a smooth
transition form purple to blue?. The white balance was the same for each photo.

Very nice. I have similar challenges with light pollution.

[Photogoof]

Hi everyone,

I have just started trying some Astrophotography with my K5 and Tamron 17-50 2.8.
This is my first pano milky way, it is 14 photos stitched, 20 seconds ISO 12800 f3.2 17mm.
Maybe the ISO was too high?
This was taken 2 miles from a town in the England UK


I used Rawtherepee for processing, copied and pasted the pp3 file from one photo in the pano to all the rest,
to have the settings the same . There is a sudden colour change from purple to blue in part of the
photo, is this down to high ISO?. I haven`t tried the wavelets setting, would wavelets help a smooth
transition form purple to blue?. The white balance was the same for each photo.

Leave it just as it is.

[W.G.]

Hi everyone,

I have just started trying some Astrophotography with my K5 and Tamron 17-50 2.8.
This is my first pano milky way, it is 14 photos stitched, 20 seconds ISO 12800 f3.2 17mm.
Maybe the ISO was too high?
This was taken 2 miles from a town in the England UK


I used Rawtherepee for processing, copied and pasted the pp3 file from one photo in the pano to all the rest,
to have the settings the same . There is a sudden colour change from purple to blue in part of the
photo, is this down to high ISO?. I haven`t tried the wavelets setting, would wavelets help a smooth
transition form purple to blue?. The white balance was the same for each photo.

That sort of photo is on my list to try... Nice shot!