Went home to visit the ‘rents today, and thought I’d take some star photos. My hometown is about 20 minutes outside of Lansing, MI, (which is to say, 20 minutes into the boonies), so there is less light pollution than the city, but it’s not completely absent. My buddy Andrew had sent me a shot of what I think is called a star field (correct me if I’m wrong), and I figured I’d give it a shot. The sky was clear enough, but I definitely think it’d be better if I was further away from any large light sources polluting my sky and my photos. 🙂
My first attempt trying to capture star fields. All shot with my Nikon D700, and the Nikon 20mm f/2.8 at various settings on a tripod. It was hard trying to set the camera in the dark as well as having to focus manually, so I might have some things I want to change for next time.
Seldomly Updated 
Have never seen stars like his in “real life” it looks mind blowing! We have so much light pollution in the UK that we barely see any stars. Thanks for posting.
Thanks! It’s a shame you can’t see stars like this in the UK. I’ll actually be visiting a friend in the UK in a few weeks though, so I guess I’ll see what you mean first hand. 😛
cool!
Dude these look really great, even on my phone! I am jealous 😦
I tried with the s95 and they didn’t turn out like this, maybe due to light pollution. More lata
It looks like you’re picking up some of the milky way – which is super exciting! I’m also seeing the pleiades cluster (7-sisters), which if you can magnify enough could turn out some bluish smokiness. But it looks like you’re picking up some darkness in the milky way, which I think is insane… you’re essentially picking up darkness from clouds of dust that are blocking light from the center of the galaxy. I’m excited to see what results you’ll get in an even darker location.
Were you using a filter at all? Apparently they can help with the light pollution bc they filter out everything but light produced from hydrogen molecules. I have one for the telescope, but it dims stuff down so much that I can’t see anything through it (my scope isn’t big enough, doesn’t capture enough light to compensate 😦
No filter here. I usually use a regular UV filter, but the one I have on there is a little older and actually caused some additional diffraction in some of my previous night shots so I decided not to go with one this time. What kind do you think I need for better results?
Peep it: http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/FILTERS.HTM
Go to the links for Galaxy M31 and Reflection Nebula M45 for settings info.
The filters are called different things in photography and astronomy, but the filtration goal is the same: allow light to pass in the Hydrogen-Alpha line at 656.3nm and filter out light coming from street lamps – high pressure sodiums and mercury…
My camera has a 15 second max exposure 😦 I want to get into this, but I’m afraid of the costs!