HOW TO Photograph manner Stars And The Milky Way

Photograph manner Stars And The Milky Way

Call his name astrophotography. Astrophotography is one of the art of photography is capturing objects around the night sky and other celestial objects such as planets, moons, galaxies, nebulae, clusters and stars.

For some people, astrophotography is a very exciting hobby. For me personally photographing stars, nebulae and the night sky is an activity that has its own charm and satisfaction.

I. How to Photograph Stars In Sky

In this session I want to share tips to his friends how to photograph the stars in the night sky with a beginner level / basic / basic. But before stepping further I will describe some of the conditions that should and must exist to create a work of astrophotography.

A. Requirements to make a sky photo

The following requirements must be met to make a background sky image that the object of the stars.

1 The camera must support setting the "Manual" and techniques "Long Exposure". Where shutter speed / exposure time can be set up to a few seconds.

2 The night sky free of light pollution. The main definition of the night sky free of light pollution is not illuminated by sky lights and city lights the sky clean of air pollution (smoke), clouds and fog.

One of the indicators that can be used are the eyes we can see many stars in the sky. If only one or two stars that can be seen, the light pollution is very high. The best place to photograph the star is in the villages, mountains, seaside or a place away from urban lights.

The difference before and after the polluted sky by light. The sky that has been exposed to light pollution, the night sky when photographed atmosphere will look like the sky during the day.

Being in the sky that is free or with minimal light pollution, the sky will still be dark though photographed with the same exposure time.

After two requirements that can be met then the next I will describe how to set up the camera so that the camera can take pictures of the stars in the sky at night.

In this tutorial I used a beginner level DSLR camera is the Canon EOS 500D camera.

At its base, all DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) has the same settings except that placement button and zoom are different.

B. Setting Camera with Long Exposure technique

Fix the camera settings in M mode or Manual

Log on Manual settings, provide the settings as follows:

ISO 3200 (the higher the better because it is sensitive to light)
F4.0 (or the smallest number)
Picture Style Landscape
Exposure time 30 "(30 seconds)
Raw image quality + L or adjust memory capacity may use the Small, Medium or Large.


1 Description:

a. ISO or ASA is the sensitivity of the light on the camera sensor captures light banyakya. The higher the number, the higher its ISO sensitivity of the camera sensor to light obtained from the object in the portrait.

b. F4.0 is the aperture settings on the camera. Diaphragm on the camera serves as a regulator of many of his little light into the camera sensor. The smaller the number the wider the aperture diaphragm is opened and the incoming light more and more.

c. Exposure time 30 "is the length of time setting the camera to capture light sensor. The longer, the more light that is in the get.

d. Picture Style. Picture style that we will use is Landscape. Because we tend to take pictures of the night sky and object wide viewing angle in portrait and wide landscape it is advisable to use the settings in order obtain more maksimal.Tidak color rule you can try Portrait and Neutral

e. The quality of the picture. The image quality is an option that you can adjust to the needs and capacities of memory you use. In this tutorial you should use the settings Large, Medium and Small. So up to you

2 How to Incorporate setting

a. ISO, To change the ISO, press the ISO button and select the ISO number as desired.



b. Diaphragm, Press and hold the Av button and then rotate the "Shutter Speed" right or left.



c. Exposure time, Play "Shutter Speed​​" left



d. Picture Style, then press down the button will appear Setting the Picture Style. Select Landscape



Once the camera be set in Manual mode with exposure time of 30 seconds, now when we photographed her the stars in the sky.

C. Shooting Stars in the Sky

Make sure the lens has a focus on distant objects. If the trouble to take the focus, change the settings of auto focus lens into (AF) and change the exposure time to 10 "then the direction of the lens to the point of light (lamp) farthest and brightest.


Example results of the focusing lens out of focus and focus. (pict: Eko Hadi G)

Try to shoot the lights or bright light. After that see its results.

If it turns out the photo is in focus then change the settings of the lens from autofocus to manual and return the exposure time from 10 "to 30". Now the camera is ready to take pictures of the stars in the sky at night.

Attach your camera on a tripod and start pointing the camera on her special night sky background belakangkan the stars.

Once you are sure ready to photograph the star, make sure the tripod and the camera was locked and there was no movement at all on the camera and tripod.

Press the shutter and let the camera photographing the sky for 30 seconds. Remember! during the process of shooting is prohibited moving the camera or tripod as little vibration alone could make a photo of the star to be striped (trail).

Good luck and congratulations photographing the night sky studded with stars. (kafeastronomi.com)

Milky Way 02
Pict: Taylor Photo

Milky Way 05

II. Photograph Way Milky Way

The following article will share photography techniques photography tips and tricks MILKY WAY photographed in Indonesian or known by the name which is called the Milky Way.

Milky Way is derived from the Latin Via Lactea, taken again from the Greek meaning Γαλαξίας Galaxias milk. The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy that has 200-400 billion stars 100,000 light years in diameter and thickness of 1000 light years.

Tips on photographing the milky way or the Milky Way
photo credit by dragoncd

Milky Way Galaxy as the invisibility of the white band stretching luminous mist on the celestial sphere. Ribbon fog or "aura" is actually a brilliant collection of millions of stars, and also by the volume of dust and gas located in the disc / field galaxies.

This tape appears brightest in the constellation Sagittarius around, and it is believed to be the location of the galactic center.

A. How to Find Milky Way Position / Milk Way With Help Stelarium

Tips on photographing the milky way or the Milky Way, we would have to know first, milky way in which the position is located. For that we need astronomy application called Stellarium to see where, and when the milky way was up.

Stellarium is an application you can get for free at stellarium.org, this app Available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

1 Setting Steps Stellarium

After astronomy applications installed, follow the steps below to either:

a. Open Stellarium, and tentuin first position where you live now, a way to click "location of windows"

b. Select the location of our first location in Stellarium. Enter the name of the area, be sure your name is on the list, check / select "use as default 'for setting the place / location each time you open Stellarium.

c. Setting Time in Stellarium. Click the "date-time / windows. Hours / time (equals hrs on the laptop / pc you). Date / month / year as well as the pc / laptop.

d. Other settings. Now we come to the most important part, look at the picture below:

Photography Tips Milky Way
Stellarium screenshot

- Arrow 1: Change time / h until the time becomes dark / night until the milky way be seen, in this example, the milky way looks around 1: 55: 3 pm

- Arrow 2: Click to munculin "azzimuthal grid" to see the height of milky way

- Arrow 3: click the "atmosphere" to eliminate the atmosphere, so the sky looks clean and milky way can be seen clearly.

- Arrow 4: Perhatiikan arrows visible on the letter S, stands for soulth (south), which means the milky way will be seen in the area SOUTH of where you live.

- Arrow 5: It was called the milky way, you can see that milky stretches from the south to the east.

Based on the above data can already be concluded, the Milky Way / Milk Way will look at around 1:55 pm.

Milk Way will stretch from the south to the east. From this data we can only begin to prepare for where and when we will learn photography Milky Way or The Milk Way.

Milky Way 06
Astronomer Alan Fitzsimmons took a shot of himself with the center of the Milky Way in the background at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla facility in the Atacama Desert of Chile.

B. Terms Photographing the Milky Way or the Milk Way

1 Avoid pollution or light leaks, look for location pictures of the Milky Way to the mountainous area that is far from the pollution of city lights, because the light makes milky way look dim.

2 Avoid the clouds, because clouds make milky way / Milky Way is blocked and invisible.

3 Find a good foreground, that milky way photo or photos of your Milky Way more dramatic look, such as slit hills, cliffs or slopes.

Milky Way 03

C. settting Camera For pictures of the Milky Way or the Milky Way

1 Use the largest aperture your camera, eg: F / 2.8 or F / 3.5

2 Use the lowest speed, in this case 30 seconds. Do not use the speed exceeds 30 seconds, such as 40s, 60s or 90 s, because the longer the shutter is open, make the stars look striped (like pictures of star trail)

3 Use the cable release and a tripod, so to avoid image blur

4 Use a maximum of ISO 1250.

5 Avoid using the JPEG format, but use the RAW format to pictures of milky way, so that his photos sharper / nice and pleasant to be edited later in PS or in Lightrrom. Read the article about Benefits of Using photographic When Shooting RAW format.

6 Use manual focus and infinity to get a sharp maximum. Read hyperfocal Definition Distance in Landscape Photography.

7 Begin photographing ...

Milky Way 04
(pict: J. Wikens)

Since we're on the equator, while the nicest reply For pictures of the Milky Way or the Milky Way is about March s / d in August.

In these months was the center of Milky Way galaxy right behind the constellation Sagittarius.

So that we (at the equator) can see the Milky Way in the night sky ablaze.

Outside months earlier, the position of the Milky Way is not good looks. Palingan only visible part of her dim doang, because most bright point is under the horizon.

When learning photography techniques photographing the Milky Way or the Milky Way, do not ever expect your images free from noise. Because we use a high ISO, could we use a low ISO like 400 or 800, but the effect does not seem aka milky way dark. Good luck.