Widefield Milkyway from Mangrove Mountain

[Mike Salway]

Hi all

On Saturday night, I headed out to the Mangrove Mountain Pony Club for the first time since January, to do some social observing with friends, and some widefield photography away from home.

The image below is the outcome from the night – a widefield Milkyway image taken with my Canon 350D and 28mm f/2.8 lens, piggybacked on my ED80/EQ6.

Given it was my first image in so long, I’m quite happy with how it turned out. Drift aligning went smoothly and quickly, I didn’t forget to take anything, and generally it all went as well as I could’ve hoped. I just had to remember how to process as well!

Unfortunately the 28mm lens isn't a good performer, and I didn't stop it down far enough to get rid of the large amounts of field curvature/coma in the corners (some of it is cropped out but there's still heaps).

A small 600px wide version is attached. You can read more and view a 1200px wide less compressed version here:
The Milkyway from Mangrove Mountain Pony Club



Thanks for looking.

[h_ta3kees]

Amazing, what a wonderful scene,,

[beachcomber]

Next time – a sharper lens, stopped down a bit more, and hopefully more exposure (maybe using darks instead of ICNR – but i’m still wary about that!)

Mike, what a tremendously entertaining and informative post, not that I know the difference between darks and ICNR, you enjoy a fascinating and rewarding hobby, thank you

[Heaterguy]

What a sky shot.

[cndstrong]

I am always amazed by the beauty of our universe and how small it can make you feel. Thank you for sharing it's beauty with us.

[Mike Salway]

Many thanks for your feedback, much appreciated.

beachcomber - ICNR is "in camera noise reduction". It's the "dark frame" that is taken automatically by the camera when you do a long exposure, and it's subtracted by the in-camera processing before it gives you the image. It's to remove hot pixels and noise.

You can also take "manual" dark frames (cover the lens), and use software to subtract them later.