Milky Way over Cherry Springs State Park (Pennsylvania) June 2022

[Soopahmahn]

Good morning all, been a while since I posted - I kind of went into photo hibernation over the winter; just had a lot of other things going on and not as much interest.

Figured I'd share this from my first serious Astro outing a few weeks back, camped overnight at a famous Dark Sky site in Pennsylvania and generally I just love what happened in this image. The shooting star was an unexpected touch. This is a single exposure, no stacking or compositing (I'll play with those techniques another time!)

As always, I welcome critical feedback as I am 100% here to learn. I am keen on learning more finesse in my digital editing, as well as learning how to prepare files like this for print at my local print shop (they do really good work). I may try to do a larger format print with this, would be my first time making something in the 30" range or so.

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Nikon D500 + AF DX Fisheye-Nikkor 10.5mm f/2.8G ED, 0 ev, f/2.8, 20.0 sec, ISO 5000

 

[DRwyoming]

Nice image, I like the composition and the way you used those foreground trees for framing

As always, I welcome critical feedback as I am 100% here to learn. I am keen on learning more finesse in my digital editing, as well as learning how to prepare files like this for print at my local print shop (they do really good work). I may try to do a larger format print with this, would be my first time making something in the 30" range or so.

The ambient light down low in the frame is a common issue even when many miles away from towns but it pulls the eye away from the Milky Way stars. In the field I might use a ND Grad filter upside down (dark area on the bottom) to push down the levels of that light pollution but in post processing I might add a Linear Gradient to do much the same thing (pull the brighter light areas down a stop or two). The trees will still show up as silhouettes but it could darken those areas to bring more attention to the stars.

FWIW, I really like printing my Milky Way starscape shots as direct metal prints for the way they sparkle if your print shop supports that kind of printing.

 

[Soopahmahn]

Thanks for the feedback DR! I had a similar thought about the ambient light - some of the edits I made to the overall scene actually brought it out more than I intended. I was like "well this looks a bit eerie so maybe keep it" but I honestly just wasn't sure how to tame it down without wrecking the tree line silhouettes. I will have a go at your suggestion!

Despite being classified as a Bortle 2 zone, this park really looked more like a Bortle 3 I would say... ah well, still lovely and dark.

 

[Bubbahotep]

I'm a little intimidated by doing the arch. I give you a lot of credit.