I've always been able to see it anywhere that's relatively dark as long as it's clear,
The Milky Way is visible all year round, but it's far more dramatic in summer/autumn... and the best part of it is unfortunately not visible from the northern hemisphere.
I made all of these images in the UK during winter/early spring though.. if I recall correctly... certainly not summer anyway.
Loving that last one! Was that multiple exposures?
Great phot Drew!
Just for the clarity of how to stop stars trailing etc. If you aren't sure, there is a website here (not mine!)
http://www.howardedin.com/articles/fov.html
which will give you the sampling in arcseconds of the pixels in most DSLRs, as a function of the focal length.
All you then need to remember is that stars near the equator seem to move across the sky at 15 arcseconds
per second of time (stars at the poles don't move at all, the ones in between move at an intermediate speed).
So in 25 seconds you'd need to have pixels not much bigger than 375 arcseconds on a side for stuff down in the
south above the equator to stop it appearing extended. Change the focal length by a factor of two, change the
sampling in arcseconds by the same (longer focal length, finer sampling, fewer arcseconds per pixel). Once you
have some idea of the magic numbers for your camera it's pretty straightforward.
OK, you enter your camera type and focal length in the first set of boxes and press 'Calculate'. This will tell you that the field of view measures 66.499° by 46.861°, but the key number is the arcseconds per pixel which is 54.775.So, I have a D7000 and say i'm shooting at 18mm, what does this mean to me? What exactly shall I do with the figures created here? I'm, at best, perplexed, but intrigued.
All you then need to remember is that stars near the equator seem to move across the sky at 15 arcseconds
per second of time (stars at the poles don't move at all, the ones in between move at an intermediate speed).
OK, you enter your camera type and focal length in the first set of boxes and press 'Calculate'. This will tell you that the field of view measures 66.499° by 46.861°, but the key number is the arcseconds per pixel which is 54.775.
Now the advice about star trailing is:
So if your view includes any stars on the celestial equator, you'll start to see trailing (on a 100% crop of your image) if your shutter speed exceeds 54.775/15 which is roughly 4 seconds. With an 8-second exposure, stars on the equator will occupy 2 pixels; in 15 seconds they'll occupy 4 pixels; and so on.
But in the real world you're doing pretty well if your stars are single-pixel points to start with, so you've probably got a bit of latitude with these figures. Another real world consideration is whether you really want/need a 16-megapixel image. You only need about 6 MP for a good print. So if you plan to sample down from 16 MP to 6 MP, you can multiply all the exposure times by sqrt(16/6) which is 1.6.
Does that help?
OK, you enter your camera type and focal length in the first set of boxes and press 'Calculate'. This will tell you that the field of view measures 66.499° by 46.861°, but the key number is the arcseconds per pixel which is 54.775.
Now the advice about star trailing is:
So if your view includes any stars on the celestial equator, you'll start to see trailing (on a 100% crop of your image) if your shutter speed exceeds 54.775/15 which is roughly 4 seconds. With an 8-second exposure, stars on the equator will occupy 2 pixels; in 15 seconds they'll occupy 4 pixels; and so on.
But in the real world you're doing pretty well if your stars are single-pixel points to start with, so you've probably got a bit of latitude with these figures.
Another real world consideration is whether you really want/need a 16-megapixel image. You only need about 6 MP for a good print.
I can never get mine to look 'cosmic-y' like that with the cloudy parts really showing up. I'm waiting for a clear moonless night to try again this year though.
I've got friends in Swansea. Maybe I'll have to see if they're up for being a stop over point for a trip out there.You need a really true dark sky site for that. Drew, as he said, was on the Pembs coast.... it's really dark down there
I might set a thread up for a night meet at the elan valleys once it gets a little warmer. Can do light painting, star trails and aim for Milky Way shots too if anyone's interested?
The truth is.... there aren't many places in the UK left that are true dark sky sites
Bit tricky doing Milky way shots if other photographers nearby are blasting coloured light/flash around because they're light painting!
This is probably a bit nooby but I refer to the 500 rule above, about dividing 500 by the focal length to avoid start trails. Is this the ACTUAL focal length of the lens or the effective focal length? What I mean is, if I use a 50mm Nikon FX lens on a DX camera the effective focal length is 75mm, so do I divide 500 by 50, 75mm? My guess is 75, yes?