CurleyB Loc: MAITLAND FL

Some time ago while planning a trip to Las Vegas I posted a request for suggestions of low light polution areas near there to photo the stars. Of the many great suggestions I received, the most useful were suggestions that I use one of the many light pollution websites or apps. One app I found was most useful was The Light Pollution Map. Now I can go anywhere in the wold and find the closest-best star shooting. This was my first attempt and I have a big learning curve, but it was a great adventure. The photo below has not yet been processed. I went to the Valley of Fire State Park an hour northeast of Las Vegas. Concerned about the sign saying CLOSED AT SUNDOWN I told the very nice park ranger what I was doing. I was told to stay close to the road and be obvious what I was doing and it should not be a problem, and it wasn't. I was using a NIKKOR 50mm 1:1.4 G lens for 13 secs. Not happy about the focus, but there was a lot of wind (adding to my learning curve, in the middle of the desert, at night, who 'da thunk) and had to position the camera in the crook of my car's door jamb to mitigate the wind. Any way, after a lot of unnecessary jabber, thank y'all again for all that responded.

(Download)

Bob Mevis Loc: Plymouth, Indiana

That's a nice image. Good luck with the app and the learning curve.

rikhar Loc: Ct. shoreline

Very nice. Well worth the effort

John Sh Loc: Toronto, Australia

I'm going to be the devil's advocate here. That image is totally out of focus. When shooting stars you need to be at infinity focus, and here's the trap. Infinity focus is NOT the end of the focus ring travel. It is usually in the centre of the infinity sign. Try auto-focussing on a distant object in daylight and see where the focus ring stops. That is infinity focus. Keep trying, night photography can be very rewarding and equally frustrating.

yorkiebyte Loc: Scottsdale, AZ/Bandon by the Sea, OR

Cri·tique
/kriˈtēk/

noun
a detailed analysis and assessment of something, especially a literary, philosophical, or political theory.
"authors critique the methods and practices used in the research" (or photography!)

Thank you, John Sh.... for your advocacy in truthfully helping a fellow "Hogger" here! "Nice picture" when it clearly is not, really does not help anybody - your advice is Spot On! Keep it up! (JMO!)

drobvit Loc: Southern NV

Nice shot! Great locale for shooting. As for the wind...if it ain't windy, here in the desert, something's wrong!

Just an example of week before last. Cell phone shot. Dirt tastes great!

Dark Sky Map is another great app for finding the"blackness".

CurleyB Loc: MAITLAND FL

To Johnsh. Your comments are exactly what I was hoping for. Thank you. I knew from the start I had a focus issue. I tried zooming in on live screen to focus and though the eyepiece. This was the best I got, and yes unsatisfactory. I’ll try the daylight focus setting very soon. Thanks.

PhotogHobbyist Loc: Bradford, PA

I'm not an expert on night or astro-photography so take this with some caution. Others may have more and even better advice for you.

I've read and heard that for night astro-photography, put your camera into manual focus mode and set the focus to the hyper-focal setting. Then if possible, tape the focus ring so it will not move if accidentally touched. This prevents any change in your setting. Also open the aperture to as wide as possible, unless you want a foreground object in the frame to be in focus, then use the largest aperture that will get everything in focus. Play with settings, practice and then practice more. Experience is the best teacher, it tests you first and teaches you after.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

First...your exposure looks quite good. I'm not where I can see your EXIF data to see what camera and ISO you are using, but if this is an unprocessed JPEG, it's pretty close to correct. You aren't going to be able to go much longer with that lens, but you might have room to use a little bit higher ISO, if you want to capture more stars. There are probably a lot of additional stars in your raw image that would be easy to make visible in post processing, if that is what you would like to see.

Achieving proper focus is one of the two biggest universal challenges in night sky photography. The other is maintaining your camera & lens completely motionless.

There are two main elements involved with stabilizing your camera...a sturdy tripod and either a remote release or delayed shutter release via your camera. Examination reveals that your camera moved vertically somewhere in the middle part of your exposure. I know that you had a wind problem, but I've found that as often as not, vertical motion during an exposure with prominent visibility usually results from touching your camera somehow. Depending on your camera model, you may have the option of delayed release via your menu. And there are all sorts of intervalometers and remote releases available for not a lot of money. Just make sure which ones are compatible with your camera.

There is a little bit of a focus issue also. There are a couple of ways to handle this as well. If your camera has Live View, you can usually pick a bright star or planet and use live view to focus on it. If you have a magnification or zoom option in Live View, that can help a ton. Otherwise, you can send an assistant with a flashlight to a point 200 or more feet away (300 feet or more will be better with an f1.4 lens) and you can focus on them. Of course, autofocus is turned off for night sky photography.

There are some daunting aspects of night sky photography when you first start, but they are not prohibitively difficult to catch on to. What's fun, though, is that you will find that there is always something that you can do to refine your technique even further. It's really a journey, not a destination, but you will be able to get surprisingly good images pretty quickly if you pay attention to what you are doing.

Finally...I am not a huge post processor. But you will find pretty quickly that night sky photography really does require capturing in raw and doing at least some post processing.

jaycoffman Loc: San Diego

Nice post and good tip--thanks. Also, the Valley of Fire is great during daytime too--best very early or late.

hassighedgehog Loc: Corona, CA

rivastro.org is the site for the Riverside Astronomical Society. Check them out. There are many Astro-photographers that are members. (used to belong before my sight became less than ideal)

Wallen Loc: Middle Earth

I see the Big Dipper. A little bit wider and the north star would be visible on the upper right corner