Milkyway away, 01 July 2011 - Pretoria, South Africa

"It's like drinking the best hot chocolate with full cream milk" - Chris Lombaard

"Tree hugger", Milky way (30s 1600ISO, F/3.5, 18.0mm), 1 July 2011 - Chris Lombaard

The Story:

The weather forecast predicts yet another cold front approaching, and what better time than to get the gear set up, and get settled in for yet another good night ahead.  Little did I know how cold it was going to get.

So I believe it's quite easy to capture the Milky Way [5] by just doing a point and shoot with some timelapse thrown in between.  It did the trick, but to get the type of results you sometimes see on the cover of outdoor magazines, is in another category.  So my first attempt at choosing the subject to be the Milky Way and playing around with some camera settings to understand it better, was well worth it.  It's like drinking the best hot chocolate with full cream milk.

In planning to take some shots of the Milky Way, I did some research around the subject of digital image stacking and image stitching.  Came across some wonderful and obscure, and more often than one would hope, difficult to use and understandable descriptions on the subject.  I did learn new terms such as "Flats", "Darks", "Baselines" and "Lights" to name a few.  The end of it all was a few gems which is provided in the references section that I would highly recommend anyone [1] [2] [3].

P.S: If someone could recommend a solution to stack and stitch digital images, I'd be able to put the rest of the images up.  Got different regions of the Milky Way nice and clean, but it needs to be stitched together now.

Please let me know in the comments down below of you're experience using software and how you made it work for you and not against you.

 

The Results:

Here are a few images, all original and unedited in any way other than resizing in GIMP [4].  I used the same set up with different exposure and aperture values.

Njoy!

"Milky Way - 5s" - F/3.5, 1600ISO, 18.0mm, NikonD5000

"Milky Way - 10s" - F/3.5, 1600ISO, 18.0mm, NikonD5000

"Milky Way - 30s" - F/3.5, 1600ISO, 18.0mm, NikonD5000

"Milky Way - 30s" - F/7.1, 1600ISO, 18.0mm, NikonD5000

Notice the difference between the last two images due to the change in aperture value. Bring in the that light!

"Shooting star it might be" - 30s, F/7.1, 1600ISO, 18.0mm, NikonD5000

"Horison" - 30s, F/3.5, 1600ISO, 18.0mm, NikonD5000

Light pollution is such a pity. How I would love to be in Sutherland right now!

"Antares M7 Butterfly" - 10s, F5.6, 1600ISO, 55.0mm, NikonD5000

"Who gives a roof" - 30s, F3.5, 1600ISO, 18mm, Nikon5000

 

Conclusion:

Sometimes the shot can be framed with some unexpected objects, including yourself.  Without any guided tracking, star trails do become visible and ruin the shot.  Figuring out how to use stacking software might just help me one day.

 

References:

[1] - Hugin Panoramic Photo Stitcher 
[2] - Catching the Light, Astrophotography by Jerry Lodriguss, Astrophotography Techniques
[3] - The Theory of How to create better images - DeepSkyStacker
[4] - GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program
[5] - Wikipedia on the Milky Way

Light box 101 - Building your own Light box - I will show you how I did it back in the day!

"Ruining a few 15minute light frames is not fun, ask me!" - Chris Lombaard

Why have a light box in the first place?
Between my identical twin brother and I, we have shared countless hours out among the stars with our 700mm Reflector telescope and soon realised that a light box among other things would be a good addition to our tool set. Having that eye piece fall of the telescope stand one more time and trying to find it for the next 25minutes turns out to be a motivator.

So here is a quick introduction to how we made our light box take shape and the final product that looked like this while in use:

The "Twin"-Ligh box design - Chris and Rudolph Lombaard

What is required?
Well, if you are like me and you have some basic wood working tools around with some offcuts left over from another finished project, why not make something useful with it and impress your friends at the next star party.

Light box material list:

• Wood, preferably painted white all round to reflect as much light as possible.

• Chipboard and two pieces of 1.5''x3'' timber offcuts

• 1x 220VAC 40W, Light bulb, Colour Red.

• 1x Power switch to easily turn the light box on and off.

• Power cord long enough to reach your viewing site.  15meters was enough to the nearest  power outlet of my house.

"Let there be a cauldron of red light"

Why should the light to be used during star gazing be Red?
Have you noticed how your eyes have to adjust to the dark surroundings over a period of about 10-30minutes. Depending on how bright the light inside your home is before exiting into the dark, your eyes have to perform what it called dark adjustment by allowing faint light to enter a widening pupil through the retina and hit the back of the eye where light receptors transform the light into a signal that the brain can interpret.  Because of the anatomy of the eye being so wonderfully made, it can recognise "normal" bright light during daylight hours as well as VERY faint light at night using specially made light receptors that are perfect for the job.  There are many a books and articles [1] written about this phenomenon so I will just put it to you this way: "Your eyes will LOVE the red light when you are trying to watch the stars and fiddle around with equipment such as cameras and telescopes with knobs, buttons and writing (usually white on black in fine print that is difficult to read and cause you to make mistakes in pressing the OK button to delete all photos instead of the CANCEL button to go back to main menu options and survive to tell the story)". I think I have proven my point that you want to see what your doing while still maintaining your dark adapted vision.

Come on, how important could design really be?
When designing your own light box, think about some of the following things:

• Will the light box be hand held, or stationary?
• On a pedestal free-standing from the floor or hanging from a branch or other anchor?
• Where and when would you most likely require the use of the light box?

These and many more questions are important in coming up with your final design.
My first and foremost design consideration was to allow light only to shine in one direction and allow as much of the red light to go in that direction.  There was many reasons why this was a good design consideration.  The most obvious perhaps if compared to a flash light, is not to irritate and blind your next door neighbours and send the local security company knocking at your door or to bother other potential start gazers in the same vicinity with accidental flashes. Star gazing etiquette is the right subject for another day.  Some nights while capturing the perfect light frames using your film or digital camera with long time exposure. Ruing a few 15minute light frames is not fun, ask me!

Final considerations to optimise the design I ended up with were:

• Have just enough of the light in one direction
• Hand held or anchor-able from telescope stand and lightweight
• One finger operation to be able to turn the light on and off easily
• Box to remain visible if left on ground turned off to avoid other family members from tripping over it and taking you and your new telescope down for the count. Sorry mom.
• Operable for long periods of time spanning potentially a full 7 hour night vigil left on the ON position all the time.

Let us build:
With the design out of the way and scavenge all the required materials from my dads home workshop (see my note below on back in the day), it was time to start the build by measuring, cutting, drilling, bashing, tapping and finally painting it a nice egg white.  The only item on the list we had to buy was the red light bulb from the closest hardware store.  Thanks dad!

Final product:
A view perspective shots of the light box to give you an idea of the final product:

"Front perspective with power switch"

"Power cord into back of the box for light socket"

"Top down approach with light socket visible
and some dimensioning of the box itself"

"Just another angle to show better depth"

"Without you my friend,
this project would not have been possible"

Last notes:
Now, remember that this light box was built almost 14y ago by now, so if I could do it over again I would probably chose a combination of super bright right LED lights that have become so easy to source.  A battery pack on top of that build in and USB chargeable would probably add welcome comfort instead of dragging around a power cord.

Please let me know if you have any other ideas in the comments below or DIY projects you completed and what the results were.

References: 
[1] - Night vision - Wikipedia.org