MOC 20 - Milky Way Magic

great shots taken!!! love the "galactic" style of background paper to perfectly work with your photos! definitely a magical page! well done, Brenda!

@cfile - I had a lot of fun blending papers and paint and throwing glitter everywhere to make that galactic backdrop. And it's still nowhere near as beautiful as the real deal! I'm looking forward to February, when I can maybe get 15 minutes of the galactic core before sunrise. Now how do I tell my husband and/or mother that they have to be up before dawn with me?

@Brendazzle lol no idea how to tell them.. just set the alarm, let them hear it go off, and say oh how lovely.. you got up to keep me company!

Daaaannnnngggg. These are wonderful Brenda. I absolutely love the photos and am jealous!!! Please share the 2/15 ones too and I'm sure either of them would love to see it and be a part of your excitement. This is gorgeous!

@mocamom thank you! This has been a dream of mine for years and

My mom and husband are both good sports (one or both of them have been with me every time I've photographed the Milky Way) but I'm not sure they want to get up at 4:30 am if they can avoid it. (Technically, it's visible from 3:50 to 5:45 on 2/9, which is the new moon but we can't get into the National Wildlife Refuge before 5 am.) November is easier because it's 6 pm *and* is southwest, away from the light pollution.

@Brendazzle I want to get pictures of the Milky Way!!! We have to go pretty far east to do so thus I'm living vicariously through you

@mocamom I usually have to go pretty far away from home to be able to do it. I live in a giant bubble of light pollution. 4 of those 5 shots, I couldn't see the Milky Way with my own eyes. (I would have been able to see it where I was in the October shot if the crescent moon wasn't up but that tiny bit of light was overwhelming.) I dream of going to stay somewhere out west where I don't have to drive 2 hours for a really good view.

I'm a little lucky in that the boat ramp area at the far end of my local national wildlife refuge faces west and, if I stay in the parking lot, I have a high berm blocking a lot of light pollution on the horizon so I can get a few good visits during the end of the year. I'm very lucky that Florida's Milky Way "season" is also longer than most of the rest of the US so I can get a month or two with minimal mosquitoes.

@bellbird it depends on where I am/how bright the light pollution is there.

My first ever attempt, the March 14th one, was 15 seconds at ISO 6400 but it was pitch black there (except for the occasional headlights towards the end as people left the campground early). I could see it with my eyes (once I stopped tearing up with joy and sleep deprivation).

The one with the moon was 8 seconds at ISO 6400 in a dark sky preserve. (I probably should have been at ISO 3200 because that moon was BRIGHT but it was my first attempt at galactic core + moon. It was below a quarter full but looks completely lit in the photos.)

The November 27th one had a lot of ambient light where we were (specifically lights in the ground to keep people from tripping on the rocks) so it was very overexposed at 10 sec at ISO 6400.

What I tend to do is "expose for the right" in light polluted places and then recover details in Photoshop. That why the July and November ones seem so much more colorful and bright (and a little 'unnatural').

This one was taking in the parking lot of where I shot the one labeled November 6th: https://the-lilypad.com/forum/galleries/last-milky-way-of-the-season.557345/
You have to go uphill to get to the observation tower so I used that land to block the city lights on the horizon. I had an 8 second exposure at ISO 1600. It's a bit more subtle than the ones on this layout.