3,000 images combine for Milky Way portrait

[G_j]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33552821/ns/technology_and_science-space/

3,000 images combine for Milky Way portrait
Panorama image shows stars 1,000 times fainter than human eye can




A new panoramic image of the full night sky — with the Milky Way as its centerpiece — has been made by piecing together 3,000 individual photographs.

The panorama's creator, Axel Mellinger of Central Michigan University, spent 22 months and traveled over 26,000 miles to take digital photographs at dark sky locations in South Africa, Texas and Michigan.

"This panorama image shows stars 1,000 times fainter than the human eye can see, as well as hundreds of galaxies, star clusters and nebulae," Mellinger said.

[left coaster]

1. Beautiful..

Thanks for posting!

[ixion]

2. cool... anyone know where a hi-res version is?

I'd like to add that to my collection :) :woohoo:

[Fumesucker]

3. Here's a link to the actual site that has the panorama..

http://141.209.165.197/~axel/mwpan2/

I've done astrophotography, it's by far the hardest thing to do right I've ever tried.

This is an awe inspiring image, both for the view and for the technical wizardry and sheer artistry involved.

[BrklynLiberal]

5. Thank you!!!

[carlyhippy]

9. Do you need a telescope with a camera to take decent astrophotography shots?

I am new to photography and always marvel at the beautiful night sky photos that I have seen.

[Fumesucker]

13. It depends..

Deep sky, long exposure photography of very dim objects requires a motor drive to track the sky and usually a telescope or a very good camera lens, however..

I took this photo with just my digital pocket camera handheld but braced on the hood of my truck.





And for this one I used my digital pocket camera held up to the eyepiece of my fairly decent telescope.

[cherokeeprogressive]

14. Are you familiar with astrophotographers replacing the eyepiece on their telescope

with a webcamera? I've been looking into taking good pictures with my telescope and this sounds rather promising.

How cool would it be to have the telescopic image displayed on a good laptop screen so everyone can see it rather than having to step up to the eyepiece and risk knocking the scope off of its target.

I have a few links. Here's one for starters.


http://www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=141

[Fumesucker]

15. The very best amateur planetary imaging is being done with webcams now..

But they simply lack the sensitivity for deep sky objects, nebulae, galaxies, globular clusters and so forth, for those dim objects you need a much longer exposure time than a webcam can possibly give.

You can show the moon or the sun or planets with a webcam but that's about it.

Accurately capturing and registering the pathetic dribble of photons that comes from deep sky objects is a frustrating and demanding chore that takes a great deal of trial and error to do well, there are just so many ways of screwing up the image and Murphy will make sure you find every single way to screw up and probably a few more besides. Just to start you will need a telescope drive that tracks the stars to better than 1/2 your camera resolution over a period of minute to thirty minutes or so, such mechanical precision does not come cheap and once you have your telescope drive you have to properly align it with the sky in order to get decent tracking that doesn't wander over half the sky.

[carlyhippy]

17. WOW I am going to have to try the focus on the telescope lens

I set my apeture at 4 and tripod the camera, remote shutter and bulb on the shutter time, but my pics, although I can see the stars, keep turning out grainy with alot of noise.

[Fumesucker]

18. You will need to turn your ISO as low as it will go for your star images.

Another technique that helps is to take what is known as a "dark frame" and subtract it from your actual image.

Here are a few sites that will explain what to do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_frame_subtraction

http://www.takegreatpictures.com/HOME/Columns/Digital_Photography/Details/Dark_Frame_Subtraction_using_Adobe_Photoshopby_Chris_Limone.fci

http://www.pearsonfaces.com/fpsurgeon/2007/04/better-dark-frame-subtraction-in.html

If you don't have Photoshop let me know and I'll recommend some free programs that will do the same thing.

You can also try the Pure Image free trial version, it will take quite a bit of noise out of digital images with some very sophisticated mathematical processing.

http://www.mediachance.com/pureimage/index.html

Keep in mind that focusing on the telescope eyepiece only works on the Moon really, it will take some experimentation to get everything lined up right. This technique is known as "afocal photography".

http://www.darkerview.com/darkview/index.php?/archives/321-Afocal-Photography.html

[druidity33]

19. set your aperture to 22, 32, or more.

As high and as close to infinity as you can get with your camera. Digicams don't often go past 8 or 11, but good lenses will usually go to at least 22.

:)

[carlyhippy]

21. Thank you so much for your help!

I have an Evolt 510 and have been doing alot of experimentation. I have photoshop elements 7.

[Fumesucker]

25. Your Evolt 510 has dark frame subtraction built into the camera..

Make sure your "noise reduction" mode is set to "on" and the camera should automatically take a dark frame and subtract it from the image it just took when the exposure is over a certain length of time.

Note that "noise reduction" and "noise filter" are not the same thing..

Edited to add: And make sure that your "anti-shock" setting is set to at least a couple of seconds or more to allow time for the vibration of the mirror locking up to subside before the camera starts taking the picture.

I would experiment with different ISO settings, apertures and exposure lengths to see what gives you the best results.

You might want to try a dedicated astronomical image processing program, I would suggest the trial version of Astro Art..

http://www.msb-astroart.com/

[BrklynLiberal]

4. Wow.. .breathtaking. ..awesome.. ..mindboggling.

[Greyhound]

6. K&R. Very cool, thanks. n/t

[Kurovski]

7. K&R. (nt)

[mdmc]

8. r

[avaistheone1]

10. Just gorgeous.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. Palin can see Russia from there.

[comtec]

12. my new background at work :)

2 screens, and this is wide enough.. hee hee

[jmondine]

16. That's one big ass candy bar

Sorry. Halloween on my mind.

[G_j]

20. LOL!

yep, it sure is

[G_j]

22. **

[kentuck]

23. I made that my wallpaper screensaver.

That is marvelous!

[G_j]

24. I did too

can you imagine how much time went into this?