Very little cloud action in the White Mtns. last week so I tried some nightscapes. This is one of my first and I need some feedback. Not sure about the noise, but iso 6400 does capture the nebula. This image shot @ 10 sec., f5.6, 6400 iso. Captured 1 1/2 hours after sunset, 1/2 hour before a four day old moon rise.
-Len

Cool shot, Len, from the land of your namesake.

As a slight personal preference thing, I would set your WB cooler to remove the reddish cast which is probably caused by light pollution more than anything.

Love those stars!

Len, nice job that old tree is a beauty. I agree with Kdog a little tweek to the white balance would be good, also from a compositional point of view (and I know some of this may not have physically been possible) it is best if you can get the whole tree in the image, try not to cut off branches. I know you wanted to get the MW along side which is beautiful but perhaps if you could have shot wider or moved back or move to the left a bit. That move may have kept the tree in the background Rt side hopefully hidden behing the subject as well. The noise is acceptable when viewing the image small but if you want to print this larger it may be a problem. For me I would try a noise reduction software on it, as it just seems too crunchy, if you have sharpened this image that would compound this problem. ps I was also there last week and shot a couple trees. You can return the favor and critique my shots when I post them.

Originally Posted by Doug Solis Len, nice job that old tree is a beauty. I agree with Kdog a little tweek to the white balance would be good, also from a compositional point of view (and I know some of this may not have physically been possible) it is best if you can get the whole tree in the image, try not to cut off branches. I know you wanted to get the MW along side which is beautiful but perhaps if you could have shot wider or moved back or move to the left a bit. That move may have kept the tree in the background Rt side hopefully hidden behing the subject as well. The noise is acceptable when viewing the image small but if you want to print this larger it may be a problem. For me I would try a noise reduction software on it, as it just seems too crunchy, if you have sharpened this image that would compound this problem. ps I was also there last week and shot a couple trees. You can return the favor and critique my shots when I post them.

This was my first attempt with night sky stuff. I agree regarding the composition of the tree, but I just couldn't get further back and don't have a super wide lens. Plus it was real cold 11k feet, i was tired, etc.
I've already taken Kdog's advise and reduced the red and although I don't own NR software, I will try Adobe Raw.

I don't think the color bias is from light pollution, I think the auto color balance is thrown off somehow? I usually keep white balance set to daylight to get the full range of red to blue stars.

Your settings shouldn't be giving you a lot of light pollution, milky way is still rising in the east, that time of night, not much in the way of too much city thataway. Vegas should be more south, Reno more north, and if it was city shine I'd expect more gradient from bottom to top. You are getting some city shine at the bottom, but I think the color balance issue is something else.

Even without shooting multiple images to stack you can still stack a single image with different blending modes to increase the contrast between stars and background. I don't have this perfected, but it helps a little bit.

For a first attempt at night sky photography, it's a great shot.

Originally Posted by kolibri I don't think the color bias is from light pollution, I think the auto color balance is thrown off somehow? I usually keep white balance set to daylight to get the full range of red to blue stars. Your settings shouldn't be giving you a lot of light pollution, milky way is still rising in the east, that time of night, not much in the way of too much city thataway. Vegas should be more south, Reno more north, and if it was city shine I'd expect more gradient from bottom to top. You are getting some city shine at the bottom, but I think the color balance issue is something else. Even without shooting multiple images to stack you can still stack a single image with different blending modes to increase the contrast between stars and background. I don't have this perfected, but it helps a little bit.

Thanks for your feedback, and you are quite correct..... the color balance was set to auto (but RAW). Here this new image was given a "daylight" wb; level 50 noise reduction; and a little hue shift to the blue.... all in camera raw. An improvement?

The light pollution is probable from sunset (only an hour gone), and moonrise (only an hour ahead, a four-day old full moon). I must get back here during a new moon..... it's fantastic. 11k feet.

I'd like to know more about the process you describe as stacks with different blending modes. Any websites or blogs?
-Len

Originally Posted by bristlecone Thanks for your feedback, and you are quite correct..... the color balance was set to auto (but RAW). Here this new image was given a "daylight" wb; level 50 noise reduction; and a little hue shift to the blue.... all in camera raw. An improvement? The light pollution is probable from sunset (only an hour gone), and moonrise (only an hour ahead, a four-day old full moon). I must get back here during a new moon..... it's fantastic. 11k feet. I'd like to know more about the process you describe as stacks with different blending modes. Any websites or blogs? -Len

Color looks much nicer now. I need to get out there this winter, I've never seen it in snow, and a friend of mine is going back to Europe soon, never having seen it except for when we drove through getting up to the White Mt. trailhead.

I can't find a website that talks about duplicate image stacking, but I must have learned about it on some page.

You can try duplicating an image and stacking it in screen mode then adjusting the levels. Or stacking in multiply mode which will accentuate just the bright stars, then adjusting the opacity.

What I'm playing around with now.

Output two Raw conversions-
1) tailored for the stars, try to darken as much of the background noise as you can, accentuate the stars.

2) tailored for the dust clouds and 'body' of the milky way- on this one make a plateau in the levels adjustment, a steep hillside through the start of the radiance values of the 'cloud' then a plateau through the bright star values. Be aggressive with noise reduction, and then apply a strong selective gaussian blur.

Duplicate image 1 twice, combine in multiply mode. This gives you a bright star field, with little of the dust or milky way cloud. Add image 2 on top, in varying levels of opacity until you like it. If this dulls your brightest stars, add image 1 back in on the very top, in lighten only mode.

This is just something I started playing around with, no idea really if it's optimum.

I really think multiple short exposures and then stacking them with a dark field and light field image is probably best, I just haven't figure out how to get a color I like out of Deep Sky Stacker.

I have to check but I think with image stacking you get the best results with separate exposures and then average the exposures together. Because the noise is random, this will tend to reduce the noise because of the averaging. The more frames you have, the quieter it gets. But you have the problem that if it's a lot of time between exposures, then things are moving on you.

Maybe I'm being dense, but why is the tree so dark? Was that intentional on your part? I would think that with that kind of ISO and exposure time you would get details in the trees.